SYNOPSIS Classic horror film where past mistakes and mental illness come back to haunt the present, literally.
CONCEPT IN RELATION TO THE VIEWER Cinema history and not much else. A predictable tale of murder, retribution and mystery. When mental illness goes unchecked there can be deadly results.
PROS AND CONS I found this film in the public domain online and downloaded it. I had heard of it before, but never really knew what it was about. After the opening credits I was surprised to see that it was produced by Roger Corman and directed by Francis Ford Coppala (one of his very early films).
While the film starts out in an interesting manner, it quickly becomes a rather simplistic horror film that is straight forward and somewhat predictable. I suppose that this may have been an early attempt at a "thinking man's" horror film, but it is low budget and doesn't really hit its stride in the mental sense.
The acting in the film is a bit stiff and wooden and the dialog / screen writing is not really up to par. One interesting aspect of the film is the rather loud and clunky Foley work. The sound of footsteps and creaking doors is often times overpowering in some scenes and distracts from the action that is going on.
The two best performances in the film are turned in by the wife that drowns her husband in the opening scene and the family doctor that has a rather creepy edge to him. The rest of the cast is just going through the motions.
It is interesting to see where Francis Ford Coppola started, but needless to say, he could only have moved up from here. This might be good to watch on a dark stormy night with your teenage girlfriend, but hopefully you will end up necking on the couch before the final credits roll.
CONCEPT IN RELATION TO THE VIEWER Cinema history and not much else. A predictable tale of murder, retribution and mystery. When mental illness goes unchecked there can be deadly results.
PROS AND CONS I found this film in the public domain online and downloaded it. I had heard of it before, but never really knew what it was about. After the opening credits I was surprised to see that it was produced by Roger Corman and directed by Francis Ford Coppala (one of his very early films).
While the film starts out in an interesting manner, it quickly becomes a rather simplistic horror film that is straight forward and somewhat predictable. I suppose that this may have been an early attempt at a "thinking man's" horror film, but it is low budget and doesn't really hit its stride in the mental sense.
The acting in the film is a bit stiff and wooden and the dialog / screen writing is not really up to par. One interesting aspect of the film is the rather loud and clunky Foley work. The sound of footsteps and creaking doors is often times overpowering in some scenes and distracts from the action that is going on.
The two best performances in the film are turned in by the wife that drowns her husband in the opening scene and the family doctor that has a rather creepy edge to him. The rest of the cast is just going through the motions.
It is interesting to see where Francis Ford Coppola started, but needless to say, he could only have moved up from here. This might be good to watch on a dark stormy night with your teenage girlfriend, but hopefully you will end up necking on the couch before the final credits roll.