The Terror

The Terror (1963)
Director: Roger Corman
Writers: Leo Gordon and Jack Hill (screenplay)
Release Date: 16 May 1964 (Japan)
Genre: Drama - Fantasy - Horror - Mystery - Thriller
Length: 01:20:00

The Terror is a 1963 American horror film produced by Roger Corman. It was also released as Lady of the Shadows, The Castle of Terror and The Haunting.


Although credited to Corman, parts of the film were shot by Francis Ford Coppola, Monte Hellman, Jack Hill, and Jack Nicholson. Corman shot footage of Karloff and other actors walking across the sets and downstairs with the belief that he would be able to make sense of them later. In the next three days Coppola, Helman and Hill all tried to do something. Nicholson, who was keen to get directing experience himself, also took a turn behind the camera.


In the early 1990s, actor Dick Miller, who plays Karloff's major domo, was hired to shoot new scenes to use as a framing sequence for an oversea's version of The Terror. Under this scheme, the main action of the film is presented in flashback. Today, the film is in the public domain because of missing copyright indication.


Leftover sets from other AIP films were used when shooting the film, notably those from The Haunted Palace, a Vincent Price horror film made the same year. The tree against which Sandra Knight expires was the same one Price was tied to and burned in Palace.


Clips from the film were used years later in the 1968 Karloff movie Targets.


* Plot :


Set in 1806, the film tells the story of a lost French soldier (Jack Nicholson) saved by a strange young woman named Elaine (Sandra Knight). She looks like Ilsa, the baron's (Boris Karloff) wife, who died 20 years ago.