***
Directed by Alex Nicol.
Starring Peggy Webber, John Hudson, Russ Conway.
Horror, US, 68 Minutes, Certificate PG
Released on Limited Edition Blu-ray in the UK on October 19th by Eureka Entertainment.
You might think that the producers of this 1958 black and white gothic horror may have been setting themselves up for a fall by stating that the film you are about to watch was so scary and that the possibility of fright induced death was so high that a free burial service would be provided if Alex Nicol’s film proved a bit much for your nerves. I am not sure if the offer still stands after all these years but you may want to give pause if you are even considering drawing up a will before pressing play on your Blu-ray player for this perfectly harmless slice of B-movie fun.
At the time of release such hype was a regular occurrence thanks to the likes of producers such as William Castle, the innovative huckster showman who was always up for scaring his audience in such innovative ways as rigging up random seats in cinemas with electric buzzers to make it feel as if THE TINGLER itself was scuttling about your auditorium. American International Pictures were more than happy to swim in Castle’s wake, as can be evidenced here from the melodramatic opening of this otherwise gimmick free horror that concentrates on delivering its gothic tale on its own terms.
Known at the time for his supporting performances in Westerns, director Alex Nicol switched lanes in both career and genre with this swift spookshow that tells the tale of newlywed Jenni (Peggy Webber) and her husband Eric (John Hudson). While Jenni supposedly has a large fortune at hand and a handsome loving husband, she feels unease at moving into Eric’s secluded mansion, one he shared happily before with his first wife who passed away in tragic circumstances. With the hulking figure of the groundskeeper Mickey (played by Nicol) stumbling around, Jenni starts to feel unmoored, experiencing strange, perhaps supernatural encounters with the titular object that soon terrifies her every night.
Despite Nicol’s uninspired and sometimes sloppy direction, this proves itself to be an effective enough exercise in gothic cinema, playing out the tropes of the genre with some effective and eerie moments that reach a crescendo in its shriek laden conclusion. The low budget shines through in Oscar winning cinematographer Floyd Crosby’s black and white cinematography with the limited location and small cast of players but Nicol taps into that mid-twentieth century sense of the gothic not only with his ear splitting spooks but the sight of Jenni, wandering around the vast mansion at night in her billowing nightie recalls the painted paperback covers of the many gothic romances and thrillers that populated many a spinner rack at the time.
While it may not hold a flickering candle to the likes of Hitchcock’s REBECCA, its case in the feminist gothic pantheon is argued convincingly in Mary Going’s thirty minute video essay on the thin yet informative special features. Accompanying this informative essay that also serves as a neat intro to the sub-genre is an enthusiastic intro from horror author Stephen Laws. While far from essential, this is still a fun enough reminder of vintage American horror that went against the grain of the more atomic minded creature features that were so prevalent at the time.
Iain MacLeod