TORMENTED (1960) - Review

Tormented

Horror/Thriller
1 hour and 15 minutes
Unrated

Written by: George Worthing Yates
Directed by: Bert I. Gordon
Produced by: Bert I. Gordon and Joe Steinberg

Cast:
Richard Carlson
Susan Gordon
Lugene Sanders 

A ghost-woman owned him body and soul!

Here we have one of the many B-horror-movies to come out in the late-1950s/early-1960s. Tormented most likely ran as a second feature for drive-in horror double-features. Essentially, it is a film with very few merits.

The film, almost right off the bat, begins with some relatively good special effects work - the contribution of Herman E. Townsley. Townsley pulls off some remarkable moments, considering the film's low budget. In particular, there's a ghoulish, Addams Family moment, involving the ghost of the dead lover's hand appearing, crawling on the floor wearing the new lover's wedding ring. Another sequence involves a pair of ghostly footprints in the sand, and another flowers wilting at the presence of a ghostly specter. These moments are paired with some rather dull special effects as well - including the image of a flying dead-ex-lover, the severed, talking head of the ex-lover's ghost, and a corpse disintegrating into the form of a blob of seaweed.

The film's production design isn't much to discuss, considering that the film really only boasts two locations: a lighthouse (the scene of the crime) and our hero's home. Because of this back and forth between the two settings, one almost gets the feeling that we're watching a theatrical performance rather than a feature-film. 

The cinematography gets along fine with having to work with only the two main locations - but it is the early scenes of the film, located on the shoreline, that are really beautiful. The wide open shots filmed in black & white are the film's tour de force.

Tormented boasts some standard B-movie performances. The players are all there, but they lack any sort of convincing quality that a high level performer might have. Because of this, we're left with a rather flat, or dull, ghost story - that certainly could have had a more shocking climax had the actors been better.

What's most disappointing with this film is how dull and infrequent its scares are. The film is more of a love story than a ghost story. The majority of the scenes focus on the hero's internal struggle between his new lover and the memory of his dead ex-lover, and the fact that he could have saved her from her death. The scares are so scattered throughout these long sequences of discussion and self-reflection, that at times it's entirely possible to forget that what you're watching is a horror film. Because of this "sprinkling" of scares throughout a dialogue heavy, what-should-have-been-performance-driven, storyline - Tormented ends up feeling much longer than its actual running time of 75 minutes.

Boasting little more than some standard, but impressive, special effects work, Tormented is one of those forgotten B-horror films from the drive-in heyday that probably has remained forgotten for an appropriate reason.

4/10