If you’ve ever read an old E.C. comic (and if you haven’t, what the hell is wrong with you?) then you might now what to expect from this movie. With its gothic setting and paper-thin stereotypical characters, it is rather like a “Ghastly” Graham Ingels story come to life. Well, with a few changes;

• E.C. comics stories were a few pages long, they weren’t padded out to last an hour and a half.
  
• They weren’t hampered by budget restraints.
  
• They had good endings.
  
• They were fun.

Well look, I don’t want to come across as pissy in the opening paragraph, the film really isn’t that bad. It has a great opening, séances, skulls, people talking in Sanskrit. It has a very nice look to it. Sort of a gothic-hammer-esque vibe. Muted yet engrossing primary colors; good use of shadow and light. The signature score used is nice enough, sad yet haunting. The direction is pretty good, although it’s a little flat. Acting is fairly typical for this type of low-budget feature. The cast portray their rather shallow characters in a believable if not overly memorable manner. As an added attraction to some horror-geeks, the film stars Barbara Steele in the role of the unfaithful murderous wife. (Surprised?) Many folks think Babs is just the bee’s knees, but I’ve never been too big on her to tell you the truth. Here she over-acts quite a bit, as is her nature. But all in all, the film does well at building up a sense of dread and tension.

However, somewhere around the middle of the film, something hit me. Not only was nothing much happening, but so far I’d managed to see every plot twist coming from a mile away. As I said, the set design is moody enough, but much like the constant rain in ‘Dark Water’, it’s just a little too precious. After the 50^th consecutive dark and shadowy scene, the production design begins to weigh heavily on the eyes and brain. (And it doesn’t help that the film is badly dubbed.) Frankly, far from apprehensive, it made me a little drowsy. While there is a ghostly appearance or two, most of the suspicious goings on amount to nothing more than mislaid items. (Incidentally, there is a plot point concerning a missing key which seems to have been lifted from ‘Mr. Sardonicus‘, but no matter.) Objects disappearing by themselves may be spooky, but watching people running around looking for them isn’t very enthralling.

There are some effective scenes however. The house bleeds. The murdered appears hanging from the ceiling. An ancient crypt features a myriad of skulls in little cubby holes. Someone slices someone else up with a straight-razor. (That last bit is very reminiscent of ‘The Evil Dead‘s axe dismemberment scene, with blood literally cascading down the screen.) But the film is a melodrama in the purest sense. There’s lots of swooning, and overheated guilt-trips. Not to mention talk, talk, talking in order to stretch the film out to feature length. The film is a bit too low budget to be truly entertaining. I found myself endlessly waiting for something to happen.

Still, it was pleasant enough viewing, up until the end. It was the climax of the film that for me, blew away any chance of recommendation. I can’t even mention why I was so disappointed without spoiling the final solution of the film. (Although it may be a moot point anyway, I was watching this one with my mom, and she told me how it was going to end!) So I’ll offer a spoiler warning, and if you want to know why the film pissed me off so, you can highlight to read:

How can any film which calls itself ‘The Ghost’ not have a single ghost in it? I can’t help it, I detest clean, contrived “rational explanations”. They are written by the unimaginative to placate dull little minds.

The films isn’t awful, but for me, it was a bit of a snooze.