The Shuttered Room (1967)

Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

"The Shuttered Room" is a Lovecraftian classic based on one of the 'joint' stories that August Derleth wrote from Lovecraft's unfinished notes after his death.It certainly uses 'Dunwich' and 'Whately' pretty often.The action takes place on a remote island.The old mill hides deadly secret in the attic.Sarah(Carol Lynley)brings her husband to visit her childhood home,but the community of the island is hostile and not very welcoming."The Shuttered Room" reminded me Sam Peckinpah's "Straw Dogs" with its central theme of sexual assault in a remote village.The air of menace is well-captured,the acting is impressive and several scenes have a strange,almost ethereal quality.The 'Old Mill' was an actual mill near Norwich in south-east England.On 30th May 1966 the mill was burnt to the ground for the film "The Shuttered Room".I can't believe that the filmmakers did this to such unique fantastic-looking watermill.9 out of 10.

After two strange attempts to buy "The Shuttered Room/It" WB horror two-fer flick on DVD from Amazon sellers and neither of them ever making it to my mailbox over a two-month span (is Oliver Reed intercepting my packages?), I finally found an Amazon seller up to the job of actually getting this thing into my DVD player.Anyway, the digital transfer of "The Shuttered Room," as stated by others, is not so bad--some artifacts here and there (so the film for all intents and purposes was not cleaned up), but the flick is anamorphic and fills a widescreen, which is nice. For those who have not seen it (or not seen it recently), the film is very deliberately and carefully made--that means the technical specs are up to snuff for a film shot in the late 60s anyway. The focus is clear and crisp, the colors are sharp and vivid. The settings are very pretty--even with all the "horror" lurking about.Two random thoughts: 1. For some reason, I remember the chained-up individual (keeping it vague here) as being horribly disfigured. But nope--it's just a regular person having a bad hair day. That was a bit disappointing--guess my memories of this horror are a bit blurry.2. Last, and most interesting: This film looks much, much closer to an early 1970s horror film than one released in 1966 to me; it always has. The film techniques, use of hand-held perspective shots, extreme close-ups, the very progressive soundtrack, Lynley's "heroine" who is both sad and brooding but not entirely a weakling, and the lyrical, dreamlike extended credits/introduction--all of it adds up to a film that seems, in hindsight, to be ahead of its time. In some ways, the "dreadful feel" of the film, the style of it, the haunting quality of it, seems to predict so many 70s horror films that were yet to come--Zohra Lampert's sympathetic heroine in "Let's Scare Jessica to Death," or maybe the strange isolationist townsfolk in "The Brotherhood of Satan." While comparisons can be misleading, I'll just say this feels like a film DECIDEDLY NOT looking backwards toward the old days of Gothic Hammer horror (although "The Shuttered Room" has its Gothic moments); instead, it tries very hard to be...contemporary, looking forward to the next decade, which would be 1970. And I think it works. I presume credit for that goes to director David Greene. It seems odd then that Greene, who apparently showed a lot of promise early on in his directing career, would not amount to much over time (or, so says Phil Hardy in the Overlook Film Encyclopedia). Strange.

"The Shuttered Room" is a severely disappointing entry.**SPOILERS**Receiving an inheritance, Mike, (Gig Young) and his wife Susanna Kelton, (Carol Lynley) return to her home on Dunwich Island after inheriting an old mill on the island. Meeting with the locals, they all warn them away from the mill for fears of an unknown curse from her childhood nightmare that still haunts her. When her Aunt Agatha, (Flora Robson) finds that they're desire to stay there and turn it into a summer-house, she feels it will unleash the curse again, and as they spend more time together, they start to believe in the curse and try whatever they can to get away before it becomes too late.The Good News: This was an incredibly disappointing effort. That it can go so wrong after it's brilliant opening moments is a mystery, but only sporadic moments afterward are any good. The opening here is classic, where a young child is attacked menacingly, then begins to fight off the parents before being dragged away and locked in a strange room, all done through the attacker's POV. It's brutal, shocking and intense, which is a fantastic way to open the film and get some good points going. There's also the fact that it's all pre-credit, so nothing is known of what's happening, making for a better scene. After arriving on the island, they are harassed and tormented by the locals, including a crazy, imaginative, and highly memorable part where one is pulled along behind a truck by a metal chain while standing on a wooden box as he's dragged over the pavement, with their car caught in the dust and flying debris behind them. All of this is done in the opening half of the film, and manages to be it's best part. Though it does play up the haunted-house style of scares nicely, there's a nice and sleazy undertow to the last half and it concludes with a Gothic-standard burning house, all of which are watchable, but can't really compare to the opening.The Bad News: There was a couple of flaws to this. Perhaps the biggest is that the film isn't a haunted house film at all, which is a huge cheat. It's hard to be able to take the hauntings seriously when the revelation occurs, which is such a cheat that it takes the viewer right out of the film, and are forced with a redundant back-story explanation after we all ready know everything anyway that gives way into the twist which, playing off that we already know what's happened, comes as no surprise at all and feels there simply to add to the chase through the house at the end and tie up the loose threads. Also, the focus away from the haunted house story and make it about the psychotic family torturing them through some of the lamest means possible for the rest of the time. The scenes with the brothers out on the highway are just terrible and don't have any sort of thrills or chills to them, and the fight is a major disappointment. These are just plain irritating and don't really do much of anything to help the film. Also rather hurtful is the fact that the film is just deadly dull and boring during the middle segments. While there's a few single, short scenes of the haunting going on, there's just way more scenes in here that are just so boring that it's hard to stay interested in them. They're just so low-key that it's hard to stay all that interested in them at all, as they consist of nothing more than just never-ended scenes of them wandering around the house while she freaks out over nothing and it all seems to just blend together one scene after another of the same thing. It's not exactly the fastest moving film, and combined with the cheat, really knock this one down.The Final Verdict: This was a hugely disappointing effort, mainly because it should've been much better than it really was and becomes a huge missed opportunity. Really only see this one if you're into the type or find some kind of enjoyment from these types, otherwise steer clear of this one.Today's Rating-R: Violence, children in danger, themes of incest and Brief Nudity

Troubled Susannah Kelton (an excellent and affecting performance by the lovely Carol Lynley) and her wise, sensible husband Mike (splendidly played by Gig Young) inherit a rundown old mill house that's located on an isolated New England island. The Keltons receive a chilly reception from the unfriendly locals and are warned by Susannah's kindly, but formidable Aunt Agatha (a spot-on redoubtable turn by Flora Robson) that the place has a curse on it. Ably directed with stylish aplomb by David Greene, with a deliciously eerie and mysterious brooding Gothic atmosphere that positively drips with dread and menace, an intriguing script by D.B. Ledrov and Nathaniel Tanchuck, evocative use of the verdant countryside locations, crisp and vibrant cinematography by Ken Hodges (the occasional artful use of fades and dissolves is especially striking), colorful characters, a marvelously spooky and offbeat discordant experimental jazz score by Basil Kirchin, witty dialogue, a flavorsome depiction of the remote rural region, and a rousing fiery conclusion, this film really hits the bull's eye as a superior 60's shocker. Young and Lynley make for extremely engaging leads. Moreover, Oliver Reed contributes a delightfully leering and hearty portrayal of unruly no-count trouble-making lout Ethan, who has a most unsavory lascivious interest in poor Susannah. The explanation for what's really going on in the mill house is not only expectedly startling, but also surprisingly poignant. A fun and engrossing fright feature.