Highly Overrated But Still Good

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

The "Illusion-O" Gimmick in this William Castle Movie plays a more Significant Role than Most of the other "Come-On" Stuff that the Popular Pop-Culture Icon and Huckster Delivered in His "Road-Shows" that had Kids (and Adults) waiting in Line on the Sidewalks of Theaters across America.This isn't Castle at His Best behind the Camera and the Story is Standard, although Creepy at times. There are Moments that are Surprisingly Graphic and Lines like..."When I met him his back was broken...and his lips were ripped from his face." Kiddie Fun, huh. That was William Castle. His Films were sometimes taken as Silliness, but often the Director would Insert some Real "Shocks" among the Romping.This Movie is not really as Hokey as People Remember. There is a Genuine Mystery, an Attempted Murder of a Child, a Meat Cleaver to the Head, You get the Picture. That's why when some Folks say "Scared me to death as a Kid", They mean it.That's not to say that this is "Not for Kids", it was and is, "Fun" as They say, but it has a Certain Edge to it that Resonates Real Chills. The Sound and Score are Effective, and the Ghosts are Horrifying. Members of the Family are but through the Ringer and are Genuinely Scared. Watch "Buck" (Charles Herbert) Cover His Ears to Escape the Horror that is Reflected on His Little Boy Face.All of this Sounds rather Gruesome and it is. But most View the Film with No Suspension of Disbelief and make it all a Hoot. Maybe that 's because...They "Don't Believe" in Ghosts, and have Looked at the Film through the Appropriate Filter.

This was one of those movies that stirred my imagination as a child from 1960. I agree time has changed everything, but the memory of being with my father & younger brother ( God rest their souls) at the premiere at The Huntridge Theatre in Las Vegas, is still a monumental time of my life with family. My father hardly ever took us to the movies. My kid brother was scared shirtless. This is definitely a sign of the times in the 60's when production like this was a thriller of those times. The bigger flick of those days was Night Of The Living Dead. That one still holds up today. I miss those schoolboy chills. My dad, my mom, and brother. I don't recall anything scarier then those overacted horror movies we all enjoyed as kids.

William Castle directed this amusing comedy/thriller about the Zorba family, who have just inherited a house from Cyrus's(played by Donald Woods) uncle, a reclusive inventor who created a set of special goggles that enable the viewer to see the 12 ghosts said to haunt the home. So wife Hilda(played by Rosemary De Camp) daughter Madea(played by Jo Morrow) and son Buck(played by Charles Herbert) move in, to discover that the ghosts are real, and that there is a hidden treasure in the house, and that someone will kill to find it, thus creating the 13th ghost... Fun film used the "Illusion-O" gimmick of giving film goers tinted glasses so that they can also see the ghosts with the characters. Margaret Hamilton and Martin Milner costar in effective roles.

It's another delightfully dumb Castle picture, juvenile and amateurish yet an infinitely more professional production than, say, STRAIT-JACKET.A middle-class family in economic straits has been evicted yet again from their home, their furniture re-possessed (all in that lighthearted '50s way), when they learn their mysterious Uncle Plato Zorba has left them a haunted mansion in Los Angeles. Naturally, they move in without hesitation.The ghosts' enslavement is given minimal explanation, the threadbare plot makes little sense, and Martin Milner as the crooked lawyer needs a few more Stanislovski classes before his cruising down Route 66 or busting heads on the streets of L.A. will be convincing.But as a vaguely pederastic shyster, he's the creepiest thing in the movie. He is, after all,the 13th ghost!Strong points: The lovely music score and Joseph Biroc's B&W cinematography give the movie more dignity than it really warrants, Margaret Hamilton always gives good witch, and Charlie Herbert is a really cute kid in an obviously Capricornian David Archuleta kind of way and an excellent child actor; I want to take him home and burp him to stave off the 40 years of drug abuse that awaits him in real life... And how do you not love Rosemary DeCamp (who played everybody's mother in nearly every TV sitcom ever made)?The movie's effectiveness is a result that eerily doomed early-'60s, JFK-era (give-or-take), end of the world, TWLIGHT-ZONE/PSYCHO, traumatized child, nursery rhyme thing. Nothing's "purer" in its innocent creepiness, even though the violence and gore are at a minimum. It's the poignance of post-war optimism mixed with utter doom, shuddery and forlornly macabre. Even when in the fumbling hands of a non-auteur like William Castle.It's hard to believe that this silly movie was once spooky as hell (I defined it, as a child, as "the second scariest movie I've ever seen", both first and second on my list having been photographed by the aptly-named Mr Biroc, though of course I didn't know that then). But the high-pitched voices of the superimposed ghosts on screen once left an indelible impression on the more naive audiences of an earlier bygone period. For years, I used to get the meat cleaver murder at the hands of the ectoplasmic chef confused with the meat cleaver murder of Bruce Dern during the plantation prologue soirée of HUSH... HUSH, SWEET CHARLOTTE.... I think it's the cook's toque.Again, the era helps. It feels like a cozy Halloween party, one in which a lot of the pranks and games don't quite come off, but you had a good time anyway and you're glad you went.But I've never viewed it thru the ghostly "Illusion-O" goggles. The same house, by the way, is also seen in 1944's strange little gem, THE CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE.I've also seen very little of the 13 GHOSTS remake from ~40 years later. Clearly, it's of a different sensibility.