Search - The Terror on DVD

Ah, Roger Corman, what silliness you hath wrought.

Robert P. Beveridge | Cleveland, OH | 11/20/2008

(2 out of 5 stars)

"The Terror (Roger Corman, 1963)

Corman and his uncredited team of co-directors (among them both Francis Ford Coppola and Jack Nicholson) came up with one of Corman's (relatively) strongest movies here, pitting Nicholson and Boris Karloff against one another over the affections of Sandra Knight. Don't get me wrong, in many ways this movie is as terrible as anything Corman ever churned out, but at least it's jam-packed with atmosphere and scenery-chewing. Filmed just after Corman finished The Raven (he had five free days that had been budgeted for that one), Corman and his principal cast and crew knocked this out, in Hollywood terms, overnight.

The plot concerns one Andre Duvalier (Nicholson), separated from his regiment, who seeks shelter in a small house for the night after running into a lovely young woman who calls herself Helene (Knight) down by the sea. She drops hints that she can be found at the castle of Baron von Leppe (Karloff), and when Duvalier rides that way, he spies her in a window. Duvalier demands admittance, and the game is on: is Helene really a prisoner in the castle, or is she the ghost of Ilsa, von Leppe's wife, dead twenty years?

While Nicholson and Karloff do the jobs expected of them, the real lynchpin of this movie is Stefan (Dick Miller), von Leppe's servant, who's never quite sure which side he's on in this battle of wills. He doesn't get as much screen time as the stars of the film, but what we see of him makes me wonder how much fun this could have been had he ended up as the main character. Still, he lends an intriguing presence to an otherwise dull film. The rest of it's pretty useless, with nary a scare to be found and very few thrills on top of that, but it's not an awful way to kill eighty minutes if you happen to be in the mood for Corman. **
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The Terror-was terrible!

Keith Mirenberg | www.spaceanimations.org | 07/11/2009

(1 out of 5 stars)

"I just thought I would add my 1 star vote for what I think is the worst Roger Corman horror movie I have ever watched. Just using a respected name like Karloff is not enough to make a movie. Even Jack Nickolson was insufficient to make this film more than it was. Basically, nothing happened! After watching it once I chucked it to the back of my collection and have not watched it since."

"THE TERROR"-Boris Karloff, Jack Nicholson, Sandra Knight

L. Dequesada | JAMAICA,, NY United States | 10/12/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Released in 1964, it was once said that horror films great Boris Karloff owed producer/director Roger Corman,time from the filming of a previous movie and Karloff payed Corman acting in "The Terror" co-starring the then young rookie actor Jack Nicholson as a stranded soldier in Napoleon's invading army in a coastal region of Germany. Co-starring in this thriller are Sandra Knight, Jonathan Haze, Dick Miller and other Corman's regulars. Definitely one of Corman's "B" movies, this film keeps you on the edge of your seat, its atmospheric and a gothic horror classic. This film is definitely on what I call the Roger Corman Hall of Fame, it belongs in the collection of every classic horror movie fan."