The Terror is a 1963 American independent horror film produced and directed by Roger Corman. The film stars Boris Karloff and Jack Nicholson, the latter of whom portrays a French officer who is seduced by a woman who is also a shapeshifting devil.
The film is sometimes linked to Corman's Poe cycle, a series of movies based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe, however The Terror is not based on any text written by Poe. The movie has become famous because of the circumstances of its production, including the fact all of Boris Karloff's scenes were shot in two days, the long time it took to complete, the number of people who worked on it that became famous, and the part the film played in the financing and production of Targets (1968), directed by Peter Bogdanovich and starring Karloff.
Corman wrote in his memoirs that The Terror "began as a challenge: to shoot most of a gothic film in two days using left-over sets from The Raven. It turned into the longest production of my career – an ordeal that required five directors and nine months to complete. But like Little Shop [of Horrors], it's a classic story of how to make a film out of nothing."
Plot
In 1806, André Duvalier, a French soldier lost in the Confederation of the Rhine, is saved by Helene, a young woman who bears a resemblance to Ilsa von Leppe, the late wife of Baron von Leppe who died 20 years before. André sets out to investigate Helene's true identity and learns the Baron's darkest secret: after he found Ilsa with another man, the Baron killed his wife while his servant killed her lover.
Over the last two years, the Baron has been tormented by Ilsa's ghost, who has beseeched him to kill himself so that they can be together forever. After much hesitation, the Baron decides to do so and atone for his crimes. Unbeknownst to him, Ilsa's ghost is being commanded to haunt him by a peasant witch named Katrina.
Cast
Boris Karloff as Baron von Leppe/Eric, a corrupt aristocratic man who murdered the baron and his wife and poses as the baron of an abandoned castle.
Jack Nicholson as André Duvalier, a soldier of Napoleon's army who finds himself lost after fleeing his men during battle.
Dick Miller as Stefan, the Baron's son and trustful servant who serves the impostor.
Sandra Knight as Helene/Ilsa, the shapeshifting demon of the witch who poses as the baron's deceased wife.
Dorothy Neumann as Katrina the witch, a peasant woman and the mother of Eric who was driven out of the village for heresy and witchcraft.
Jonathan Haze as Gustaf, a lost village man who became the mentally ill servant of the witch.
Boris Karloff segment
Corman reportedly paid Gordon $1,600 for the script. According to Dick Miller's account of making The Terror, Corman "called Chuck Griffith and said, "Write me a bunch of scenes for Boris Karloff and this castle." Chuck said, "What's the story?" Roger said, "No story, just a lot of castles, you know, in and out of doors, very mysterioso." And that's exactly what he did."
The main role in Gordon's script was that of the Baron, which was devised to be played by a star. All of Corman's Poe films except The Premature Burial had starred Vincent Price but that actor was unavailable, so Corman made a deal with Boris Karloff, who had been in The Raven, to be available for two days' filming for a small amount of money, plus a deferred payment of $15,000 that would be paid if the film earned more than $150,000. (Corman says he offered Karloff 10% of the profits above "a certain amount."
Gordon's script had three other characters, two male and one female. Corman hired Jack Nicholson and Dick Miller, with whom he had worked several times previously, to play the other male roles. Nicholson suggested his then-wife Sandra Knight for the female role and Corman agreed. (It would be the only time Nicholson and Knight would act together in a film.) The plan was to shoot sixty pages of script over two days, then shoot the rest at a later date when the rest of the script was completed, and other sets were available.
Francis Ford Coppola
After the Karloff scenes were shot, Gordon wrote the rest of the script for the movie. Dick Miller says "about three months later, when things slowed down" he "got a call: we were going to make a movie. I had forgotten all about it, literally. "
Corman had recently hired Francis Ford Coppola to work as his assistant on Battle Beyond the Sun and The Haunted Palace, and assigned him to direct the rest of The Terror. Coppola went to Big Sur for what was meant to be three days to shoot additional footage using a crew of film students from UCLA.
Corman could not direct the rest of the film himself. He said after shooting the Karloff sequences "I didn't have the money to shoot the rest of the picture union, which meant I couldn't direct myself because I was personally signed with the unions."
