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Tormented
A jazz pianist is haunted by his dead ex-lover's crawling hand and floating head.
Release : | 1960 |
Rating : | 4.8 |
Studio : | Cheviot Productions, |
Crew : | Art Direction, Set Decoration, |
Cast : | Richard Carlson Susan Gordon Juli Reding Joe Turkel Gene Roth |
Genre : | Horror Thriller |
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Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.
Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.
The acting in this movie is really good.
This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows
Tormented could have been a very good horror movie....When the "tormenting" begins, it's pretty creepy. The footprints in the sand, the record player, the photograph. But when the main character picks up the ghost's head and drops it down the stairs, it just kills the mood. It doesn't feel like a horror movie anymore, but a supernatural black comedy. Maybe it is supposed to be a black comedy?It doesn't ruin the entire movie though. The plot is interesting enough, and you want to see how it ends. Too bad the about the ridiculous head scene...But, it's still better than most of the crap they call horror movies these days. It's a short movie too, so if you're bored and got nothing else to do, grab yourself a bag of potato chips and watch Tormented.
Mediocre acting, melodramatic direction, and sometimes vacuous, uneven scripting make this noirish, wannabe chiller a treat to watch. If the screenplay were half as tight as the women's clothes--even those of a fat, middle-aged blind lady--this offering might have emerged as just another half-baked, predictable haunter. But the incongruous dialogue, lurid reactions, and clumsily presented ghostly manifestations (lopped-off heads and hands) make the film a non-stop feast of fun. Eleven-year-old Susan Gordon has the best lines and, unlike most of the cast, delivers them well. (She also has the best wardrobe, even if it does make her look years younger than her actual-age character.) The only dull moments are when Carlson is (obviously not really) playing the piano, and that just means more ectoplasm--and more merriment--is at hand (or head).
A popular jazz musician (genre regular Richard Carlson) about to marry into a wealthy family is pursued to a remote island, where the wedding celebrations are to be held(!), by a former flame; needless to say, he finds her presence inconvenient and, while arguing one night up in a lighthouse(!), she accidentally falls to her death – he could have saved her if he wanted to, but obviously considered the mishap most fortuitous. However, he is subsequently haunted by her: sometimes hearing her voice or seeing her disembodied head and, at one point, retrieving her body from the sea only to realize that it was merely a bunch of seaweed (which later also comes in handy so as to ruin the heroine's bridal gown)! She plays a nasty trick on him, too, by pilfering the all-important wedding ring! Three other important characters to figure in the narrative are the fiancée''s kid sister (the director's own daughter Susan), wise beyond her years, a blind servant woman (who recalls a similar ghostly incident at this locale) and a blackmailing beatnik boatman (Joseph Turkel) who is the only one aware of the deceased's arrival on the island and her sudden disappearance – the latter's insistence for more "bread" proves his undoing, a murder witnessed by Gordon (who sees her adulation of Carlson suddenly shattered). It ends badly for the protagonist with his ex-girlfriend getting her way and winning him over to the 'other side', unsurprisingly via a reprise of her own demise. I went into such detail in order to recount the plot line, because this is basically what keeps one watching (despite its predictable nature): as such, the treatment is hardly prominent or even imaginative but the end result is still far worthier than the dreaded BOMB rating allotted it by the "Leonard Maltin Movie Guide" would suggest!
From director Bert I Gordon, I was surprised to find in TORMENTED a rather competently made little thriller about a troubled jazz pianist whose lover falls to her death from the top of a lighthouse accidentally..hanging for dear life from the lantern room's Astral bars, Vi calls for Tom Stewart to help, and yet he allows her to fall, crashing to the rocks below. Tom's actions were out of fear that she'll do as she threatened, informing his fiancé of their affair. This act will be quite a burden as Vi returns as a tormenting spirit, haunting him(..could it be his guilty conscience or was Vi so determined to have him, her vengeful spirit would rise from the watery depths to stake her claim at owning him?). Tom's life grows even more complicated when a blackmailer, Nick(Joe Turkel, most know him as Lloyd, the bartender in Kubrick's THE SHINING), who boated Vi to his location, wants compensation due to her never paying him for his services. When Tom makes a decision regarding Nick, his fiancé Meg's(Lugene Sanders) little sister, Sandy(Susan Gordon)catches him in the act only adding to an already difficult situation. The planned wedding could be in danger as Tom's pressures at concealing a secret slowly lead him down a dark path to no return..You know director Gordon is known as a schlock filmmaker, but I think this is one of those times where the story is told in a rather effective way, although his special effects featuring Vi, the ghost, might induce chuckles, such as when her disembodied head and hand appear to him, when her ghostly apparition often pops up unannounced at inopportune times, or a photo taken featuring her face along with Tom and Meg. Unlike other films, though, they aren't as corny(..or, at least I didn't think so, but you be the judge) and the story regarding a man's sins returning to him over and over, never letting go, due to his own mistakes, isn't a bad one. Bottom line..this kind of film has a concept that could work if the filmmakers had the kind of effects which exist today. But, Gordon didn't, so many will have a bit of fun at his expense. I actually liked the movie if just for the finale when a wedding service is actually interrupted by the slamming opening of the church doors accompanied by withering roses, leading up to a disturbing close as Tom contemplates murdering young Sandy because of seeing too much. The final image is a dandy, probably one of Gordon's most compelling closings to any film he's made..a wedding ring lost, and found, with a proclamation actually coming true. Understandably, movies like FOOD OF THE GODS & EARTH VS THE SPIDER would almost make any film look like a masterpiece, but still those didn't feature a story with some merit to it and Carlson is the anchor holding the dramatic elements together. Plus, Carlson's character is quite a noirish archetype..the kind of flawed victim of circumstances, most his own making, who, instead of coming clean to the woman he loves, continues to create a worsening situation for himself. By the end, he's quite scary, especially if you take into count his willingness to possibly throw Sandy from the top of the lighthouse..also his end is quite tragic, but Gordon allows the character to suffer for his bad decisions.