Pluskylang
Great Film overall
Doomtomylo
a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.
AnhartLinkin
This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.
Rainey Dawn
How can you go wrong with 13 ghosts in a large haunted house with seances, a ouija board, lots of cobwebs in the basement, creaky doors and Margaret Hamilton?! Yea this film has all that rolled into a fun ghost story.I don't have 3-D glasses but I still could see our ghosts just fine. I'm sure if I had a pair of those groovy glasses to wear the film would be even more fun to watch but it's good enough just to see the film regardless.If you are a parent with younger children, this one would be fun to watch with them, especially for Halloween. It's not overly scary so kids might enjoy this one as well as the adults.8.5/10
Dalbert Pringle
I honestly can't say that I am at all impressed with William Castle as a director of low-budget horror films from the 1950s & 60s.I continually find Castle's direction to be noticeably flat and, oftentimes, quite unimaginative. If you ask me, Castle seemed to possess no real distinctive directing style, whatsoever. And he certainly didn't appear to understand the genre of horror at all.I got the clear impression that Castle viewed horror as being nothing but a joke and something to be jeered and sneered at. And so, with Castle playing horror strictly for laughs that, of course, left us (the unsuspecting & gullible audience) as the direct brunt of his dumb jokes.As a director, William Castle had about all of the skills (and motivation) of a used-car salesman who was knowingly selling his customers junk. In other words, Castle was a shyster as a director (and an amateur at that).From its bad pacing, to its red herrings, to its poorly executed moments of horror & suspense - 13 Ghosts, pretty much, played out like a very dimwitted TV Sit-Com.Like, if this was really supposed to be a story about a house that was being haunted by 12 authentic ghosts, then it was one of the most tame and non-scary hauntings that I've ever seen.Anyways - When it comes to seriously considering William Castle as a noteworthy director - All I can see is an "Alfred Hitchcock" wannabe who obviously couldn't cut the horror-movie mustard - Not even with his lame-brained "gimmicks" as his biggest selling point.
utgard14
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.
LobotomousMonk
The opening shots are accompanied by screams and shrieks as the frame is filled with still shots of ghost drawings. At the heart of this story is something familiar - a child's wish. Unfortunately, despite a theme of transparency, the story gets convoluted and hazy with the wishes and desires of many other characters. The strongest element of the story is thus diluted much like the images of the ghosts themselves. The direction of Castle is nothing too spectacular either. The juxtaposition of daytime 3-pt lighting set-ups with the shadowy noir lighting setups in the haunted house are rendered disjointed through rushed ellipses in the script. The framing and staging/blocking is too tableau and renders the performances seemingly stilted. Some of the tricks are a little too cute (a fly is zapped by Zorba's "ghost viewers" why!?). Castle gets some inspiration from Margaret Hamilton who he was able to cast much better this time (Texas, Brooklyn and Heaven was a waste) and he frames her well with low angle shots and obscure lighting in the backgrounds of her shots. There are plot contrivances (as always with Castle) with the most ludicrous being that the family would stay in a house where they had all clearly witnessed a supernatural act (Dad explains that they are all just tired and therefore suggestive - doubtful the audience would relate to this sentiment). The questions raised by the audience regarding subletting are not addressed while White and Castle seem to think it is sufficient to infuse the script with a song-and-dance about potential auctioning of the house if contracts are not followed to the letter. A bunch of naive characters presumes a naive audience (never a good thing) and as mentioned above, the story would have rung truer had it focused on the possibility of a deeper connection between the ghosts and the little boy (maybe even a psychic one). The Dark Castle lot tromps through all the failures of this film to make an even bigger mess in the remake (in the remake, the little boy doesn't even care about the ghosts - not even the one of his own mother!). The effectiveness of the gimmick of Illusion-O is about as thin as their plastic you look through to see the ghosts on screen. That being said, the masses love novel souvenirs and Castle comes through on that end this time.
