The Ghost

Rating:
Summary: The Eyes Have it!!
Review: If you like early '60s Italian Gothic horror and Barbara Steele, you'll like this movie. The last 10 minutes are awesome. I found it even more entertaining than Steele's cult classic "Black Sunday", so why 1 star?? Because the Alpha DVD has a pretty woeful transfer. Mastered from a VHS tape that had a 16mm film print recorded on it. The color in the film print itself had turned. Don't expect the Technicolor stated in the titles. While the first reel is bad enough (the blacks are dark blue,etc.), the second reel has only 2 colors: purple and cream. I suppose you get what you pay for. The artwork is cool though, and it beats paying more than twice as much for a Sinister Cinema videotape of the same movie with the same quality. Worth a look, just don't expect the world for the meagre price tag.

Rating:
Summary: The Eyes Have it!!
Review: If you like early '60s Italian Gothic horror and Barbara Steele, you'll like this movie. The last 10 minutes are awesome. I found it even more entertaining than Steele's cult classic "Black Sunday", so why 1 star?? Because the Alpha DVD has a pretty woeful transfer. Mastered from a VHS tape that had a 16mm film print recorded on it. The color in the film print itself had turned. Don't expect the Technicolor stated in the titles. While the first reel is bad enough (the blacks are dark blue,etc.), the second reel has only 2 colors: purple and cream. I suppose you get what you pay for. The artwork is cool though, and it beats paying more than twice as much for a Sinister Cinema videotape of the same movie with the same quality. Worth a look, just don't expect the world for the meagre price tag.

Rating:
Summary: FOR STEELE FANS.....
Review: Riccardo Freda followed up his 1962 classic "Terror of Dr.Hitchcock" with 1963's "The Ghost"...again with Barbara Steele. This time, Hitchcock is a frail ailing man in a wheelchair relying on seances and drugs. His beautiful and glamorous wife Margaret (Steele) is tired of looking after him and wants to be with her lover, family friend Dr.Livingstone. She also wants his wealth and the jewels he keeps locked in a safe. So she persuades Livingstone to kill him. But as soon as he's entombed, Dr.Hitchcock's ghost seeemingly returns to haunt them. Margaret is especially targeted and driven to frenzy. In a well done scene, she believes Livingstone has tricked her out of the jewels and slashes him to death with a straight razor---the blood splattering and running down the screen. "The Ghost" is an exquisitely mounted Gothic horror film with beautiful sets and dripping with morbid atmosphere. Steele looks fantastic. She is well photographed to show off her lustrous dark hair and dark exotic eyes. She is especially fetching in period costumes...particularly a black sequined lace gown. Her performance as vixen/victim is very good. The pace of the film is very leisurely allowing the terror to mount bit by bit until full throttle horror sets in. Unfortunately, it's released by the cheapo Alpha Video people so the transfer is lousy. Diehards (such as myself) will find it watchable though. Until someone rescues it and gives it the treatment it so richly deserves, this is the best we can get. So for the fans, it's a find. Enjoy.

Rating:
Summary: Woman Of Steele!
Review: THE GHOST is my favorite Barbara Steele movie. She is fantastic as the scheming, coniving, back-stabbing wife of the seemingly weak and dying Dr. Hitchcock. With the help of the family doctor (who is also her lover), she plans on bumping off hubby for his stocks, land, and jewels. Everything goes according to the sinister plot until after Hitchcock's death by poisoning. He just doesn't want to stay dead! The rest is a masterpiece of double / triple cross and betrayal. An excellent ending makes this a perfect mystery / revenge film. Besides, Barbara Steele's in it almost the whole time! That's enough for me right there...