This is unique because, IMO, it was a great opportunity wasted by lazy editing.
To make sense of this, you should know the "backstory" that the producers shot this for a TV series, but it never got picked up by a network.
When they failed to get the TV show scheduled, they decided to patch together what they did shoot to make it a feature movie release (a very similar story to David Lynch's "Mulholland Drive").
As for the movie, this is a beautifully costumed, colorful, well lit, well made story with familiar faces set in London via Jack the Ripper. A notch above the average horror film.
BUT THEN COMES THE FEAR FLASHER AND THE HORROR HORN.
This is the most puzzling, wonderful and disappointing aspect of this. In the beginning, William Conrad's voice tells you to 1) close your eyes when you see the fear flasher and 2) turn your head when you hear the horror horn. This was reminiscent to Vincent Price's intro to "The Tingler", classic "gimmick" horror movie.
If you were in a theater where you can't fast forward and you've never seen the film before, this becomes a most interesting game of suspense. You are forever anticipating when the flashing may start or the horn may start sounding. (it wasn't really a horn, rather, an electronic sound)
In execution, however, the flash and the horn are terribly misused. First off, while we're given discreet instructions for either a visual or audible warning, the flashing and the horn ALWAYS happen at the same time.
They could have really played with us. Thank goodness they didn't tell us to turn our heads in one direction when you hear the horn but turn it in the other direction when it's just the flashing and use our hands to cover our faces when both were playing and then... At least they didn't go THAT far!
To my disappointment, however, the movie really DIDN'T have anything that merited such a gimmick. The fear flasher+horn were obviously added on after the fact. Compare that with the William Castle gimmicks which were clearly part of the story from the start with movies such as The Tingler.
But to make things more of a waste, when they *do* use the flash+horn it's at the WRONG TIMES. If you were "courageous" enough to keep looking, what your eyes were closed for that moment didn't show anything gruesome at all!
Better would have been to have turned the horn off, but keep the screen flashing. Then, to play with the audience's imagination, play gruesome sound effects with voices reacting to what's going on... then cut to an "after" shot.
Even with this fail, this movie remains a treat. Not only is it ironically funny to deal with the Fear Flasher, but the movie was pretty good without it. Not a classic, but a unique entry into the genre of 1960's color horror and a better movie than many others.
To make sense of this, you should know the "backstory" that the producers shot this for a TV series, but it never got picked up by a network.
When they failed to get the TV show scheduled, they decided to patch together what they did shoot to make it a feature movie release (a very similar story to David Lynch's "Mulholland Drive").
As for the movie, this is a beautifully costumed, colorful, well lit, well made story with familiar faces set in London via Jack the Ripper. A notch above the average horror film.
BUT THEN COMES THE FEAR FLASHER AND THE HORROR HORN.
This is the most puzzling, wonderful and disappointing aspect of this. In the beginning, William Conrad's voice tells you to 1) close your eyes when you see the fear flasher and 2) turn your head when you hear the horror horn. This was reminiscent to Vincent Price's intro to "The Tingler", classic "gimmick" horror movie.
If you were in a theater where you can't fast forward and you've never seen the film before, this becomes a most interesting game of suspense. You are forever anticipating when the flashing may start or the horn may start sounding. (it wasn't really a horn, rather, an electronic sound)
In execution, however, the flash and the horn are terribly misused. First off, while we're given discreet instructions for either a visual or audible warning, the flashing and the horn ALWAYS happen at the same time.
They could have really played with us. Thank goodness they didn't tell us to turn our heads in one direction when you hear the horn but turn it in the other direction when it's just the flashing and use our hands to cover our faces when both were playing and then... At least they didn't go THAT far!
To my disappointment, however, the movie really DIDN'T have anything that merited such a gimmick. The fear flasher+horn were obviously added on after the fact. Compare that with the William Castle gimmicks which were clearly part of the story from the start with movies such as The Tingler.
But to make things more of a waste, when they *do* use the flash+horn it's at the WRONG TIMES. If you were "courageous" enough to keep looking, what your eyes were closed for that moment didn't show anything gruesome at all!
Better would have been to have turned the horn off, but keep the screen flashing. Then, to play with the audience's imagination, play gruesome sound effects with voices reacting to what's going on... then cut to an "after" shot.
Even with this fail, this movie remains a treat. Not only is it ironically funny to deal with the Fear Flasher, but the movie was pretty good without it. Not a classic, but a unique entry into the genre of 1960's color horror and a better movie than many others.