Tormented (1960).......came straight from the feverish, frenzied, fantastical mind of B.I.G. (Bert I. Gordon), the prolific micro-budget maestro of sci-i-horror-fantasy......
And none of us Kiddie Matinee kinder who saw it were ever the same.....
Writer-director Gordon took a break from his favored genre - mutated giant monsters (both human and insect) to try his hand at a scary ghost story.
A born exploitation shlockmeister, Bert cranked out a fast and furious supernatural speedball that threw everything but a haunted kitchen sink on the screen. But he didn't forget to throw in a haunted record player, haunted seaweed, a haunted beach, a haunted lighthouse, and a wonderfully over-the-top haunted wedding ceremony.
We're off to the races instantly, to the sound of composer Albert Glasser's brassy jazz blastings. On a New England island, jazz pianist Tom (reliable sci-fi-horror guy Richard Carlson) suffers major crazy ex-girlfriend problems......at the top of the island's lighthouse...heh , heh, heh.......
Vi (Judi Reding) Tom's Fatal Attraction harpy, won't be IGNORRRRRRED......especially when Tom's about to marry perky, wealthy cutie-pie Meg (Lugene Sanders). While threatening blackmail over her hidden stash of love letters, Vi goes tumbling off the lighthouse down into the crashing surf, Seeing a way out of his trouble, Tom conveniently passed on grasping Vi's desperate outstretched hand before gravity took over.
But you can't keep a good Val down and she comes roarin' back, still dying hard with a vengeance to bedevil the living shit out of Tommy Boy......
And here's where B.I.G. unleashes his specialty......his every own self-made arsenal of less-then-convincing special effects. Startling, cheesy and often unintentionally funny, Gordon's slapdash effects became his trademark......and even at their worst (frequently), you couldn't deny the pure enthusiasm that went into crafting them.
When the music wafts into that Hollywood staple of eerie, wailing 'woo-woo-woo', along come invisible footprints in the sand, Vi's disembodied hand swiping Tom's wedding ring for his bride, and then the real showstopper.......a special appearance by Vi's talking head, which Tom promptly wraps in a sheet and bounces down the steps of his beach house.
Carlson, a more than competent journeyman actor, truly enacts the film's title to the max. At the start of the film, his leading man 'nice guy' status seems to encourage us to sympathize with him. But as his ghostly stalker continues to harass him, we watch him crumble.....from nice guy to a craven, whimpering psycho who's not above murdering his bride's little sister to insure her silence. ....(with the tyke played by Gordon's own daughter Susan....)
Before you're tempted to sit back and deride the film (the Mystery Science Theater 3000 bunch already beat you to it anyway.....), I'd advise you to enjoy it on B.I.G.'s simple original terms,.... ....let it regale you with its shameless array of every ghost movie trope ever seen.
No blood, no gore, and featuring only a few prehistoric, telegraphed jump scares, 'Tormented's a perfect mild mannered Halloween treat for a more innocent age....and audience.
3 stars (***) (And watch out for a young Joe Turkel, the creepy barman of "The Shining" as a sleazy would be blackmailer who speaks only in fluent Beatnik.....)
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