Fantastic!

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

'The Terror' is low budgeted Roger Corman's quickie. The film got made only because Corman had opportunity to use sets left over from previous AIP productions and Boris Karloff for two days. The film is often linked with Corman's Poe themed series, but 'The Terror' is not based on any Poe's stories.In a year 1806 a French Army officer Andre Duvalier (Jack Nicholson) gets separated from his troops and gets lost. After meeting a beautiful woman named Helene (Sandra Knight) on the beach, he starts to investigate who the mysterious woman is. Duvalier finds himself as a guest in the castle of Baron von Leppe (Boris Karloff) and learns that girl on the beach is like two drops of water with Baron's wife Ilsa who died twenty years ago. And all sorts of mysterious things start to happen.When reading about Karloff's memories about making the movie, I think that this much story was actually written when Corman showed the script to him. There are many interesting scenes and nice acting, but all together the film was quite a mess. After editing was done Corman had to go back and film a scene between Nicholson and Dick Miller with them explaining the plot.Not the best film, but curiously interesting enough to check it out. The film which production is much more interesting story than the actual film itself.And it stars Boris Karloff, Jack Nicholson and Dick Miller. With these three, count me in.

This is basically a silly, unrealistic, and muddled story, that leaves several questions unanswered. There are also several plot holes. For example: if the Baron is the old woman's son, how come that she never recognized him during all the years in the same village..? After all, a mother knows her son even if he changes his clothes and hair-style... Also, it was odd that they looked about the same age. And what become of the real Baron's body..? And what about the baby..? My own guess, which I think would have worked in reality, was that the Baroness had had a child in secret. And after the Baron (or Eric) was murdered, Eric (or the Baron) kept the child, a girl, locked up in the mansion - and she turned out exactly like her mother. And this young woman was in fact, what everybody believed was her mother's ghost. That had been a much better mystery I think! :-)The technical effects are very clumsy and bad compared to today's movies, but of course this was 1963, so THAT is a thing you have to accept.Anyway, if you are in the right mood, for example at a horror movie night around Halloween, this movie could well set the right atmosphere for the rest of the evening. If you forget about reason, and give yourself up to imagination. Because it has all the right scenery, interiors, exteriors, and props for an old-fashioned Gothic horror story. I felt that it had the atmosphere of Poe, BEFORE I read that the production was in reality strongly involved with the production of movies out of Poe stories. So that was well done! :-) Boris Karloff, of course, is unsurpassed in the kind of role he is playing, and it was also fun to see a young Jack Nicholson - before he was typecast as a grumpy middle-aged man.

Boris Karloff , Jack Nickolson, need I say more,, a man is lost at sea,, wakes up and sees a woman,,, then she disappears,, then re appears. at first he thinks he is having visions,, but soon he learns that she is real,, after he follows her,, he tracks her to this lowly castle where she appears in a window. later he learns that she is a Baroness,, but apparently she's been dead for 2 decades,,, so he decides to investigate,, he ends up in the castle under the care of an elderly woman,, now he has to find the Baroness,, and eventually meet up with the evil Baron,, as played by Boris Karloff,,, not a bad watch at all,, I liked it,, it's a b movie,, with no expectations,,,

Jack Nicholson stars as Lt. Andre Duvalier, a soldier in Napoleon's army in 18th century France who finds himself separated from his regiment, and asks a mysterious woman(Sandra Knight) directions, but she vanishes, and the Lt. meets up with an old witch(Dorothy Neumann) who insists that there was no such person. He doesn't believe her, and instead goes to the castle of Baron Victor Frederick Von Leppe(Boris Karloff) where he discovers that the woman was the spitting image of the Baron's late wife, and that supernatural occurrences are at the heart of this mystery...Though script is haphazardly written, film is surprisingly atmospheric and entertaining, with good performances by all, and is an improvement over Roger Corman's "The Raven", which this was filmed on the sets of.Final sequence is memorable but also too abrupt, though film is an effective Gothic horror tale, despite its obvious shortcomings.