Terror, The

In The Terror, Lt. Andre Duvalier (Nicholson), an officer in Napoleon's army of 18th century France, has been separated from his regiment. Wandering near the coast, he spies on a young woman (Knight), and calls out to her. When she fails to acknowledge, he follows her into the dark surf and strangely loses consciousness. He awakens in a house tended by an old woman (Neumann), who claims not to know the mysterious lady. On his way once again, Andre comes upon the castle of Baron Victor Frederick Von Leppe (Karloff). There he learns that the girl is in fact the spirit of the Baron's late wife, being used as a pawn by the witchy Katrina, who is bent on driving the elderly Baron to suicide. Famous for being one of Jack Nicholson's earliest film roles, the film was shot on sets remaining from the shoot of the iconic horror film The Haunted Palace. Although officially credited to Roger Corman, The Terror had a total of five collaborative directors, including Nicholson himself and Francis Ford Coppola. (Gary Reber)

There are no special features.

The 1.83:1 1080p AVC picture is claimed to be the fully restored version from the 35 mm archival material but is not presented in its original aspect ratio, which was 1.85:1. The imagery is very dated with color by Pathé. Hues are rich and warm, but vary in saturation extensively, the interior scenes nicely saturated with deep blacks and vivid reds. Fleshtones exhibit at times a bit of red push, but not objectionably. While the interior imagery is generally clean, no doubt due to aggressive DNR, the exterior scenes often consist of stock footage of the castle and crashing waves, which is extremely grainy and digitally noisy. Resolution is generally good, with sharp imagery. Still, overall, this is a mediocre picture restored from dated elements. (Gary Reber)

The DTS-HD Master Audio™ 2.0-channel monaural soundtrack is mediocre throughout and sounds compressed, with absolutely no dynamic characteristics. Atmospherics sound flat, as well as the occasional sound effect. Still, the sound is generally free of clicks and pops and other degradations. Ronald Stein's orchestral score is quite satisfying and nicely complementary. Dialogue varies in quality and presence, but is always intelligible. Overall, this is an undistinguished soundtrack with a dated sonic character. (Gary Reber)