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| Images courtesy of Film Masters |
Boutique label Film Masters, comprised of historians and
cinephiles keen on preserving and restoring classic cinema, have quietly begun
rolling out rare genre pictures usually from the 1950s and 1960s scanned
digitally in 2K or 4K depending on the title.
As they’re getting into rolling out streaming titles like the original The
Little Shop of Horrors and Creature from the Haunted Sea, they’ve
also started a Special Edition Releases run consisting of deluxe blu-ray or DVD
disc editions of rare titles typically featuring comprehensive bonus
contents. Usually featuring a well-researched
audio commentary and collectible booklet, the company so far as unveiled
fourteen titles on home video, often including a secondary bonus film. Often dealing in cult exploitation titles or
monster movies, Film Masters’ eighth release consists of cult regional B-movie
director Bert I. Gordon’s MST3K favorite Tormented.
On a small island off of Cape Code with a closed community, Jazz
pianist Tom Stewart (Richard Carlson) is engaged to be married to Meg Hubbard
(Lugene Sanders) when his ex-girlfriend Vi Mason (Juli Reding) returns
unannounced threatening to end the engagement via blackmail. With their argument boiling over atop a
lighthouse, the railing breaks and she falls to her death as Tom watches doing
nothing to help. Soon after begin a
series of haunted torments including but not limited to apparitions of her body
washing ashore only to dissolve into seaweed, her watch washing ashore,
invisible footprints begin appearing in the sand and even a severed hand
running off with the engagement ring.
Soon after the apparition makes herself known to Tom announcing she’ll haunt
him with hallucinations or poltergeists for the remainder of his life.
Produced, written and directed by Gordon and co-starring the
legendary Joe Turkel as a beatnik ferryman as well as the director’s daughter
Susan Gordon who’d later form a career in television, the seventy-five minute
black-and-white drive-in double-feature originally paired with Mario Bava’s Caltiki- The Immortal Monster while lampooned by MST3K as a “bad” public domain
movie is among the director’s more sinister offerings. Ordinarily geared towards family friendly
giant spiders or people movies with himself as the effects supervisor, Tormented
was a stark departure into noir/horror fare. Replete with its Jazzy score by Calvin
Jackson co-authored by High School Confidential composer Albert Glasser and
overqualified camerawork by Academy Award winning Ship of Fools cinematographer
Ernest Lazlo, Tormented houses quite a bit more class than MST3K or its
position as a drive-in flick than you’ve been led to believe.
A ghost film whose gradual lapse into public domain made it
easy fodder for the MST3K team to lampoon, admittedly while some of it is
indeed hokey if not absurdist Tormented is nevertheless a deliriously
entertaining romp. Featuring a talking
severed head that’s more than a little hilarious, a generally unlikable
protagonist played effectively by Richard Carlson and even a small appearance
from future Shock Corridor actor Harry Fleer, Tormented is an
early if not underrated example of regional low-budget genre filmmaking.
A bit like a B-movie version of a proto-The
Twilight Zone episode whom young actress Susan Gordon would later appear, Tormented
doesn’t always work but the regional charms are infectious and Film Masters’
disc release is wonderful with their crisp new 4K scan of the film. Considered one of the director’s more
ambitious undertakings compared to his usual giant monster or people fare, Film
Masters’ release is absolutely a sizable upgrade from the public domain
releases drive-in fans were used to for years via Something Weird Video or the
MST3K episode. It isn’t a great film by
any means but it should give you an enjoyable regional take on the vengeful
unfinished business ghost story.
--Andrew Kotwicki
