The Ghost (1963)

Very Cool!!!

Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

This is one of the best Italian Gothic horror movies of the 1960s. A crippled doctor is murdered by his wife and her lover and seems to haunt them. The haunting triggers, or rather bring to surface, the greed and distrust in the ex-wife, played perfectly by Barbara Steele. The haunting scenes are competently crafted and there is a surprisingly violent and gory scene as well. The finale is reminiscent of Poe. Unfortunately, the transfer on the available DVD (a double bill with the German thriller DEAD EYES OF London, in line with the movie's original double bill in its US theatrical release) is not as pristine-looking as one wishes it was. The picture quality on the said DVD is OK, but not as pristine as the movie deserves. I read that the French DVD was no better.

I'd read that THE GHOST (English title for Lo Spettro) was a sequel to THE HORRIBLE DR. HICHCOCK. It has the same character names - in some cases but in almost every case, the character from HICHCOCK is either played by someone different from the first movie or has a slightly different name than they had in the first movie. I honestly don't see how you can call it a sequel because it seems to have no direct connection to HORRIBLE DR. HICHCOCK other than a couple of actors returning from the first movie. However, I am getting away from the point, which is that you do not have to see the first movie to enjoy THE GHOST. I've now seen both and they can stand alone as films. I am only speculating but I suspect it may have originated as a sequel to HICHCOCK (both were filmed back to back over a span of 12 days if I am not mistaken) or maybe someone tried to make it a sequel to HICHCOCK during the dubbing. Who knows? Having seen both films, I personally like THE GHOST much better than HICHCOCK. Both are very pretty to look at with great cinematography and awesome sets. I think THE GHOST is a better told story and moves at a swifter pace I think. I'd not really tried very hard to track down THE GHOST after seeing HORRIBLE DR. HICHCOCK. HICHCOCK suffers from the fact that director Riccardo Freda got behind schedule and removed 10 pages from the script in order to stay on schedule. The American distributor removed another 10 minutes from the finished film and that kind of renders the final film very difficult to understand. In fact, I didn't really understand it until I read a long analysis of HORRIBLE DR. HICHCOCK on a fan site which basically explained what the film did not. In contrast to HICHCOCK, THE GHOST was apparently filmed as written. I was lucky enough to be able to see what appears to be an intact copy of the film complete with a murder sequence that must have seemed pretty graphic to viewers in 1963. It seemed graphic to me in 2010. One review of this film called it "almost bloodless" so I assume the film was heavily cut, for theatres as well as television. The copy I saw had a scene so bloody, I was shocked to find it in a film released in 1963, but then again, maybe people then didn't see the same film I saw recently. With Freda and probably most of the crew long dead, I guess we may never know if these cuts were only for the English releases or if they were inflicted on the Italian copy as well. If you are wondering why I praise the film so much, here are a few reasons. For starters, the story is excellent. The actors are dubbed so it's hard to judge their performances but the characters are pretty well drawn for a dubbed foreign film and all the production credits like music score, make-up, special effects, sets, cinematography are all top drawer. Like most Italian horror films from the 1960s, it starts off a little slow but give it a chance. If you manage to see an uncut print like I did, you will be very satisfied with the twists and turns that come fast and furious. I honestly got caught off guard by this movie. I may be dense but I didn't see some of the things in this film coming ahead of time, and I've watched horror movies all my life. Director Riccardo Freda proves he was definitely a better than average talent when he had the schedule, the script and the right actors. All the stars aligned for this one. I think it's Freda's masterpiece...easily his best horror film (I've seen this, HICHCOCK and TRAGIC CEREMONY). It's a shame that the credits call him "Robert Hampton." He should have had his real name on this since I think it's a movie he would be proud of. Now, here is the only thing I do not understand about THE GHOST and that is why this film is not commercially available in it's uncut form. There are budget DVDs of it out there usually featuring a transfer from some old battered 16mm TV print and most of those are cut. THE GHOST is now one of my all-time favourite examples of the golden age of Italian horror films and ranks right up there with the best works from Mario Bava and Antonio Margheriti. I can only conclude this is another sad case of being unable to locate the original negative or not being able to find a usable and uncut copy of the film. THE GHOST is one of the most entertaining and satisfying examples of Gothic Italian motion picture horror and does not deserve it's relative obscurity. I'm just glad I waited until I could see an uncut print of it. It's not in the best condition but at least it is complete. Don't miss this one. THE GHOST is well worth whatever trouble you have to go to in order to see it. Hopefully someone will give it a pristine and restored release to DVD or Blu-Ray. Someday it will be recognized for the fine film that it is.

I can accept 1960's horror movies are nowhere near as scary as the ones from the 1980's but this looks more like a long episode of Tales From The Crypt than a horror movie.The evil Dr. Hitchcock is now confined to a wheelchair, if you saw the first movie you'd understand why. Anyway, Cynthia Hitchcock and Charles plot to kill old Hitchcock himself and when they do, his ghost supposedly haunts them.First, the whole plot is straight from the 50's but its definitely worth a look. The movie moves progressively slow, almost boring at times but its definitely has its moments. I will say the plot twist at the end was a nice touch but still everyone will be asleep before they see itI'm not going to sit her and BS everyone, its old and anyone my age will probably fall asleep watching it but if you're willing to take a look, the highlight of the movie is Cynthia gets ticked off the wolf is too loud so Charles shoots it.4 out of 10

This highly-regarded example of the Italian Gothic Horror style had eluded me until now; even so, having caught up with it at long last, I still wasn't done with the 'Curse Of THE GHOST': the Retromedia DVD proved faulty, with a glitch around the one-hour mark (where the image skipped and the audio dropped out) and then experienced complete freezing after 88 minutes - so much so that I had to finish the film off on another player! This was after a public domain copy I rented from Hollywood when I was there in late 2005 (which, on a hunch, I decided to check before watching) reverted to the Main Menu midway through the climax!!Anyway, the film itself is undeniably a highlight of the genre and one of Freda's best (which he made in just 12 days): a follow-up, not a sequel, to his previous collaboration with star Barbara Steele - THE HORRIBLE DR. HICHCOCK (1962) - despite the re-use of that notorious character's surname. In the earlier film, too, Steele had been overshadowed by a delightfully manic turn from Robert Flemyng but, here, she lives up to her iconic status as the Queen Of Gothic Horror: few actresses have managed to replicate her sensual mix of wickedness and vulnerability; as for the actor playing Hichcock this time around, who looks a bit like Howard Vernon, he's not too bad - if no match, ultimately, for Flemyng.Like I said with respect to Hammer's FEAR IN THE NIGHT (1972), the plot twists aren't very original - but they make for a great ride regardless; besides, one could just soak in the colorful visuals (even if the print involved features a lot of wear and tear!). Incidentally, the film is rather gory for its time (witness the 'ghost' exhibiting its decaying flesh and the brutal razor murder, with its wonderful device of having blood dripping across the camera lens to simulate the victim's POV), but the lush score (actually a collection of compositions by Francesco De Masi, Franco Mannino and Roman Vlad - billed under one Americanized name, Franck Wallace!) and a reasonable quota of chills (the creepy scenes where the doctor speaks through his faithful and vaguely sinister housekeeper - played by the ubiquitous Harriet White Medin - who, conveniently, doubles as a medium and the various 'apparitions' - wheelchair stumbling down the stairs, dangling corpse) are certainly par for the course...as is, after all, the film's decidedly languid pace.The deftly ironic climax is very effective - as a self-satisfied Hichcock expounds on his clever machinations while the immobilized Steele looks horridly on, fully knowing that she'll be blamed for the housekeeper's death and, worse still, that she killed her lover for no reason (i.e. he didn't betray her by stealing the jewels, as she had mistakenly assumed, and these were now once more in Hichcock's hands). The English dubbing isn't too bad considering; however, given the story's Scottish setting, it's odd that only one voice actor would deem it fit to attempt a pertinent accent (i.e. the solicitor who reads Dr. Hichcock's will) - which then causes it to seem unintentionally amusing alongside the less heavy inflections of his fellow dubbing artists!While Freda is often accused of being indifferent to his films (which he often did purely so as to recoup his gambling losses!), he was undoubtedly a pioneer: not only making the first Italian horror effort, but his masterful use of color in the Dr. Hichcock pictures certainly pushed the genre into that corner - after a solitary stab at it by Giorgio Ferroni in MILL OF THE STONE WOMEN (1960) - as few gothics were shot in black-and-white thereafter (notably three films featuring Steele herself, namely CASTLE OF BLOOD [1964], THE LONG HAIR OF DEATH [1964] and NIGHTMARE CASTLE aka THE FACELESS MONSTER [1965]); certainly, Freda's protégé Mario Bava followed his example...and gradually took over the genre!