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Tag Archives: William Castle

William Castle – Tribute and Historical Overview (Part 1)

Plastic skeletons dangling on wires above the audience! Theatre seats wired to buzz the audience! Fright-breaks giving cowardly customers a chance to escape to the lobby! Insurance policies guaranteeing audience members against death by fright! These and other outrageous gimmicks designed to pull in more moviegoers may seem like the creations of a P.T. Barnum rather than a directorial master …

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Film Review: House On Haunted Hill (1959)

Rate This MovieSYNOPSIS: “Eccentric millionaire Fredrick Loren and his fourth wife, Annabelle, have invited five people to the house on Haunted Hill for a ‘Haunted House’ party. Whoever will stay in the house for one night will earn ten thousand dollars each. As the night progresses, all the guests are trapped inside the house with ghosts, murderers, and other terrors.” …

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William Castle – Tribute and Historical Overview (Part 2)

Castle became a celebrity that people knew as well as Alfred Hitchcock, except he wasn’t on television every week like Hitchcock, but everybody knew who William Castle was in the late fifties and sixties. Castle milked the Diabolique formula until another film came along with an even better formula. It was called Psycho (1960). In film after film thereafter, Castle …

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Film Review: The Tingler (1959)

SYNOPSIS: “The coroner and scientist Doctor Warren Chapin is researching the shivering effect of fear with his assistant David Morris. Doctor Warren is introduced to Ollie Higgins, the relative of a criminal sentenced to the electric chair, while making the autopsy of the corpse, and he makes a comment about the tingler-effect to him. Ollie asks for a lift to …

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Film Review: Homicidal (1961)

SYNOPSIS: “Miriam Webster is happy when her half brother Warren and their childhood nanny Helga, now partly paralysed and unable to speak, return to the United States after a lengthy stay in Europe. Warren will soon turn twenty-one and will inherit their father’s $10 million estate and although she will get nothing – their father’s will specified that only a …

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Film Review: House Of Ghosts (2012)

SYNOPSIS: “Writer-director Christopher R. Mihm pays tribute to the works of William Castle, the master of classic horror. Rich socialites have a tradition of throwing exclusive dinner parties. This time, they’ve booked a spiritual medium who promises to open a portal to the great beyond. Can the group survive the night or will ignoring the medium’s warning be the last …

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Film Review: 13 Frightened Girls! (1963)

SYNOPSIS: “Candace Hull, the sixteen-year-old daughter of American diplomat John Hull in London, is a classmate and friend of many other daughters of diplomats from various countries, and gets invited to lots of social affairs. While visiting Mai-Ling, niece of the Red Chinese ambassador she stumbles into a major political secret, involving a murder. Secretly,she passes this information to a …

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Film Review: Zotz! (1962)

SYNOPSIS: “Jonathan Jones, a professor of ancient languages, comes into possession of an ancient coin. He translates its inscription, which gives him three powers: to inflict pain, slow down time or kill. Soon, he’s pursued by enemy spies who have learned about the magic coin.” (courtesy IMDB) REVIEW: United States naval captain Walter Karig was also a prolific author, writing …

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Film Review: The Old Dark House (1963)

SYNOPSIS: “An American who sells cars in England receives a mysterious invitation from an old eccentric millionaire to visit his house in which he lives with his twin brother.” (courtesy IMDB) REVIEW: Famed British novelist and playwright J.B. Priestley (born on this day ninety-nine years ago) published twenty-six novels before his passing in 1984, most importantly The Good Companions and …

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