Tormented (1960)
Days before his wedding, a jazz pianist lets his vengeful former lover fall to her death from a lighthouse rather than save her, and her vindictive ghost returns to unravel his new engagement and his sanity.
A rare non-giant-monster outing for schlock specialist Bert I. Gordon, Tormented trades his usual oversized creatures for a more intimate ghost story, built around cheap but inventive optical effects — a disembodied head, footprints appearing in sand — typical of his low-budget resourcefulness.
Background
Tormented is a 1960 horror film directed by Bert I. Gordon, a filmmaker known for low-budget monster pictures. Here he works in a more intimate ghost-story format rather than his usual oversized creatures. Richard Carlson plays a jazz pianist whose vengeful former lover returns from the dead to unravel his new engagement. The film runs about seventy-five minutes and relies on cheap but inventive optical effects typical of Gordon’s low-budget resourcefulness. Its premise, built around guilt and a fatal lighthouse fall, is simpler and more contained than the spectacle of his creature features.
What to watch for
Look for the film’s optical effects, which include a disembodied head and footprints that appear in sand. These effects are typical of Gordon’s inventive use of inexpensive techniques. The story’s central guilt drives the plot: the pianist’s choice to let the woman fall from a lighthouse rather than save her, and her return just before his wedding. The lighthouse and coastal setting give the film a bleak and isolated atmosphere. Compared with Gordon’s giant-creature films, the ghost story is more restrained, and its scares depend on suggestion and the viewer’s sense of guilt. Notice how the film uses small practical effects to build its supernatural menace.
