The Ghastly Ones (1968)

Sick Product of a Sick System

Just what I expected

Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Definitely one of the very worst movies I have ever seen, and probably one of the worst "movies" ever made. I have seen patchworks by some very bad sleaze directors in my day, but talentless hack Andy Milligan takes the cake... his movies make Ed Wood's films look like Alfred Hitchcock's. I mean, Wood, Al Adamson, Jerry Warren and Ted V. Mikels got nothing on this character. Here we have some sporadic gore moments, but mainly a lot of talk between a group of obnoxious people gathering together in some house. Terribly boring in addition to being technically pathetic. 0 out of ****

I saw this film purely based on the fact that it was on the DPP Video Nasty list, and while I'm glad I saw it because it's now 'another Video Nasty down' - on its own merits, Andy Milligan's film really isn't worth bothering with. There are, of course, far worse films on the infamous list; but that doesn't make the pain of viewing this one any easier. The film was obviously shot on an extremely low budget, and that has translated into the script; as Blood Rites works on an idea often seen in horror cinema, and doesn't do anything new with it. Basically, the plot centres on three couples who find themselves at a house awaiting the results of a will. It's not long before they start getting picked off...blah blah blah. For most of the film, nothing happens; and then when we finally get down to the scenes that justify the movie being banned, they're so amateurish and silly that they're impossible to take seriously on any level. It's a very good thing that this movie doesn't have a very long running time as otherwise it could have been used as a particularly nasty method of torture. It all boils down to a fittingly tedious ending, which also succeeds in being a non-event of epic proportions. Apparently, this movie is still banned here in the UK; but somehow I doubt it's because of its shock value. Basically, Blood Rites isn't worth seeing and I personally can see no reason to recommend it. Unless, of course, you've made it your business to see everything on the Video Nasty list...

I remember reading Stephen King's book "Danse Macabre" about horror movies and this famous writer totally trashed this film.He called it "the work of morons with cameras" or something like that.I wouldn't go so far to call "The Ghastly Ones" a masterpiece,but I found it immensely enjoyable.Of course the acting is rather bad and the budget is extremely low,but the gore scenes are amazing.I loved especially the scene when one guy is butchered in the cellar and the amateurish gore frenzy during the climax.Though the production is rough from beginning to end you can sense a psychosis of sorts in the scenes of bloodletting.The hooded killer really rips into his victims after he's trapped them.The hunchback is an extremely funny and grotesque character.I laughed my ass off when he killed a rabbit.Check out this cheap and gory horror,if you like low-budget grindhouse fare.

THE GHASTLY ONES is a brainboiler of a cheap horror film. The plot involves three sisters and their husbands travelling to their isolated childhood home to hear the reading of their late father's will, but someone is willing to kill to keep the money all to themselves. Director/producer Andy Milligan attempts a 1905 setting for his film despite something like $20.00 for a budget, although its highly unlikely that women from that era wore see-through black negligees to bed. Along with the wobbly period details, there's stabbings,decapitation, mutilations with hacksaws, and live rabbit eating. Ole! Ten years later, Milligan remade this flick as the somewhat more competent(and narratively coherent)LEGACY OF HORROR. If you're looking for a laughable, confused mess, go with THE GHASTLY ONES. If you want a more understandable film that offers characters whose motives are revealed during the course of the story, go with LEGACY OF HORROR. Calm me old fashioned, but I prefer the latter, because the reasons revealed for some of the characters' behavior makes the resulting carnage all the more chilling. And the simpleton brother is show as an abused, sad waste of human potential, not a ghoulish geek. The scene where he sits in his dank basement room, battering a teddy bear while grunting the word "stupid" over and over is more chilling than a dozen disembowelings--something that I think Milligan was not conscious of. Okay, so maybe I overanalyze, but I like to see the psychological underside of these characters. After all, a psycho doesn't make himself crazy, does he?