Plustown
A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.
Erica Derrick
By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.
timlunn14727
As many before have stated, I first saw this when I was about 12, and it definitely made an impression. I have been a big fan of the Horror genre since I was quite young (7 or 8). I must say I thought the film actually took place in England, it just has that feel to it and the soundtrack as well. I later found out it was actually filmed in England with mostly English actors. I searched for this for many years before I actually got a hold of a VHS tape (not great quality either). I recently was able to acquire it on DVD doubled up with "It" from the same period and on the WB title list. I think it is extremely underrated with a great score and ahead of it's time filming techniques to go along with a great HP Lovecraft story! If you get the chance, snag it! You won't be sorry, it destroys anything put out as horror these days!
Leofwine_draca
As far as Lovecraftian adaptations go, this one isn't bad at all and is a lot better and more subtle than trash like THE DUNWICH HORROR, thanks to the literate script and engaging performances from a varied cast. Filmed in England but set in New England, the scenery is barren but beautiful and good use is made of these locations to convey a loneliness and isolation. While it's not a perfect film (the ending is FAR from perfect), it is certainly more adept at achieving the actual aims of Lovecraft in terms of a creepy, brooding atmosphere than many other so-called adaptations have been.The acting is pretty much great, especially from the two male leads. Gig Young is the ageing, imported American actor who was on the way out but still impresses, while Oliver Reed was the up-and-coming actor who also impresses in his turn as a brooding, rebellious youth with one thing on his mind. Carol Lynley is fine as the typically pretty blonde girl caught up in all the chaos, and Flora Robson puts in a fun frumpy turn. It's also nice to see old faces like Charles Lloyd Pack popping up in a film mainly full of youths.Funnily enough, the actual creature in the room isn't where most of the horror comes from in this film. As a sideline, the plot introduces a gang of male youths who view Lynley as a sexual object and will do anything to get her. Much of the film consists of her narrowly escaping from these men (primarily Reed) before she is finally trapped and cornered and turns the table on them, with predictably fatal results. The action scenes are kind of amusing in an unintentional way as Young uses special karate moves on the bad guys.This film's main flaw is that while it successfully builds up a lot of suspense as it goes along, the payoff is a big disappointment. The thing in the shuttered room doesn't even turn out to be a monster or a mutant, just a normal human being - what a cheat! There are a couple of mildly gory death scenes thrown in there but this film's main obsession is the dark sexual undercurrent. This makes it an interesting, well-shot, well-acted, and watchable little film which deserves to be seen by many more horror fans than it has been, as it seems to have somewhat sunk into obscurity these days.
wkduffy
After two strange attempts to buy "The Shuttered Room/It" WB horror two-fer flick on DVD from Amazon sellers and neither of them ever making it to my mailbox over a two-month span (is Oliver Reed intercepting my packages?), I finally found an Amazon seller up to the job of actually getting this thing into my DVD player.Anyway, the digital transfer of "The Shuttered Room," as stated by others, is not so bad--some artifacts here and there (so the film for all intents and purposes was not cleaned up), but the flick is anamorphic and fills a widescreen, which is nice. For those who have not seen it (or not seen it recently), the film is very deliberately and carefully made--that means the technical specs are up to snuff for a film shot in the late 60s anyway. The focus is clear and crisp, the colors are sharp and vivid. The settings are very pretty--even with all the "horror" lurking about.Two random thoughts: 1. For some reason, I remember the chained-up individual (keeping it vague here) as being horribly disfigured. But nope--it's just a regular person having a bad hair day. That was a bit disappointing--guess my memories of this horror are a bit blurry.2. Last, and most interesting: This film looks much, much closer to an early 1970s horror film than one released in 1966 to me; it always has. The film techniques, use of hand-held perspective shots, extreme close-ups, the very progressive soundtrack, Lynley's "heroine" who is both sad and brooding but not entirely a weakling, and the lyrical, dreamlike extended credits/introduction--all of it adds up to a film that seems, in hindsight, to be ahead of its time. In some ways, the "dreadful feel" of the film, the style of it, the haunting quality of it, seems to predict so many 70s horror films that were yet to come--Zohra Lampert's sympathetic heroine in "Let's Scare Jessica to Death," or maybe the strange isolationist townsfolk in "The Brotherhood of Satan." While comparisons can be misleading, I'll just say this feels like a film DECIDEDLY NOT looking backwards toward the old days of Gothic Hammer horror (although "The Shuttered Room" has its Gothic moments); instead, it tries very hard to be...contemporary, looking forward to the next decade, which would be 1970. And I think it works. I presume credit for that goes to director David Greene. It seems odd then that Greene, who apparently showed a lot of promise early on in his directing career, would not amount to much over time (or, so says Phil Hardy in the Overlook Film Encyclopedia). Strange.
slayrrr666
"The Shuttered Room" is a severely disappointing entry.**SPOILERS**Receiving an inheritance, Mike, (Gig Young) and his wife Susanna Kelton, (Carol Lynley) return to her home on Dunwich Island after inheriting an old mill on the island. Meeting with the locals, they all warn them away from the mill for fears of an unknown curse from her childhood nightmare that still haunts her. When her Aunt Agatha, (Flora Robson) finds that they're desire to stay there and turn it into a summer-house, she feels it will unleash the curse again, and as they spend more time together, they start to believe in the curse and try whatever they can to get away before it becomes too late.The Good News: This was an incredibly disappointing effort. That it can go so wrong after it's brilliant opening moments is a mystery, but only sporadic moments afterward are any good. The opening here is classic, where a young child is attacked menacingly, then begins to fight off the parents before being dragged away and locked in a strange room, all done through the attacker's POV. It's brutal, shocking and intense, which is a fantastic way to open the film and get some good points going. There's also the fact that it's all pre-credit, so nothing is known of what's happening, making for a better scene. After arriving on the island, they are harassed and tormented by the locals, including a crazy, imaginative, and highly memorable part where one is pulled along behind a truck by a metal chain while standing on a wooden box as he's dragged over the pavement, with their car caught in the dust and flying debris behind them. All of this is done in the opening half of the film, and manages to be it's best part. Though it does play up the haunted-house style of scares nicely, there's a nice and sleazy undertow to the last half and it concludes with a Gothic-standard burning house, all of which are watchable, but can't really compare to the opening.The Bad News: There was a couple of flaws to this. Perhaps the biggest is that the film isn't a haunted house film at all, which is a huge cheat. It's hard to be able to take the hauntings seriously when the revelation occurs, which is such a cheat that it takes the viewer right out of the film, and are forced with a redundant back-story explanation after we all ready know everything anyway that gives way into the twist which, playing off that we already know what's happened, comes as no surprise at all and feels there simply to add to the chase through the house at the end and tie up the loose threads. Also, the focus away from the haunted house story and make it about the psychotic family torturing them through some of the lamest means possible for the rest of the time. The scenes with the brothers out on the highway are just terrible and don't have any sort of thrills or chills to them, and the fight is a major disappointment. These are just plain irritating and don't really do much of anything to help the film. Also rather hurtful is the fact that the film is just deadly dull and boring during the middle segments. While there's a few single, short scenes of the haunting going on, there's just way more scenes in here that are just so boring that it's hard to stay interested in them. They're just so low-key that it's hard to stay all that interested in them at all, as they consist of nothing more than just never-ended scenes of them wandering around the house while she freaks out over nothing and it all seems to just blend together one scene after another of the same thing. It's not exactly the fastest moving film, and combined with the cheat, really knock this one down.The Final Verdict: This was a hugely disappointing effort, mainly because it should've been much better than it really was and becomes a huge missed opportunity. Really only see this one if you're into the type or find some kind of enjoyment from these types, otherwise steer clear of this one.Today's Rating-R: Violence, children in danger, themes of incest and Brief Nudity
