William Castle

(On TV, June 2021) Coming toward the middle of writer-director-producer William Castle’s better-known period as a horror film tycoon, Mr. Sardonicus is not usually recognized as one of his most famous films. But you can clearly recognize his huckster’s imprint on the material, from the film’s gimmick to his introduction to his gradual walking away from a familiar opening to something a bit weirder. Watching Castle in full frame introducing his own film, I suddenly started wondering how much inspiration he derived from Alfred Hitchcock as acknowledged auteur of his films — was he trying to make himself the trademark of his own films, spurred by Hitchcock’s own celebrity? No matter why — here he is setting the tone of the film, relishing the bloodthirstiness of his audience and clearly playing to those identifying with the macabre dark humour of the horror genre. The opening moments of the film have an over-familiar tone to them, aping Stoker’s Dracula as a young English doctor travels to mysterious rural East Europe and sets out to investigate a mysterious summons. But this isn’t about a vampire — it’s about a baron left disfigured in a horrible rictus after profaning his father’s grave. The supernatural is absent, leaving psychological foreboding in its stead. While the extended flashback is clunky in extending the film’s thin plot to a commercially viable length, Mr. Sardonicus does score a good shock in its revelation of the baron’s horrifying face — and preserves its effect by having the character wear a mask for most of the film. The film’s gimmick comes toward the end, as audiences are asked to “vote” on whether the grave-robber deserves further punishment: Castle comes back on screen as the film’s host, explains how to vote and pretends to count the votes while making comments to the theatrical audience. The outcome is predictably rigged in favour of more horror and punishment: After Castle commends his audience for its deviancy from the norm, how could it be otherwise? (Film historians agree that an alternate merciful ending was never filmed.)   As a horror film, Mr. Sardonicus is a curious thing — clearly patterned early on after Dracula, but swerving at the end of the first act, hobbled by an extended flashback that doesn’t do much to crank up the tension, then going into psychological drama territory for much of the third act. The ending gimmick does add interest, but it’s not in service of the film’s narrative — it’s another piece of evidence of Castle’s showman instincts and the fourth-wall-breaking lengths to which he could go to play with an audience expecting such antics. I liked it well enough, but then again, I’m more curious about Castle’s gimmicks and persona-grooming than the films themselves. At least Mr. Sardonicus holds attention — not always consistently nor all that well, but even more so than many comparable films.

(On Cable TV, June 2021) I don’t think that The Old Dark House is a perfect representation of the stiff-lipped macabre British black comedy, but it’s certainly a fine example of it. Adapted from a 1932 film I’m now curious to see, it’s an unusual collaboration between American director William Castle and the British production company Hammer films. As such, it does have an unusual tone — halfway between the showy flourishes of Castle’s other productions and the restraint of British black comedies. The story has to do with an American car salesman ending up in the middle of an isolated British estate and a murderous family feud, as the inhabitants of the mansion must return to the house every night or forfeit their inheritance. The Old Dark House gets wild with lurid murders, hidden identities, secret killers and unlikely coincidences-that-aren’t. It’s not the most memorable Castle film, but it does carry some of his endearing showmanship, coupled with a dreary atmosphere and some droll delivery. It’s not quite the film that it could have been, but it’s odd enough to be worth a quick look. At less than 86 minutes, The Old Dark House moves faster than you’d expect and doesn’t quite overstay its welcome. There’s something fun in the atmosphere of an isolated mansion in which people are being murdered one after another, and even if the results don’t come close to its full potential, it’s amusing enough even with average execution.

(On TV, November 2020) With a crew that includes the legendary William Castle as producer-director and a title like 13 Frightened Girls echoing Castle’s classic 13 Ghosts, anyone could be forgiven for expecting a horror film out of the deal. Surprisingly enough, though, what we get is a cold-war comedy, featuring an elite boarding school student who, out of a crush on an older man (ick), becomes an international spy by simply eavesdropping on her classmates, all from the multicultural London diplomatic set. The mixture of genres between teenybopper comedy and espionage thrills isn’t always successful: there are a few moments of unsettling violence in between the antics of our young protagonist, and I really could have dispensed with the schoolgirl-crush-on-a-grown-man angle. Still, there’s a characteristic early-1960s feel to the comedy that makes it feel all the more intriguing despite the curiously undisciplined script. There are many ways in which 13 Frightened Girls could have been better, but it’s quirky enough to be interesting as-is.

(On TV, May 2020) With legendary horror schlockmaster writer-director-producer William Castle, the gimmick was the thing—his films may not have been very good, but he had an uncanny instinct to meld movies with promotional stunts in a way that still sticks in mind even decades later. With 13 Ghosts, he turns the 3D gimmick upside down by introducing the picture himself and explaining the “special glasses” distributed to theatre patrons, the blue filter showing ghosts filmed in red (“For those of you who believe in ghosts”), and the red filter erasing the ghosts from the blue backgrounds (“For those of you who don’t”) The story is pure “must last the night in a haunted house” stuff, with inelegant integration of the gimmick in an otherwise black-and-white film. It’s ludicrous and clunky, doesn’t add much to the film (there’s no possible “psychological horror” interpretation from watching the film without the ghosts, for instance) and yet it powers the film with an undefinable, irreproducible charm. I did like the film’s ham-fisted narrative: Castle had a very approachable, audience-friendly style and while it lacked sophistication, there was no denying the approachability of the result—I do like House on Haunted Hill quite a bit more, but I’m not hating 13 Ghosts.