Introduction
The mission statement of the film label Film Masters is to “celebrate the preservation and restoration of classic film.” With fantastic Blu-ray releases of such B-movie greats as The Giant Gila Monster (1959) and Beast From Haunted Cave (1959), they are well on their way to becoming the standard bearers for preserving and distributing cinema’s greatest cheese. Film Masters once again delivers the goods with a 60th-anniversary release of the Roger Corman/Jack Nicholson camp classic The Terror (1963). The Blu-ray is double-billed with another early Nicholson performance, Little Shop of Horrors (1960).
Editors Note: This will be a review of The Terror only.
Synopsis
In early 18th century France, Lieutenant Andre Duvalier (Jack Nicholson) was separated from his regiment in the Confederation of the Rhine. Wandering, aimlessly, along the coast of the Baltic Sea, he soon passes out from thirst. Duvalier wakes to see a beautiful young woman, Helene, (Sandra Knight), and asks her how to get to Coldon where he can rejoin his regiment. The woman doesn’t answer and instead walks towards the water. When Duvalier starts to follow her, he again passes out and is attacked by a falcon.
Eventually, Duvalier awakens in a house where an old woman, Katrina (Dorothy Neumann) claims to not know who Helene is. She states that all of this is in the young soldier’s mind. Katrina introduces Duvalier to Gustaf (Jonathan Haze), a mute. She says it was Gustaf who rescued Duvalier, not the imaginary Helene.
Duvalier leaves and again sees Helene and again follows her. Once again, he is saved from death by Gustaf. Duvalier is told that to help the mysterious girl, he must go to the castle of Baron Von Leppe (Boris Karloff). When Duvalier arrives there, he sees Helene inside, looking out a window. Von Leppe is reluctant to let Andre in, claiming there is no woman. However, Andre sees a portrait painting which is a spitting image of Helene. Duvalier soon learns that Helene is the Baroness, who died twenty years ago. What secrets is Baron Von Leppe hiding?
The Production
As legend goes, it’s said that Corman was wrapping production on The Raven (1963) early. As such, its star, Boris Karloff owed Corman a few days of work. The director put Karloff to work on his latest production, The Terror. Corman was known to make some pretty decent films on a shoestring budget. As such, he re-used the sets from The Raven on his newest feature. Working backward, Corman had writers Jack Hill and Leo Gordon put together a script that could utilize Karloff’s specific skills, as well as the gothic sets of The Raven.
With Karloff’s scenes finished in four days, it was now up to Corman and his team to try and come up with the rest of the film and make it coherent. He only partially succeeds. Frantically filmed in just over one week, The Terror is at times a convoluted mess. It’s also difficult to follow. However, it looks great and the acting is above average for a Corman film. The “king of low-budget features” creates a creepy and fun little film. It falls right in line with the Edgar Allen Poe adaptations that Corman had been making a name for himself with.
Corman and Nicholson
The main draw of The Terror is three-time Oscar winner Jack Nicholson in one of his earliest roles. Corman may have been a low-budget director, but he had an eye for talent. Just ask Robert De Niro, Peter Fonda, Ron Howard, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Jonathan Demme, Peter Bogdanovich, Joe Dante, John Sayles, James Cameron, Dennis Hopper and so many others. All of them got their start in Hollywood working for and learning from Roger Corman. As Corman would later state in his autobiography:
“The Terror began as a challenge: to shoot most of a gothic horror film in two days, using leftover sets from The Raven. It turned into the longest production of my career – an ordeal that required five directors and nine months to complete. But like Little Shop, it’s a classic story of how to make a film out of nothing.”
The Struggle
Indeed, it was a struggle to finish The Terror on time and under budget. This is because Corman was busy fighting with American International Pictures. They were the studio that had funded and profited from most of Corman’s earlier work. Corman and his brother Gene started their own production company, Filmgroup. This was done specifically to circumvent AIP, thereby keeping all the profits that were being made from his low-budget money-makers. This became a problem when Corman started using AIP sets and AIP-paid actors.
With Corman at war with AIP, while trying to covertly finish a non-Union film (Corman was a Guild member), he enlisted the help of directors/friends he had mentored over the past decade to help him finish filming The Terror. This included Francis Ford Coppola, Monte Hellman, as well as Nicholson himself filming a few scenes. They all did this on the sly and were uncredited so as not to break any rules. Perhaps, this is why the film seems a bit disjointed at times.
One of the main reasons that The Terror gets such a bad rap is that Corman’s cult classic is available to anyone, via the public domain. Much like his contemporary George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968), Corman failed to properly copyright his film. This means there are zillion edited copies, with tacked-on scenes and horrendous filtering available for public consumption en masse. Corman’s original unedited film, while a bit melodramatic and confusing is a pretty fun 81 minutes and looks great considering it was made on a microscopic budget.
The Blu-ray
The closest comparison to this new Film Masters release is the HD Cinema Classics’ 2011 Blu-ray release. Considering the source material, both versions look pretty darn good. This latest version is an HD restoration from 35mm archival elements. Unfortunately, the original negative for The Terror is currently held by MGM (part of Amazon), and they’re not sharing. You used to be able to see that version on the MGM HD channel and it was pristine. It was also never released on DVD or Blu-ray, which is our loss.
This latest release is presented on Blu-ray in 1080p HD. It’s framed in a 1.85:1 widescreen format and the grain manipulation is almost unnoticeable, which makes for a much easier viewing experience. The stock footage used throughout the film, unfortunately, does not transfer over well and there are some focusing issues. All in all, it’s a solid release and on par, if not better, than the 2011 HD Cinema Classics release, or the the Film Masters Blu-ray release in 2016. The audio is presented in DTS-HD MA 2.0 and lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 with optional English subtitles.
For additional features, C. Courtney Joyner and Dr. Steve Haberman provide a new and insightful commentary track that dives deep into explaining how Corman was able to turn 20 minutes of Karloff footage into a 79-minute feature-length film. Joyner also provides a great video essay on the intertwining connection between Karloff and Edgar Allan Poe. The best part of the extra features, however, is the featurette by Howard S. Berger, “Ghosts in the Machine: Art & Artifice in Roger Corman’s Celluloid Castle.”
Conclusion
After decades of seeing The Terror butchered on local TV and YouTube channels, Film Masters delivers the definitive Blu-ray release of this Roger Corman classic. The film has been lovingly and meticulously restored and is the best version you’ll ever see until Amazon finally decides to open up its vaults. While it doesn’t look perfect, the newly issued audio commentaries and other supplemental goodies more than makeup for the lack of 4K perfection. If you’re a Roger Corman fan, this is the Blu-ray release you’ve been waiting for. If not, it’s still a pretty fun watch.
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