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Title: Terror by Jack Nicholson ISBN: 6-3036571-2-5 Publisher: Educational Development Lab Pub. Date: August, 1996 Format: VHS Tape

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Average Customer Rating: 2.87 (15 reviews)

Rating: 3
Summary: Roger Corman knocks off a film with Karloff and Nicholson
Comment: Here is what happened: Roger Corman finished shooting "The Raven" two days ahead of schedule and since he had already paid for the sets he decided to knock off a movie in 48 hours. So what if there was not a script? As Karloff later explained, Corman was running around filming things two steps ahead of the wreckers tearing down the sets from "The Raven." However, for some time "The Terror" has enjoyed the reputation as being the cinematic low point of Jack Nicholson's distinguished film career. Nicholson plays Andre Duvalier, a veteran of the Napoleonic wars who finds himself on the shore of a strange land where he is bewitched by the sight of a beautiful woman, played by Sandra Knight (who was then married to Nicholson). At the ancient castle of Baron von Leppe (Karloff), Andre notices the picture of the Baron's deceased wife looks a lot like the woman he keeps seeing. If only Andre could get the Old Woman (Dorothy Neumann) to tell him the dark secrets of the Baron and his beloved Helene.

"The Terror" is another one of those gloriously bad movies that some of us grew up with on late night television in the dark days and long nights before cable. Certainly Nicholson is given more to do in this film than he did in "The Raven," but he does look painfully out of place in all nonsense. Actually, the scenes with Karloff were shot on the sets in two days, while a lot of the Nicholson and Knight shots were down over the next three months. But the 48-hour bit has clearly become part of the legend of this film. The only way to watch "The Terror" is after having seen "The Raven."

Rating: 4
Summary: Not Really a "Terror", But It's Still Good!
Comment: I have watched this movie twice on TV in the past, and I enjoyed it. Even though it's called "The Terror", it doesn't seem like a terror movie, but it is still entertaining. Jack Nicholson starred in this one (he was young then, just like in the original "Little Shop of Horrors" he was in before this one), and he played a Napoleon soldier. His then-wife, Sandra Knight, played Helene who was a "ghost" in the movie, and Boris Karloff, a famous horror movie actor, played the Baron.
This movie is a little phony, like the "witch" in the movie...and how she died. I never dreamed that lightning can burn a witch to a crisp like in this movie, just because she saw the hawk flying in the sky! Same thing at the ending when Nicholson kissed the beautiful Helene, who then melted on the ground, revealing her skeleton. Nice special effects in the 1960s...I give them (and Roger Corman) credit for that.
This is a good movie, although not Oscar-winning, to watch on a rainy day for fun.

Rating: 3
Summary: Yes, Adult Human Beings Really Got Together and Made This!
Comment: The history of the movie is far more interesting than the movie, itself. Corman had three extra days after his prematurely wrapped The Raven shoot, and tossed this thing together off the top of his (and everybody else's) head to end up making two features for the price of one. Considering the circumstances, the thing is a masterpiece.

Of course, the finished product neither knows nor cares about the circumstances, which is why this movie is doubly entertaining. The mix of costuming and acting styles, the endless anachronisms throwing the audience out of suspension of disbelief that they are in Napoleonic era Germany (or is it supposed to be Spain? and if so, why so many German names? and if not, where does one get a seaside cliff in Germany?) - not to mention the genuinely really bad acting from pretty much everyone involved (including Karloff, who almost certainly didn't take it seriously), and the grossly mixed accents of the cast - make this one endlessly entertaining, in that drop-your-jaw, I-can't-believe-adult-human-beings-actually-got-together-and-made-this-thing kind of way.

It actually has a plot, which if you're really attentive and diligent you can pick out in the last five minutes of the movie, and if you do, it's terribly clever and grossly improbable, which just makes it all that much more fun.

But you won't care about that. What you really want to see is Jack Nicholson performing flatter than a block of wood, his then-wife Sandra Knight with an accent and acting style flatter still (though she is quite beautiful), Dorothy Neumann as a cackling revenge-driven old witch, Bronx-accented Dick Miller as a supposedly very German manservant, and Karloff struggling to keep a straight face given all the preceding impediments.

Nicholson happily confesses in interviews that they all had a ball making this wonderfully absurd movie, and it actually shows. Interestingly enough, if you're in the right mood, you can even see the horror movie this almost was, if they'd had more time to make it really work. There are some good gore effects - a man's eyes gouged out by a killer hawk, and an incredibly goopy melting woman, topping the list - and it's pretty handsomely produced, even with a decently eerie musical soundtrack throughout.

Don't watch it because it's good - watch it because it's FUN.