Special Edition Blu-ray
Label: Film Masters
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 74 Minutes 29 Seconds
Audio: English DTS-HD 2.0 Dual-Mono with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1)
Director: Bert I. Gordon
Cast: Richard Carlson, Susan Gordon, Lugene Sanders
Tagline: Hell Hath No Fury Like a Woman Scorned … Even a Dead One!
The supernatural haunter Tormented (1960) is directed by
Bert I. Gordon, the legendary b-movie director of stiff like Empire of the Ants, The Food of the Gods. It takes place on a secluded resort island where rising-star jazz pianist Tom Stewart (Richard Carlson, The Valley of Gwangi) is set to marry the Meg Hubbard (Lugene Sanders, TV's The Life of Riley) the daughter of a very wealthy family; but just days before the wedding his former mistress, a gorgeous and very possessive nightclub singer, Vi Mason (Juli Reding, Why Must I Die?) shows up at the island threatening to derail his wedding plans. They secretly meet atop a dilapidated lighthouse on the island and during a heated exchange the lighthouse railing breaks and Vi falls over the edge, managing to grasp onto the broken railing. Hanging on for dear life she screams for Tom to help her, and while his first instinct is to extends his hand in help, he then chooses to let gravity take care of his little problem, and she falls to her death onto the rocks and crashing waves below. The next day while on the beach Tom sees her corpse floating in the surf and swims out and brings her body to shore, but then her dissolves into a pile of seaweed. Shaken by the experience, Tom thinks he might be going mad. As the wedding draws nearer Tom starts to hear the haunting, disembodied voice of Vi taunting him, her signature songs starts playing on his record player, later seeing her her floating head and severed arm appear, and it seems either she's out for revenge or his guilt-riddled mind has snapped and he's gone off the deep-end. Adding to the mystery is that no one around him sees any of it, all they see is him acting very oddly.
Things get even stickier when the thin-lipped beatnik boatman Nick (Joe Turkel, The Dark Side of the Moon) shows up looking for the money Vi promised him for bringing her to the island earlier, and as she;s not around he seeks out Tom, and going by Tom's reaction to his inquiry realizes that something fishy has happened and attempts to blackmail the pianist, which causes Tom to deep-six him at the lighthouse as well. Unfortunately Meg's sweet eight year-old sister Sandy (Susan Gordon, Picture Mommy Dead) witnesses this second murder, but she likes Tom quite a bit and and is quite loyal to him, and wants to see her older sister happy, so she keeps quiet about it, but she struggles with her secret knowledge, and it seems she might me the next to meet an unfortunate end and the old lighthouse. Also, we get neighbor lady Lillian Adams (The Wild and the Innocent), a blind spirit-sensitive who senses the supernatural activity around Tom, unaware of the murders she tells him he should not runaway from his problems, and tells the tale of another haunting on the island after a boy disappeared years earlier, and the odd things that occurred there afterward,
Tormented (1960) was a bit of a departure from Bert I. Gordon's usual low-budget monster fare, usually he was telling tales of giant creatures and enlarged or shrunken people, but this seaside haunter is a solid ghost tale. While handsomely shot it's none to subtle about the haunting aspects of it, it's a spook house flick for sure, but Richard Carlson is terrific as the cracked lead wracked by his own guilt and haunted by the spirit of his vengeful mistress. Young Susan Gordon, the director's daughter is also surprisingly good in the role of the young girl with torn loyalties, she's a standout. Not all the acting is quite as wonderful, Tom's fiancée and former spectral-mistress aren't winning any acting competitions here, but they get it done. It was also cool to see Joe Turkel from The Shining and Blade Runner pop-up here as the blackmailing beatnik-boatman.
The special effects used to achieve the spectral hauntings are a lot of schlocky fun, not ingenious by any stretch of the imagination, but certainly effective, we get the spectral form of Vi's ghost haunting Tom, her disembodied head and hand at certain points, with her talking ghost-head being a highlight for me, at least until they switch angles and you can easily tell that Carlson is holding the head of a mannequin!
I wouldn't want to oversell this b-flick haunter about a vengeful ghost-mistress as a top-notch ghost story but it certainly is an entertaining watch, handsomely shot by Ernest Laszlo (It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World), with some fun low-budget ghost shenanigans, plus the Tell-Tale Heart angle of it offers some fun turns from Carlson as the cracked, guilt-wracked murderer.
Audio/Video: Tormented (1960) arrives on region-free Blu-ray from Film Masters in 1080p HD framed in 1.85:1 widescreen, sourced from a 4K scan from original, 35mm archival elements. This is another impressive restoration from Film Masters, the image looks filmic with organic looking grain structures nicely exposed, black levels and grayscale are pleasing, with excellent fine detail and modest depth and clarity. Contrast looks excellent as well, and while there are some faint vertical lines noticable and the restoration process is visible in a few smeary spots it's never intrusive. It's nice to have the MST3K episode here for comparison, just to see how impressive a restoration this truly is compared to how its been seen my most folks.
Audio/Video: Tormented (1960) arrives on region-free Blu-ray from Film Masters in 1080p HD framed in 1.85:1 widescreen, sourced from a 4K scan from original, 35mm archival elements. This is another impressive restoration from Film Masters, the image looks filmic with organic looking grain structures nicely exposed, black levels and grayscale are pleasing, with excellent fine detail and modest depth and clarity. Contrast looks excellent as well, and while there are some faint vertical lines noticable and the restoration process is visible in a few smeary spots it's never intrusive. It's nice to have the MST3K episode here for comparison, just to see how impressive a restoration this truly is compared to how its been seen my most folks.
Audio comes by way of a English DTS-HD 2.0 dual-mono with optional English subtitles. Dialogue is nicely reproduced, there are no issues with source related noise or hiss, atmospherics like the sound of crashing waves and Vi's ghostly vocal hauntings and the eerie jazz score by Albert Glasser (Giant from the Unknown) sounds terrific as well. Film Masters do it again with another handsome restoration for a cult b-flick, this looks and sounds terrific.
As usual Film Masters' Blu-ray comes well-stocked with bonus features, we get an Audio commentary provided by film historian-writer-filmmaker Gary Don Rhodes; an Unreleased TV pilot of Famous Ghost Stories, made by Bert I. Gordon and hosted by Vincent Price that runs about 4-min, a very cool curios, this is just the intro with Price and the opening credits for the feature, which turns out to be a re-edit of Tormented. Also present is the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version of Tormented (1992), presented in 1:33.1 fullscreen that runs about 92 minutes; the new Ballyhoo Motion Pictures produced featurette Bert I. Gordon in the 1950s & 1960s: Bigger Than Life, featuring C. Courtney Joyner that runs 39-min, plus an 8-min archival interview with writer-producer-director Bert I. Gordon, Bert I. Gordon: The Amazing Colossal Filmmaker. There's also a new 20-min visual essay by The Flying Maciste Brothers, The Spirit is Willing: CineMagic and Social Discord in Bert I. Gordon’s “Tormented”, the 2-min Original Trailer, scanned in 4K from 35mm archival elements, presented in its raw format, plus a 2-min Recut Trailer using restored film elements.
The single-disc release arrives in a black keepcase with a single-sided wrap featuring the cool original illustrated movie poster. Inside there's an Illustrated 22-Page Booklet with some great writing on the flick from Tom Weaver, plus a bonus essay by John Wooley, former president of the Susan Gordon fan club, which he founded as a kid and who ended up becoming a personal friend of the actress, how cool is that!?!
Special Features:
- Unreleased TV pilot of Famous Ghost Stories, made by Bert I. Gordon and hosted by Vincent Price (4:14)
- Mystery Science Theater 3000 version of Tormented (1992), full feature (1:33.1), with captions (91:42)
- Bert I. Gordon in the 1950s & 1960s: Bigger Than Life, featuring C. Courtney Joyner (39:25 )
- Archival interview with writer-producer-director Bert I. Gordon, Bert I. Gordon: The Amazing Colossal Filmmaker (7:52)
- Audio commentary provided by film historian-writer-filmmaker Gary Don Rhodes
- New, visual essay by The Flying Maciste Brothers, The Spirit is Willing: CineMagic and Social Discord in Bert I. Gordon’s “Tormented” (20:13)
- New, visual essay by The Flying Maciste Brothers, The Spirit is Willing: CineMagic and Social Discord in Bert I. Gordon’s “Tormented” (20:13)
- Original trailer, scanned in 4K from 35mm archival elements, presented in its raw format (2:11)
- Recut trailer using restored film elements. (2:01)
- Recut trailer using restored film elements. (2:01)
- Illustrated 22-Page Booklet with essay by Tom Weaver with a bonus essay by John Wooley, former president of the Susan Gordon fan club and a personal friend of the actress.
Screenshots from the Film Masters Blu-ray:
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