13 Ghosts (1960)

Very well executed

Thanks for the memories!

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

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.

Typically, my least favorite sub-genre of horror is the ghost story. I tend to like my monsters to be more of a physical threat and don't generally go for the invisible ghosts that do nothing but knock on walls. Just not my cup of tea, ya know, but I say that to admit that this is one ghost story that I absolutely love. That's probably even more odd considering the divided opinion that I normally see on this movie, especially from younger, more modern viewers.Created by the legendary William Castle, who is probably best known for HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL, this movie tells the tale of a family of four who move into an inherited house and discover that they have also inherited the ghosts "collected" by the former owner. It almost has to be said, right up front, if you know nothing about this movie DO NOT go into it expecting some terrifying chiller. I think that's probably what turns the average viewer off is they see "ghosts" in the title and expect POLTERGEIST. This is far from it. What the movie is, though, is a really fun, light-hearted horror movie. The tone reminds me a lot of an old silent film THE CAT AND THE CANARY and even more this reminds me of SCOOBY-DOO. That's probably one of the reasons that I like this so much. I grew up on that cartoon and, in many ways, it was my earliest introduction to the world of horror. I often tend to like some of these older movies that were clearly inspiration for the famous cartoon. In this movie we get ghosts of all sorts, from a headless lion tamer and his cat companion, to a grisly ghoul. None of them, though, ever seem to present a real threat to our heroes. They make noises and appear from nowhere, but like the cartoon they never actually harm any of our main characters. Much like Scooby, there is a "villain" in hiding, who is trying to use the events to unfurl his sneaky little master plan, only to be exposed in the end.Speaking of the ghosts, I have seen this movie in two different versions. The first time I ever saw it was on the DVD from the Castle Collection. This version shows the original Illusion-O ghosts. To me, this added even more to the cartoony aspect of the film and I enjoyed it quite a bit. Recently, I saw a television version without the color on the ghosts. There were merely white ghosts superimposed on the black-and-white film. If you have the opportunity, definitely track down the DVD. Even without the aid of red and blue glasses, I think seeing the ghosts in color adds to the enjoyment of the movie.All of the actors do a fine job. There are no Oscar winners here, but you have a Ward and June Cleaver set of doting parents, a pretty teenage daughter and the main star is a young boy who gets all the "good lines". There's even a cameo by the Wicked Witch of the West playing....a witch?I can't think of a modern equivalent that I could compare this movie to because Hollywood doesn't tend to make movies that are this innocent anymore. It's definitely family friendly, but there's plenty here for the horror geek to enjoy too.

This was one of those movies that stirred my imagination as a child from 1960. I agree time has changed everything, but the memory of being with my father & younger brother ( God rest their souls) at the premiere at The Huntridge Theatre in Las Vegas, is still a monumental time of my life with family. My father hardly ever took us to the movies. My kid brother was scared shirtless. This is definitely a sign of the times in the 60's when production like this was a thriller of those times. The bigger flick of those days was Night Of The Living Dead. That one still holds up today. I miss those schoolboy chills. My dad, my mom, and brother. I don't recall anything scarier then those overacted horror movies we all enjoyed as kids.

It's another delightfully dumb Castle picture, juvenile and amateurish yet an infinitely more professional production than, say, STRAIT-JACKET.A middle-class family in economic straits has been evicted yet again from their home, their furniture re-possessed (all in that lighthearted '50s way), when they learn their mysterious Uncle Plato Zorba has left them a haunted mansion in Los Angeles. Naturally, they move in without hesitation.The ghosts' enslavement is given minimal explanation, the threadbare plot makes little sense, and Martin Milner as the crooked lawyer needs a few more Stanislovski classes before his cruising down Route 66 or busting heads on the streets of L.A. will be convincing.But as a vaguely pederastic shyster, he's the creepiest thing in the movie. He is, after all,the 13th ghost!Strong points: The lovely music score and Joseph Biroc's B&W cinematography give the movie more dignity than it really warrants, Margaret Hamilton always gives good witch, and Charlie Herbert is a really cute kid in an obviously Capricornian David Archuleta kind of way and an excellent child actor; I want to take him home and burp him to stave off the 40 years of drug abuse that awaits him in real life... And how do you not love Rosemary DeCamp (who played everybody's mother in nearly every TV sitcom ever made)?The movie's effectiveness is a result that eerily doomed early-'60s, JFK-era (give-or-take), end of the world, TWLIGHT-ZONE/PSYCHO, traumatized child, nursery rhyme thing. Nothing's "purer" in its innocent creepiness, even though the violence and gore are at a minimum. It's the poignance of post-war optimism mixed with utter doom, shuddery and forlornly macabre. Even when in the fumbling hands of a non-auteur like William Castle.It's hard to believe that this silly movie was once spooky as hell (I defined it, as a child, as "the second scariest movie I've ever seen", both first and second on my list having been photographed by the aptly-named Mr Biroc, though of course I didn't know that then). But the high-pitched voices of the superimposed ghosts on screen once left an indelible impression on the more naive audiences of an earlier bygone period. For years, I used to get the meat cleaver murder at the hands of the ectoplasmic chef confused with the meat cleaver murder of Bruce Dern during the plantation prologue soirée of HUSH... HUSH, SWEET CHARLOTTE.... I think it's the cook's toque.Again, the era helps. It feels like a cozy Halloween party, one in which a lot of the pranks and games don't quite come off, but you had a good time anyway and you're glad you went.But I've never viewed it thru the ghostly "Illusion-O" goggles. The same house, by the way, is also seen in 1944's strange little gem, THE CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE.I've also seen very little of the 13 GHOSTS remake from ~40 years later. Clearly, it's of a different sensibility.