13 Ghosts (1960)

Absolutely Fantastic

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

The main thing about this gimmick movie is the central twist. The mid-story surprise goes against decades of movie convention and certainly undercuts ordinary expectations. Otherwise, the so-called horror movie is pretty tame, the ghosts more like wisps than anything scary. In fact, the scariest thing is witchy-looking Margaret Hamilton doing her usual inimitable thing. Seems a nice all-American family-- momentarily impoverished-- inherits a haunted house and happily moves in. Soon, however, they're confronted by strange goings-on, but don't seem to really mind. And since they aren't much scared, neither was I and maybe the audience generally. In fact I sort of expected the family to evolve into a version of Father Knows Best kind of feel-good. Certainly, little Charles Herbert makes a first-rate mischievous boy, while parents De Camp and Woods are winsomely engaging, as is wholesome daughter Morrow. Mustn't overlook Morrow's heartthrob, handsome young attorney Milner. Together, however, their perpetual good humor further undercuts supposed horror.I recall the ballyhoo surrounding the movie's showing in my town. A lot was made of needing the glasses to see the ghosts. It's a gimmick, of course, but producer Castle needed something to offset Roger Corman's steady wave of drive-in cheapos. Anyhow, I wish the horror drama had equaled scripter White's effective use of plot surprise. Then we might have had something really memorable.

This was one of those movies that stirred my imagination as a child from 1960. I agree time has changed everything, but the memory of being with my father & younger brother ( God rest their souls) at the premiere at The Huntridge Theatre in Las Vegas, is still a monumental time of my life with family. My father hardly ever took us to the movies. My kid brother was scared shirtless. This is definitely a sign of the times in the 60's when production like this was a thriller of those times. The bigger flick of those days was Night Of The Living Dead. That one still holds up today. I miss those schoolboy chills. My dad, my mom, and brother. I don't recall anything scarier then those overacted horror movies we all enjoyed as kids.

Cyrus Zorba (Donald Woods) and his family learn they have inherited the house of his late uncle Plato. This couldn't come at a better time for the Zorba family as they are struggling with financial problems. However, once they move in they discover the house is haunted by ghosts that dear old uncle Plato collected from all over the world. Uh-oh.Filmed in "Illusion-O," William Castle never missed a beat with a good gimmick. This is a fun movie with no pretensions about doing anything other than entertaining you for eighty minutes. Charles Herbert was an enjoyable child actor with a good screen presence. Sadly this was his last credited film role. I guess the same fate befell him that would many other child actors. Donald Woods, decades removed from his leading man days, is very pleasant and likable in this. Lovely Jo Morrow plays the daughter Medea. Margaret Hamilton has fun with her Wicked Witch reputation here. The direction is solid, the music very nice, and the special effects are fun. Okay, they are relatively simple effects but still fun. Maybe it's not that scary but it sure is enjoyable. Way more entertaining than the gory CGI remake.

It's another delightfully dumb Castle picture, juvenile and amateurish yet an infinitely more professional production than, say, STRAIT-JACKET.A middle-class family in economic straits has been evicted yet again from their home, their furniture re-possessed (all in that lighthearted '50s way), when they learn their mysterious Uncle Plato Zorba has left them a haunted mansion in Los Angeles. Naturally, they move in without hesitation.The ghosts' enslavement is given minimal explanation, the threadbare plot makes little sense, and Martin Milner as the crooked lawyer needs a few more Stanislovski classes before his cruising down Route 66 or busting heads on the streets of L.A. will be convincing.But as a vaguely pederastic shyster, he's the creepiest thing in the movie. He is, after all,the 13th ghost!Strong points: The lovely music score and Joseph Biroc's B&W cinematography give the movie more dignity than it really warrants, Margaret Hamilton always gives good witch, and Charlie Herbert is a really cute kid in an obviously Capricornian David Archuleta kind of way and an excellent child actor; I want to take him home and burp him to stave off the 40 years of drug abuse that awaits him in real life... And how do you not love Rosemary DeCamp (who played everybody's mother in nearly every TV sitcom ever made)?The movie's effectiveness is a result that eerily doomed early-'60s, JFK-era (give-or-take), end of the world, TWLIGHT-ZONE/PSYCHO, traumatized child, nursery rhyme thing. Nothing's "purer" in its innocent creepiness, even though the violence and gore are at a minimum. It's the poignance of post-war optimism mixed with utter doom, shuddery and forlornly macabre. Even when in the fumbling hands of a non-auteur like William Castle.It's hard to believe that this silly movie was once spooky as hell (I defined it, as a child, as "the second scariest movie I've ever seen", both first and second on my list having been photographed by the aptly-named Mr Biroc, though of course I didn't know that then). But the high-pitched voices of the superimposed ghosts on screen once left an indelible impression on the more naive audiences of an earlier bygone period. For years, I used to get the meat cleaver murder at the hands of the ectoplasmic chef confused with the meat cleaver murder of Bruce Dern during the plantation prologue soirée of HUSH... HUSH, SWEET CHARLOTTE.... I think it's the cook's toque.Again, the era helps. It feels like a cozy Halloween party, one in which a lot of the pranks and games don't quite come off, but you had a good time anyway and you're glad you went.But I've never viewed it thru the ghostly "Illusion-O" goggles. The same house, by the way, is also seen in 1944's strange little gem, THE CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE.I've also seen very little of the 13 GHOSTS remake from ~40 years later. Clearly, it's of a different sensibility.