Titreenp SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Tedfoldol everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Hayleigh Joseph This is ultimately a movie about the very bad things that can happen when we don't address our unease, when we just try to brush it off, whether that's to fit in or to preserve our self-image.

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Claudio Carvalho Cyrus Zorba (Donald Woods) works in a museum and is completely broken. His wife Hilda Zorba (Rosemary De Camp) calls him and tells that their furniture has just been takes since he has not paid the installments. During the night, Cyrus, Hilda and their teenage daughter Medea Zorba (Jo Morrow) celebrate the birthday of their son and brother Buck Zorba (Charles Herbert), who is a fan of horror books, and he wishes to have a house of their own with furniture. Out of the blue, Cyrus learns that he has inherited an old mansion from his uncle Dr. Zorba. He visits the lawyer Benjamen Rush (Martin Milner) that tells that the house is haunted and he can not sell it. Further, together with the house, he receives the weird housekeeper Elaine Zacharides (Margaret Hamilton), a hidden treasure and the collection of 12 ghosts that belonged to Dr. Zorba, who was a master of the occultism.The family moves to the mansion and soon Cyrus discovers a set of special goggles that makes possible to see the ghosts. When Buck accidentally discovers the hidden fortune in the house, the ambitious Benjamin lures the boy with the intention of stealing the money for him. But Dr. Zorba's ghost is also in the house and will protect his family. "13 Ghosts" is an original movie directed by William Castle, actually a family entertainment. The plot is very simple but the greatest attractions are the ghosts in Dr. Zorba's mansion. The DVD delivers special goggles that allows the viewer to see the ghosts in a unique frightening experience. The only problem is to repeat the scenes to share the goggles since everybody wants to see the ghosts. My vote is six.Title (Brazil): "13 Fantasmas" ("13 Ghosts")

AaronCapenBanner William Castle directed this amusing comedy/thriller about the Zorba family, who have just inherited a house from Cyrus's(played by Donald Woods) uncle, a reclusive inventor who created a set of special goggles that enable the viewer to see the 12 ghosts said to haunt the home. So wife Hilda(played by Rosemary De Camp) daughter Madea(played by Jo Morrow) and son Buck(played by Charles Herbert) move in, to discover that the ghosts are real, and that there is a hidden treasure in the house, and that someone will kill to find it, thus creating the 13th ghost... Fun film used the "Illusion-O" gimmick of giving film goers tinted glasses so that they can also see the ghosts with the characters. Margaret Hamilton and Martin Milner costar in effective roles.

LobotomousMonk The opening shots are accompanied by screams and shrieks as the frame is filled with still shots of ghost drawings. At the heart of this story is something familiar - a child's wish. Unfortunately, despite a theme of transparency, the story gets convoluted and hazy with the wishes and desires of many other characters. The strongest element of the story is thus diluted much like the images of the ghosts themselves. The direction of Castle is nothing too spectacular either. The juxtaposition of daytime 3-pt lighting set-ups with the shadowy noir lighting setups in the haunted house are rendered disjointed through rushed ellipses in the script. The framing and staging/blocking is too tableau and renders the performances seemingly stilted. Some of the tricks are a little too cute (a fly is zapped by Zorba's "ghost viewers" why!?). Castle gets some inspiration from Margaret Hamilton who he was able to cast much better this time (Texas, Brooklyn and Heaven was a waste) and he frames her well with low angle shots and obscure lighting in the backgrounds of her shots. There are plot contrivances (as always with Castle) with the most ludicrous being that the family would stay in a house where they had all clearly witnessed a supernatural act (Dad explains that they are all just tired and therefore suggestive - doubtful the audience would relate to this sentiment). The questions raised by the audience regarding subletting are not addressed while White and Castle seem to think it is sufficient to infuse the script with a song-and-dance about potential auctioning of the house if contracts are not followed to the letter. A bunch of naive characters presumes a naive audience (never a good thing) and as mentioned above, the story would have rung truer had it focused on the possibility of a deeper connection between the ghosts and the little boy (maybe even a psychic one). The Dark Castle lot tromps through all the failures of this film to make an even bigger mess in the remake (in the remake, the little boy doesn't even care about the ghosts - not even the one of his own mother!). The effectiveness of the gimmick of Illusion-O is about as thin as their plastic you look through to see the ghosts on screen. That being said, the masses love novel souvenirs and Castle comes through on that end this time.

charmaine70 I actually loved this movie (and so did my six year old!)..... I watched it over and over again with him! The "special effects" are quirky and funny and clearly 1960's but that was the allure of the movie to me. It was Vintage Royalty Gold and I immediately became a fan of "William Castle" Movies. I loved many of the scenes: 1. Appearance of ghosts were quite strange and quirky. 2.The Seance, with the Ouiji Board gave me the chills...which was interesting, because the special effects were quite odd. 3. Then the diabolical, attorney who's trying to get the treasure from the bowels of the house who meets an untimely demise by being "smooshed" in a canopied bed that becomes a death chamber. (OK then....). Watch it...you just might like it.