Terrified (1963)

Amateur movie with Big budget

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Another minor thriller that has it's ups and downs. Some scenes are really good, others are just long and boring. They could have cut off the extra 21 minutes and made an hour long film out of this one easily and made a film that more people would be apt to watch or like better.It's not a haunted house as the plot summary suggests, it's a place that looks like it could be in a haunted house film. So the plot summary is misleading in that way but it is true a masked "someone" is killing people (and I won't say who that someone is).It's far from an awful 'B' film but it's not one you would call really good either, it's so-so at best. If you happen upon this film it is worth a watch but don't expect a lot out of it. The poster and the film's summary is a bit better than the film really is.Best parts of the film are the opening and the scene with the spiders.4/10

I first saw this film, like others have, on TV late at night years ago -- I think I was maybe 13 or 14 and had been sick in bed all day, watching TV. The film made such a strong impression on me that I thought of it many times over the years and all through the following decade, I would scan the TV listings in vain hoping for a rerun. I never did see it on TV ever again, but was able, back in the early 90's, to buy up a VHS copy from somebody who'd similarly taped it off a TV station.I gave Terrified a "10" not because I think it is on a par technically with, say, "Citizen Kane", or "Vertigo", but because it is, I feel, about as an effective film I can imagine being done on the nickels and dimes budget this film must have had. When I say "effective" I mean, this is a horror film (albeit a b&W, early 60's low budget horror film), and the film is ~scary~. Scary in a creepy, eerie vibe kind of way. I think evilskip's review of 6/15/2001 really says it best, correctly describing the sense of isolation in the film and the weird sounds (I like the use of piano too here). This film proves that "low-budget" doesn't have to mean "low quality". I'm glad I have it on tape and do play it now and again. I've played it for friends too and they agree with me that it has a genuinely creepy aura about it. Fans of William Castle films from the same era would like this.

Someone in a black suit, tie, gloves, and ski mask and white shirt has buried a young man up to his neck in cement in a cemetery. He taunts him, and the young man snaps. An old man seems to witness the crime.On the roads, a mystery driver in a mask has been playing his own personal game of chicken with people. He gets off on terror, it seems. Coincidentally another young man is doing a mid-term paper on resisting terror. He'd been a friend of the guy who'd been buried in cement.The term paper guy's girlfriend wants to talk to Crazy Bill in ghost town, near the cemetery (I guess the filmmakers had a western set they wanted to use). One of the buildings in the ghost town is the Bella Union saloon, which I thought might identify the movie the town was in, or what actual ghost town it might be. Actually, that's apparently a common name for a western saloon.The girlfriend and her would-be boyfriend go to the ghost town. The boyfriend goes later. There are long scenes, with some suspense, in which the killer stalks his prey, catches it, toys with it, and releases it for more stalking. Unlike other masked killer in horror movies, this one's happy to use a handgun in his arsenal.Very low budget, but still fairly entertaining. I saw it on DVD in Rhino's Horrible Horrors Vol. 2 box set.

I saw this movie in it's theatrical release, and was very impressed with the way it maintained the level of real tension throughout. I wasn't inclined, as I was with most horror B flicks, to just blow off the attempts at making the audience shiver. This film was made with some intelligence and sensitivity to the characters and to making the audience care about them. It was on TV once in the 70s, that I know of, on CBC, where their reviewers gave it *** out of four.I have searched for references to this movie, and it is very difficult to find. Maltin doesn't review it. I'd like to see it again. 7/10