TERROR IN THE HAUNTED HOUSE (1958)
Never underestimate the power of hucksterism. William Castle famously used gimmicks to sell his fright features, whether he was peddling ghosts (House on Haunted Hill was shot in "Percepto") or old-fashioned monsters (The Tingler was shot in "Illusion-O"). Well, he wasn't the only one. Terror in the Haunted House - a.k.a. My World Dies Screaming - was supposedly filmed in Psychorama. What is Psychorama? I'm glad you asked. It involves subliminal images that are spliced into the celluloid. A similar effect is used in The Exorcist, although I don't think that Captain Howdy has ever been associated with Psychorama. Only two films have ever been hawked with this particular ad campaign, the other being a melodrama called A Date with Death. But that's enough about marketing. The single-frame Psychorama flimflam is fun, but can this movie stand on its own two feet? Actually, yes, I believe it can. Let's do the plot summary thing.
Sheila keeps having the same nightmare, which may be a repressed memory. She is afraid to enter her new house, as it looks just like the house in her dreams. Why does her husband insist on pushing her into the creepy abode? And what's hanging in the attic? I hate to deflate a balloon (of terror), but there is nothing supernatural happening here. There IS a nasty family secret, so at least we're spared the anticlimax of a Scooby-Doo villain. The conflict is certainly real. Cathy O'Donnell is dialed in as the wide-eyed Sheila. She's quite intelligent for a final girl of the 1950's. Gerald Mohr is convincingly smug as the gaslighting Philip. I wanted to punch him. While the lack of any cosmic horror is disappointing, I still enjoyed this flick on a gut level. It gave me simple black-and-white scares, and sometimes, that's all you need. By the way, this capsule was written in Thrill-O. I'm working on the patent.
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