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The Terror

Play trailer Poster for The Terror 1963 1h 21m Horror Play Trailer Watchlist
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45% Tomatometer 11 Reviews 22% Popcornmeter 2,500+ Ratings
Lt. Duvalier (Jack Nicholson), a French soldier, loses contact with his unit and is forced to wander alone near the Baltic Sea. While in search of his regiment, he spies Helene (Sandra Knight), a mysterious beauty, walking by herself. Mesmerized, Duvalier begins tracking her, but she vanishes. He later catches up with her and follows her into a castle, where he encounters the bizarre Baron Von Leppe (Boris Karloff), finds signs of witchcraft and learns the shocking truth about Helene.
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The Terror

Critics Reviews

View All (11) Critics Reviews
Dennis Harvey 48 Hills This castle-set Gothic whatsit, which throws in ghosts, Satan and a witch, remains a “Frankenfilm” par excellence, sewn from other movies’ stray parts into a chaotic, inorganic yet oddly engaging whole. Feb 2, 2024 Full Review Matt Brunson Film Frenzy The script is erratic and the pacing often poor, but it's a treat to watch the great Karloff and a baby-faced Nicholson square off, and the story packs a couple of nice surprises toward the end. Rated: 2.5/4 Oct 26, 2021 Full Review Jeffrey M. Anderson Combustible Celluloid Once you know the story behind the movie you can't help but love it. Rated: 3/4 Jan 20, 2017 Full Review Phil Hall Film Threat Nicholson gave the best analysis of the film in a later-career interview: "It was incredibly bad." Rated: 2/5 Jul 15, 2011 Full Review Fernando F. Croce CinePassion Scene by scene, it's a delightful Ovidian creature Feb 22, 2010 Full Review Cole Smithey ColeSmithey.com Rated: 3/5 Apr 5, 2008 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

View All (213) audience reviews
Jay W This is a bizarre movie. It feels like the story was made up as they went along. As it turns out, shock of shocks, they actually did make this up as they were filming. Roger Corman finished making "The Raven" two days early and figured he'd make the most of those two days and make a whole new movie. So, he had Karloff wander around a castle open secret passage ways and yell at Nicholson. Who needs a script when you have actors and a setting? Nicholson spends the movie wandering from the castle to the beach and back again. Jack himself claims that the finished movie has no cohesive plot. I could attempt to piece together this nonsense of a movie, but that would be me doing the job of the filmmakers. There is no way to fully do justice to how little sense this movie makes. Just watch it and figure out what the 5 directors couldn't figure out...What is the Terror? Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 11/21/24 Full Review Blu B This starts out pretty interesting actually and good. But around halfway it starts getting too unfocused and it's obviously not the highest quality production here so it does start to collapse a bit. It becomes about Karloff and his lover, Andre's investigation, the Mother and her subplot of why she's bringing the daughter back, Getting rid of Andre and because this is so short it gets very jumbled quickly and a bit hard to follow out of nowhere but it does make sense enough. The music is pretty good here and does a good job giving atmosphere and it's used a lot. Direction actually isn't that bad here and the production value does look pretty decent overall especially the sets. But it does have it's moment sof looking cheap every now and than. Some of the shot quality is also shotty despite being in color for the whole thing. Everything else is pretty medicore here honestly. Most people honestly could skip this though. There isn't much here save for super hardcore Corman fans. It's not that particulary scary but it is somewhat moody and atmosphereic in the first half. It just loses almost all of that momentum because of how unfocused it gets. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 10/22/24 Full Review Piper W One star, and that's because of Boris Karloff. Nicholson was horrible, but Sandra Knight totally ruins this entire mess! Not worth watching. Rated 1 out of 5 stars 10/22/23 Full Review Shelley H I really enjoy this movie everytime I watch it which is at least once a year. It's a fun watch Rated 5 out of 5 stars 10/15/23 Full Review christopher c. m First I have questions. Why was Lieutenant Duvalier all alone? Where was he coming from? Where was he going to? Before he pops out of nowhere we learn little to nothing about him. It's slow, it isn't scary at all. There are shocks and twists that come out of nowhere with little build up or sense. Plus it ends in a climax that is nothing but a shock that just happens for no reason and it just ends, no explanation. Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review Audience Member A fun guilty pleasure. So bad it's good. Rated 5 out of 5 stars 01/14/23 Full Review Read all reviews
The Terror

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Movie Info

Synopsis Lt. Duvalier (Jack Nicholson), a French soldier, loses contact with his unit and is forced to wander alone near the Baltic Sea. While in search of his regiment, he spies Helene (Sandra Knight), a mysterious beauty, walking by herself. Mesmerized, Duvalier begins tracking her, but she vanishes. He later catches up with her and follows her into a castle, where he encounters the bizarre Baron Von Leppe (Boris Karloff), finds signs of witchcraft and learns the shocking truth about Helene.
Director
Roger Corman
Producer
Roger Corman
Screenwriter
Leo Gordon, Jack Hill
Production Co
American Internat'l Pics
Genre
Horror
Original Language
English
Release Date (Streaming)
Nov 7, 2011
Runtime
1h 21m
Aspect Ratio
Flat (1.85:1)
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