Terrified (1963)

Cast:

Rod Lauren is Ken
Steve Drexel is David
Tracy Olsen is Marge
Stephen Roberts is Wesley Blake
Denver "Uncle Jesse from the Dukes of Hazzard" Pyle is Sheriff
Sherwood Keith is Mr. Hawley

What the box says:

A college psychology student, intent on writing a term paper on how much terror the human mind can endure, learns his answers first-hand as he finds himself the target of a mysterious, hooded kiler.

Plot:

In what looks like a Western ghost town cemetery, Joe, a teenager, is buried to the neck in cemetery by a masked man.

Months later, a couple is driving down the road and is run off the road by a hooded man.

I am not a NINJA!!! Why do you always ask me? They stop at a bar to regain their wits.

Also at the bar, David and Ken, college student who is wants to write a term paper on terror. They were also almost run off the road by the hooded guy. The hostess, Marge, wants to go to the Ghost Town to talk to Crazy Bill. It turns out that Joe was Marge's brother and had been driven crazy by being buried to his neck months ago.

Marge and Ken drive to the ghost town.

The visiting couple stops at the sheriff's office to report about the hooded driver.

At the cemetery, Marge and Ken find Crazy Bill's dead body. David pulls up. They tell him about Crazy Bill. Ken stays behind to look around.

Hood traps Ken in a room with spiders. He is able to break out of the room but is recaptured as Hood chokes him... Let the narration about terror begin...

Marge hasn't had a very good life. Her father died mysteriously. Mom died in a car wreck. They call the sheriff's office about Crazy Bill and learn that Joe escaped from the mental hospital. Yes, Marge's brother who went insane after being buried up to his neck in cement.

Ken is trapped in a flooding room. Hood lets him out to torture him some more...Ties him to a chair, Ken is able to escape. Running for his car, he discovers it has been hidden. Hood chases him through a mining shaft. Struggling, Hood drags Ken to the town's jail. He wants to hang Ken. More narration about Ken almost hanging as a child ensues. Heading into the street, Ken is followed by the slow walking Hood who keeps toying with him. Knocks him out and drags him to the cemetery.

Ken is tied up like Joe. Hood claims to be pure terror and starts to bury him.

Marge and David return to Ghost Town to look for Ken. They spot Hood run off. They head back to the cemetery, thinking that Hood is trying to stall them from looking for Ken. Find a fresh pile of dirt; they discover Ken who's died. Terror killed him. The sheriff finally arrives.

Hood knocks David out and carries Marge off to a cave. Hood unmasks. Why he's the bar owner

Sheriff and a deputy find David. Sheriff has learned from Joe who started remembering that the bar owner buried him months earlier. Sheriff, the deputy, and David head to the mine.

The bar owner tells Marge that David is dead. He remembers her as child and growing into a beautiful woman.

Sheriff tries to talk the bar owner out. Bar owner wants Marge's love before he dies. The cops rush in and shoot him...

What I say:

When a movie starts off with burying a guy to his neck in cement in a cemetery, you've got to think that's a pretty good start to a movie. Quite a few of movies had some good starts that lead into bad middles and horrible endings. This movie is just hard to detail. I've run through far worse movies (ahem, Massacre). Even with most of it at night, I didn't have any "TOO DARK TO SEE" scenes to battle.

The 1960s had some attempts at low-budget psychological horror such as Dementia 13 . Yes, more than just typical monster movies probably inspired by Hitchcock's Psycho. However, this seems sort of like an early 60s version of Saw. Hood traps somebody and tortures them but lets them go to recapture them.

Many low budget movies never have any actors most people have ever heard of. What does it say when the biggest namestar in your movie is Denver Pyle? Not Gomer Pyle. Denver better known as Briscoe Darling from the Andy Griffith Show or Uncle Jesse on the Dukes of Hazzard. A very limited cast is all that couldn't be the hooded killer especially when showing most characters interacting with Hood somehow. Joe is mentioned about escaping from the hospital so obviously he must be the killer or Red Herring. How many times did Ken think Hood was Joe?

The bar owner who apparently spent years killing Marge's family and friends so he could finally be the only one she could count on. The bar owner who only was in the movie for 3 minutes and more than an hour later he's the evil killer. It makes the Scooby Doo unmasking "Old Man Carruthers who owned the run-down amusement park who'd have gotten away with it if it hadn't been for those meddling kids..." moment a lot more believable. The bar owner who is so obsessed with Marge can't have been some sort of low-budget crime inspired Lolita, could it? For those of us without the Nabakov reference (or those listening to the Police's "Don't Stand So Close to Me" far too many times)there is always the Simpsons with Moe chasing Marge.

Drag racing brought cops out in the Blob and Hot Rod Girl. In this movie, no one around the town seems that bothered up that a masked guy is driving on the wrong side of the road and scaring people into ditches.

Some movies are more recognized because of the stock footage or locations like Bronson Canyon where Tor Johnson wandered around or where the Bat-mobile would shoot out of a cave. I do have to say that there aren't many kind of 1960s horror movies that are set in a Western Ghost Towns. That fact isn't mentioned at all. The movie could have been set up at any of those old mountain villages set up around for tourist traps. It could have had been around a Renaissance Fair without losing anything. A Hooded killer chasing a knight would have been a bit more interesting.

Quotable Dialogue
"Best thing in the world for shock."
"Terror is what the world is."
"He turned from a man into a slobbering sister"
Morals of the Story
Burying people in cement is funny.
Hooded guys drive cars without being bothered.
Falling through floors isn't dangerous.