The Haunting aka The Terror 1963

Seemingly improvised on the sets of another film over a fleeting period, The Haunting, better known as The Terror but not terribly well known as either, is an oddity even by Roger Corman’s standards. With Francis Ford Coppola amongst the producers and Monte Hellman on wardrobe, there’s plenty of behind the scenes talent, while in front of the camera there’s a substantial role for Corman cameo specialist Dick Miller, and a generation-spanning central twosome of Boris Karloff and Jack Nicholson. While no-one would doubt that Nicholson has proved many times since that he’s a great actor, he’s not quite in his comfort zone as an army officer in Napoleonic war era France. Karloff is on much more familiar ground as a widowed Baron who is haunted by the ghost of his wife. There’s some plot-twists here, seemingly improvised, that really don’t make any sense, but there’s a high curiosity value of watching such a motely crew of actors; it might come up short of horror, but The Haunting is a strange document of old and Hollywood collectively bending over to make a buck.