Product: 13 Ghosts (1960)
Rating: 3.0
Not as much fun without William Castle's "Ghost Viewer"
Once upon a time there was a poor paleontologist named Cyrus Zorba (Charles Herbert) who learns he is heir to a mansion from his uncle Plato. So Cyrus moves his family, wife Hilda (Jo Morrow), son Buck (Donald Woods) and daughter Medea (Rosemary DeCamp), into the new digs. The problem is that Uncle Plato was a student of the occult who invented a nifty little device that captures ghosts. All of this is explained by Elaine, the old housekeeper, who is played by Margaret Hamilton (remember her, my pretties?). But the important thing here is that "13 Ghosts" was produced and directed by the inventive William Castle, which means there has to be a gimmick to get you to watch the movie.For "13 Ghosts" the gimmick was the "Ghost Viewer" which worked with "Illusion-o." This was actually one of Castle's best bits. The movie was shot in black-and-white, but the thirteen ghosts (duh) were tinted in red. The Ghost Viewer had strips of red and blue plastic: watch through the blue, you could see the ghosts really well. If you freaked, you could look through the red "ghost remover" and they would disppear. Of course, on the video tape you can forget about all this. You can always see the ghosts--bodies, body parts and even a lion--although not too clearly. Talk about killing the fun. But then there is the "Bed of Death," so it is not a total loss. I have to think that "13 Ghosts" is one of the few Castle films where they could duplicate the gimmick, so hopefully one day someone will revive Illusion-o and the Ghost Viewer. Until then, this tape is a poor substitute that does not quite make it to camp classic status.