Movie Halloween Presents: Tormented!

This Halloween's featured kinograph is 1960's misunderstood ghost classic Tormented! (1960), by B-movie folktale Bert I. Gordon, of whom I had never heard but who apparently had quite the reputation for giant creature features, which, coupled with his initials, lent him the enviable moniker Mr B.I.G (no relation to The Notorious).

OK so I added the ! but it should have an !.

Tormented! concerns the misadventures of jazz pianist Tom (Richard Carlson, Creature From The Black Lagoon), who at the opening of our kinographeme attempts to break off his affair with Vi (Juli Reding, Tormented!) so he can marry Meg (Trevalene Lugene Sanders (really)), whom we are to learn is loaded, whereas Vi is merely front-loaded.

Fat stacks or stacked fat: which is best in life? #teamvi

Vi demonstrates correct health and safety procedure for leaning on rusty railings in abandoned lighthouses no one ever bothers to lock up.

Vi threatens Tom with blackmail but then fortuitously falls off the rickety lighthouse, barely hanging onto a rail. Tom is faced with a dilemma: should he save her, even at the cost of risking his imminent marriage?

Denied! (1960).

Carlson's body language in this scene is my favourite ever because he's so clearly unenthusiastic about even trying to save her from the get-go, so when he withdraws his hand at the crucial moment I can imagine him being like "psych!". Nevertheless he feels bad about it the next day, when he retrieves her body from the waves only to see it turn to seaweed before his eyes.

Despite being achieved by dumping seaweed on Ms Reding, this is quite effective due to quick dissolves and the suddenness of it.

Was it a ghost, or his imagination all along? From hence until forth, Tom will be Tormented! (1960), or, more properly, Annoyed! (1960), because Vi's ghost mostly bothers him by doing stuff like playing records, before escalating to dismembering her ghostly body and spreading it around the house.

The effects are surprisingly good until you cut to the reverse angle and he's just holding a mannequin head.

Vi's head taunts Tom that he will inevitably screw up in the coverup to which he has committed himself, and he starts to unravel further as he is questioned by the ferryman who brought Vi to the island, who is a beatnik who calls everyone "dad", which gives you an idea what hip zoomer slang of 2020 will sound like to subsequent generations.

"Dig this hep-cat daddy-o made in the shade. Based? Cringe." - this character. Incidentally, this actor later played the bartender in The Shining.

Without revealing the ending, I encourage you to watch this movie, which I believe is in the public domain and is all over YouTube in uploads of varying quality. Though featured on Mystery Reddit Theatre 3000, it would be a mistake to dismiss this as a corny B-joint, and I feel this undeserved fate has befallen it because it went all in on the ghost angle. The opening scenes feel more like a film noir - there's even a brief voiceover, and the Tormented! (1960) jazz musician reminds me of the Bill Pullman character from Lost Highway - and I suspect if the rest of the movie had proceeded in this vein, with Vi's manifestations relegated to Tom's paranoid imagination, it would be the respected cult classic it should be. The plot wouldn't even really have to change that much. But of course then we wouldn't have such highlights as Vi's talking head and the blind woman ill-advisedly ascending the lighthouse to give the spirit a much-needed talking to.

Look out! I mean uh

On the dreamy strength of the early scenes alone, I would give Tormented! 5 stars out of 5, and while it arguably fails to live up to its full potential, it has so much personality that I refuse to dock so much as half a star. Watch Tormented! today.