The Terror

The Terror (1963)

A new classic of horror comes to the screen!

Lt. Andre Duvalier awakens on a beach to the sight of a strange woman who leads him to the gothic, towering castle that serves as home to an eerie baron.

Date of release
1963-06-17
TMDB
5.1 / 10 (188)
Runtime
1h 19m
Genres
Horror, Mystery
Director
Roger Corman

Casting

Interesting facts

The Terror is a 1963 American horror film produced and directed by Roger Corman. It stars Boris Karloff, Jack Nicholson, and Sandra Knight. It is about a Napoleonic French officer (Nicholson) who stumbles upon a castle occupied by a reclusive baron (Karloff) and is seduced by a woman who is also a shapeshifting demon.

Development

Roger Corman had enjoyed considerable success in the early 1960s producing and directing films based on the stories of Edgar Allan Poe for AIP: The House of Usher, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Premature Burial, Tales of Terror and The Raven, as well as the Poe-influenced Tower of London.

Corman was making The Raven (1963) featuring sets built by Daniel Haller. The weekend before filming was scheduled to end, Corman intended to play tennis with a friend but the game was rained out. Corman came up with the idea of shooting footage of a movie star on the sets of The Raven over two days, which could then be used as the basis of another movie.

Corman contacted Leo Gordon, an actor and writer who had written several films for the director, including The Cry Baby Killer and The Wasp Woman, and asked him if he had a script with a castle in it. Gordon did not but went over to Corman's house for a "brainstorming" session. Corman asked Gordon for a 60-page script written by the following weekend which could be shot over two days.

Corman reportedly paid Gordon $1,600 for the script. According to Dick Miller's account of making The Terror, Corman "called Chuck Griffith and said, "Write me a bunch of scenes for Boris Karloff and this castle." Chuck said, "What's the story?" Roger said, "No story, just a lot of castle, you know, in and out of doors, very mysterioso." And that's exactly what he did."

The main role in Gordon's script was that of the Baron, which was devised to be played by a star. All of Corman's Poe films except The Premature Burial had starred Vincent Price but that actor was unavailable, so Corman made a deal with Boris Karloff, who had been in The Raven, to be available for two days' filming for a small amount of money, plus a deferred payment of $15,000 that would be paid if the film earned more than $150,000.

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