Tormented is not a good film. Let’s get that right out the gate. Despite its length (74 mins), the pace drags and the film repeats itself. For every creepy moment, there’s three that don’t work, and another that is laughably bad. The acting is hit or miss, and there’s essentially four locations for the whole film, used again and again.
Buy Tormented 1960 Blu-rayBut it’s also kind of fun, for an old cheap ’60s clunker. It was directed by Bert I. Gordon, most famous for his series of movies about animals or things that got really, really big. King Dinosaur, Earth vs The Spider, and the immortal duo The Amazing Colossal Man and War of the Colossal Beast. Bert, who independently financed his films (and tended to make money) was also, with his wife, responsible for the special effects. It’s clear that’s the part of the filmmaking process he loved the most.
The story was just for delivering the effects sequences. So, the story for Tormented is simple: Tom Stewart, world-class jazz pianist, is about to get married to old money. Only his side girl Vi isn’t too crazy about the idea. She wants Tom and will happily wreck his life to break up the marriage. She tells him this conveniently at the top of a lighthouse on a remote island, and nobody knows she’s there. So, of course, she leaves without incident, right? Nope, she leans against a railing, which gives way under her ample form. And I mean ample – Juli Reding, the actress for Vi, looks like she would be rejected as a Barbie model for being too top heavy.
She holds onto the railing by one hand, the other stretched out to Tom… who needs a minute to think about it. Too late, she falls to her death on the rocks below. If you’ve looked at the cover art, you can guess what Vi gets up to next.
The rest of the film is a series of scenes of Tom Stewart being haunted, sometimes subtly and sometimes overtly, by the spirit of the dead Vi. Some of the scenes are genuinely creepy. The next morning, he spots Vi’s body out in the surf. He dives in, drags her to the beach… but the body deforms into a pile of knotted seaweed. It’s a strange, effective scene.
The spiritual bothering increases tension between Tom and his fiancé, Meg. He needs to use Sandy, Meg’s much younger sister, as a go-between. Sandy is played by Susan Gordon, daughter of the director and a minor child star in her own right. She co-starred with Danny Kaye in The Five Pennies. She’s a decent little actress. Most of the performances in the film are okay, if not remarkable.
The best is a small character played by Joe Turkel, later the bartender in The Shining. Here, he’s a ship captain who had taken Vi out to the island. He’s mad she never paid him for a return trip. When he cottons to what actually happened, he decides to blackmail Tom.
It adds interest to Tormented that is has this tonal duality. The genre is ghost story, but a lot of the story feels more like a film noir. Tom Stewart makes a terrible choice and finds himself embroiled in a world where no decision he makes can lead him anywhere but further and further down a dark path.
It has all the elements to make a terrific little film, especially with the world-class cinematographer Ernest Laszlo, several-time Oscar-nominee and one-time winner. He makes the most of the stark, limited sets, painting the beach community with shadows to beat any urban city sprawl. This is shown off in this impressive restoration job, transferred from the film’s original elements. There’s wear and tear on the film to be sure, and some blemishes, but it’s more than 60 years old and was cheap when it was made.
What a new transfer can’t do is improve the quality of Bert I. Gordon’s special effects, nor his taste. The primitive effects aren’t a real problem. They’re the whole reason the film was made and are often fun. The wispy form of the spectral Vi appearing over Tom’s shoulder can be effective. The disembodied hand stealing the wedding ring is a little goofier. Eventually, Vi’s head floating around repeating, again and again, “Tom Stewart killed me!” is not chilling but irritating. It makes you wish Tom had done a more thorough job.
This release of Tormented is not, I think, trying to argue it is an overlooked masterpiece. There’s a reason the movie ended up on Mystery Science Theater 3000, and there’s also a reason that episode is included on the disc. But just about every movie has its fans. The undoubtedly small group of Tormented backers are lucky to have a lovingly restored release, packed with lavish extras, for this little goofball of a film.
Tormented has been released on Blu-ray by Film Masters. Extras include a commentary track by film historian Gary Rhodes and Larry Blamire. Video extras include the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode of Tormented (92 min); “Bert I. Gordon: The Amazing Colossal Filmmaker” (8 min), an archival interview with the director; “Bigger than Life: Bert I. Gordon in the 1950’s and 1960’s” (40 min), a documentary about the director’s films and their productions; “The Spirit is Willing: Cinemage and Social Discord in Bert I. Gordon’s Tormented” (20 min), a video essay about the film by The Flying Maciste Brothers; The intro for a TV pilot of Famous Ghost Stories with Vincent Price, which ended up just being an edited version of Tormented (4 min). There’s also a pair of essays in the accompanying booklet, with an essay on the film and on the child star Susan Gordon.
