[Thor Joachim Haga]

So it was time for another early Corman/Nicholson flick, this time a gothic horror tale from 1963 also starring Boris Karloff as the lugubrious count.

The film holds together in its own charming and cheapo-squeaky way for the most part, untill the end, where both narrative and meaning fall completely apart. Boris is always a treat to watch when he’s able to be all sinister and Shakespearean, but Nicholson does not fare well in these roles. He’s an everyday man or a character actor, and doesn’t do “the straight guy” very well. Especially not if it’s costume/period dramas. It just feels forced and uncomfortable to see him play a French soldier in the Napoleon army. So sorry Jack, not one of your shining moments.

Ronald Stein’s music was a typically oldfashioned gothic horror thing with lots of melodrama, dissonance and sturm & drang. Screaming brass and high-pitched flute fluttering abound. Not my thing at all, but it would be interesting to hear a cleaned-up rerecording some day. Maybe it makes for better listening then. I also thought there was far too much music in the film, allowing little room to breathe. I don’t know if Humphrey Searle’s THE HAUNTING was released earlier that year, but they should have learned a lot from that film and score when putting this together.