This film, for me, marks the beginning of the decline for the great director/promoter William Castle. It is still among his better works overall. After this movie, however, his output becomes less and less interesting, in my opinion. He was the producer for "Rosemary's Baby" but I'm speaking specifically about his work as a director.
The film itself deals with a disfigured man who attempted to retrieve something (a lottery ticket) from a grave. The definition of a "ghoul" is given at the beginning and throughout the film as "one who opens graves and feeds on corpses." It features the typical young couple in distress and the evil henchman, played here by Oskar Homolka, who also appeared notably in the early Hitchcock film "Sabotage" with Sylvia Sidney. All Castle films have a sideshow sort of gimmick to hook the audience into paying attention. In this one, it is a "choice" of endings. I won't spoil the end by discussing the choice or the outcome, but it is obviously a promotional attempt by Castle and not the most inventive. He did much better with the shock effects in "The Tingler" and the glasses in the original "13 Ghosts." Those were truly classic examples of Castle's showmanship and use of gimmickry. Here, the ruse doesn't work quite as well.
Subsequent Castle films, which used the ultimate modern-day gimmick of putting a star in the movie, weren't as effective. Interestingly, today's films seem to be promoted entirely based on who is involved in the film, as actor, director, etc. So in that sense Castle would continue to point us toward the future of filmmaking. Perhaps with the advent of interactive moviemaking, this film will one day also be considered waay ahead of it's time. For now, however, it remains a good but not great entry from a most memorable director and promoter.
The film itself deals with a disfigured man who attempted to retrieve something (a lottery ticket) from a grave. The definition of a "ghoul" is given at the beginning and throughout the film as "one who opens graves and feeds on corpses." It features the typical young couple in distress and the evil henchman, played here by Oskar Homolka, who also appeared notably in the early Hitchcock film "Sabotage" with Sylvia Sidney. All Castle films have a sideshow sort of gimmick to hook the audience into paying attention. In this one, it is a "choice" of endings. I won't spoil the end by discussing the choice or the outcome, but it is obviously a promotional attempt by Castle and not the most inventive. He did much better with the shock effects in "The Tingler" and the glasses in the original "13 Ghosts." Those were truly classic examples of Castle's showmanship and use of gimmickry. Here, the ruse doesn't work quite as well.
Subsequent Castle films, which used the ultimate modern-day gimmick of putting a star in the movie, weren't as effective. Interestingly, today's films seem to be promoted entirely based on who is involved in the film, as actor, director, etc. So in that sense Castle would continue to point us toward the future of filmmaking. Perhaps with the advent of interactive moviemaking, this film will one day also be considered waay ahead of it's time. For now, however, it remains a good but not great entry from a most memorable director and promoter.