Coventry Even though I daresay of myself that I know quite a lot about horror, I had never heard or read anything about "Terrified" before. When I accidentally stumbled on it via YouTube, I immediately wanted to see it solely based on its juicy one-phrase plot description: "A masked lunatic kills off people in an abandoned ghost town". That's a fairly straightforward and unusual premise for an early sixties horror film, and I also read in the user-comments around here that many fans still have fond memories of watching the film on late- night television and remembering that they were, well… terrified! I must admit that the first 15-20 minutes exist of astounding and genuinely macabre horror footage. It's almost amazing how darkly atmospheric and unsettling "Terrified" is during its opening sequences, with a grisly on-screen murder (someone is buried alive in a grave with wet cement) and the discovery of a body impaled on a fence. The set-pieces are also uniquely eerie (old cemetery, ghost town), there are lots of traditionally spooky touches (big hairy spiders, cobwebs, hanging noose dangling in front of the window…), subtle music and the masked murderer still comes across as relentless. The only thing missing, in fact, is a semi-decent explanation of what is going on. It must have something to do with a beautiful girl, Marge, whose heart every guy in town – including the killer - wants to conquer. But then, sadly enough, the whole promising set-up falls apart like an unstable house of cards. The identity of the killer can be guessed within the first few sequences, the pivot characters start doing and saying things that make absolutely no sense, the masked psycho makes the dreadful mistake of talking too much and everything starts to become dull, dull, dull! To get an idea of how boring "Terrified" gets, just count the number of times that Marge and her lead admirer sit in their car (driving very calmly and serene even though they know their pal is in lethal danger) and talk irrelevant nonsense to each other! Towards the final act the boredom was quite unendurable and I hardly paid attention anymore to the denouement, which wasn't too much of a problem since we all knew already who the killer was and what his motivations were.

Rainey Dawn Another minor thriller that has it's ups and downs. Some scenes are really good, others are just long and boring. They could have cut off the extra 21 minutes and made an hour long film out of this one easily and made a film that more people would be apt to watch or like better.It's not a haunted house as the plot summary suggests, it's a place that looks like it could be in a haunted house film. So the plot summary is misleading in that way but it is true a masked "someone" is killing people (and I won't say who that someone is).It's far from an awful 'B' film but it's not one you would call really good either, it's so-so at best. If you happen upon this film it is worth a watch but don't expect a lot out of it. The poster and the film's summary is a bit better than the film really is.Best parts of the film are the opening and the scene with the spiders.4/10

Michael_Elliott Terrified (1963) *** (out of 4)As one character explains, fear is the ultimate weapon that will force countries to fight one another and force one person to kill another. If someone has fear then they can be destroyed or destroy anyone in their way. A small town is being stalked by a maniac wearing a mask and this maniac likes to use fear as his weapon. One way of gaining fear is by playing chicken on the road forcing people to make up their mind on which way to turn the wheel. Another way to gain fear is by burying the victims alive so they can slowly count their final seconds before their air supply is gone.Terrified is a wonderfully entertaining picture that goes on the same tactics used by director William Castle. In this film, the director tries every way possible to make the viewer feel uneasy and the entire film is about making the viewer go into a state of fear. The film certainly isn't horrifying but it does contain some wonderful atmosphere and some incredibly well directed scenes that do add a bit of eeriness, which makes this a perfect little sleeper that not too many have seen.There's a wonderful sequence in the middle of the film where the maniac is stalking a victim inside a house. As the victim tries to make an escape, the maniac slowly walks behind him closing any door he goes through so that the victim can't go back but instead he must continue going forward where he will eventually be out of places to run. This scene lasts a good ten minutes and the thing gets more nail biting as every new door is closed. The one problem with the film is that there are way too many dialogue scenes where characters are trying to predict who the killer is. This here really takes away some of the tension and it would have played better without the characters guessing at who the maniac is. There's a shorter version of this movie available that is missing this dialogue so perhaps that version would be even better. This DVD contains the uncut, 79-minute version of the film.

josebut8 I just saw "Terrified" for the first time on Rhino's "Horrible Horrors" collection. It was really quite good. Sure, it was super low budget and kind of stupid, but the villain gave me the willies. He runs around this ghost town in a suit and cape (I think) and he wears a hood (or is it a ski mask?) that only shows his eyes. The thing about it that truly creeped me out was that he ran in and out of scenes really fast and for some reason this was actually scary...I don't know why that is. Maybe it made him completely unpredictable. He didn't do any of the usual things these guys do when they stalk someone. He kept letting people go and then would recapture them and so on...all with this creepy whisper voice and super disturbing giggle. He was also a real kick-*** fighter! There's this one fight in a cave that looks almost like it's a real fight. You can tell this one actor is really trying to get away (or he's just an excellent actor...kind of a poor man's James Dean). It's sort of a re-working of "Phantom of the Opera" and there's a touching denouement on the part of the guy playing the villain. But I have to say, if I'm ever in a ghost town after sundown, I just may be looking over my shoulder, and I just may be...Terrified!