Great Film overall

Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Typically, my least favorite sub-genre of horror is the ghost story. I tend to like my monsters to be more of a physical threat and don't generally go for the invisible ghosts that do nothing but knock on walls. Just not my cup of tea, ya know, but I say that to admit that this is one ghost story that I absolutely love. That's probably even more odd considering the divided opinion that I normally see on this movie, especially from younger, more modern viewers.Created by the legendary William Castle, who is probably best known for HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL, this movie tells the tale of a family of four who move into an inherited house and discover that they have also inherited the ghosts "collected" by the former owner. It almost has to be said, right up front, if you know nothing about this movie DO NOT go into it expecting some terrifying chiller. I think that's probably what turns the average viewer off is they see "ghosts" in the title and expect POLTERGEIST. This is far from it. What the movie is, though, is a really fun, light-hearted horror movie. The tone reminds me a lot of an old silent film THE CAT AND THE CANARY and even more this reminds me of SCOOBY-DOO. That's probably one of the reasons that I like this so much. I grew up on that cartoon and, in many ways, it was my earliest introduction to the world of horror. I often tend to like some of these older movies that were clearly inspiration for the famous cartoon. In this movie we get ghosts of all sorts, from a headless lion tamer and his cat companion, to a grisly ghoul. None of them, though, ever seem to present a real threat to our heroes. They make noises and appear from nowhere, but like the cartoon they never actually harm any of our main characters. Much like Scooby, there is a "villain" in hiding, who is trying to use the events to unfurl his sneaky little master plan, only to be exposed in the end.Speaking of the ghosts, I have seen this movie in two different versions. The first time I ever saw it was on the DVD from the Castle Collection. This version shows the original Illusion-O ghosts. To me, this added even more to the cartoony aspect of the film and I enjoyed it quite a bit. Recently, I saw a television version without the color on the ghosts. There were merely white ghosts superimposed on the black-and-white film. If you have the opportunity, definitely track down the DVD. Even without the aid of red and blue glasses, I think seeing the ghosts in color adds to the enjoyment of the movie.All of the actors do a fine job. There are no Oscar winners here, but you have a Ward and June Cleaver set of doting parents, a pretty teenage daughter and the main star is a young boy who gets all the "good lines". There's even a cameo by the Wicked Witch of the West playing....a witch?I can't think of a modern equivalent that I could compare this movie to because Hollywood doesn't tend to make movies that are this innocent anymore. It's definitely family friendly, but there's plenty here for the horror geek to enjoy too.

Cyrus Zorba (Donald Woods) and his family learn they have inherited the house of his late uncle Plato. This couldn't come at a better time for the Zorba family as they are struggling with financial problems. However, once they move in they discover the house is haunted by ghosts that dear old uncle Plato collected from all over the world. Uh-oh.Filmed in "Illusion-O," William Castle never missed a beat with a good gimmick. This is a fun movie with no pretensions about doing anything other than entertaining you for eighty minutes. Charles Herbert was an enjoyable child actor with a good screen presence. Sadly this was his last credited film role. I guess the same fate befell him that would many other child actors. Donald Woods, decades removed from his leading man days, is very pleasant and likable in this. Lovely Jo Morrow plays the daughter Medea. Margaret Hamilton has fun with her Wicked Witch reputation here. The direction is solid, the music very nice, and the special effects are fun. Okay, they are relatively simple effects but still fun. Maybe it's not that scary but it sure is enjoyable. Way more entertaining than the gory CGI remake.

The opening shots are accompanied by screams and shrieks as the frame is filled with still shots of ghost drawings. At the heart of this story is something familiar - a child's wish. Unfortunately, despite a theme of transparency, the story gets convoluted and hazy with the wishes and desires of many other characters. The strongest element of the story is thus diluted much like the images of the ghosts themselves. The direction of Castle is nothing too spectacular either. The juxtaposition of daytime 3-pt lighting set-ups with the shadowy noir lighting setups in the haunted house are rendered disjointed through rushed ellipses in the script. The framing and staging/blocking is too tableau and renders the performances seemingly stilted. Some of the tricks are a little too cute (a fly is zapped by Zorba's "ghost viewers" why!?). Castle gets some inspiration from Margaret Hamilton who he was able to cast much better this time (Texas, Brooklyn and Heaven was a waste) and he frames her well with low angle shots and obscure lighting in the backgrounds of her shots. There are plot contrivances (as always with Castle) with the most ludicrous being that the family would stay in a house where they had all clearly witnessed a supernatural act (Dad explains that they are all just tired and therefore suggestive - doubtful the audience would relate to this sentiment). The questions raised by the audience regarding subletting are not addressed while White and Castle seem to think it is sufficient to infuse the script with a song-and-dance about potential auctioning of the house if contracts are not followed to the letter. A bunch of naive characters presumes a naive audience (never a good thing) and as mentioned above, the story would have rung truer had it focused on the possibility of a deeper connection between the ghosts and the little boy (maybe even a psychic one). The Dark Castle lot tromps through all the failures of this film to make an even bigger mess in the remake (in the remake, the little boy doesn't even care about the ghosts - not even the one of his own mother!). The effectiveness of the gimmick of Illusion-O is about as thin as their plastic you look through to see the ghosts on screen. That being said, the masses love novel souvenirs and Castle comes through on that end this time.

I actually loved this movie (and so did my six year old!)..... I watched it over and over again with him! The "special effects" are quirky and funny and clearly 1960's but that was the allure of the movie to me. It was Vintage Royalty Gold and I immediately became a fan of "William Castle" Movies. I loved many of the scenes: 1. Appearance of ghosts were quite strange and quirky. 2.The Seance, with the Ouiji Board gave me the chills...which was interesting, because the special effects were quite odd. 3. Then the diabolical, attorney who's trying to get the treasure from the bowels of the house who meets an untimely demise by being "smooshed" in a canopied bed that becomes a death chamber. (OK then....). Watch it...you just might like it.