13 Ghosts

 William Castle is finely regarded as the "extremely" poor man's Hitchcock. He produced many of the silly, fun, and ultimately entertaining chiller/thrillers of the '50s and early '60s. While studios seem to think today's adolescents require more and more gruesome mutilations and horrifying deaths, Castle felt they only needed more marketing gimmicks, eg. Plastic skeletons flying across the theater, and similar pranks. With the release of "13 GHOSTS", Castle had the idea of "Illusion-O", something that COLUMBIA TRISTAR HOME ENTERTAINMENT hasn't forgotten with the dvd release! Utilizing a small pair of "3-d" like glasses, with two tints, the viewer has the option of "seeing" the ghosts during specific "tinted" sequences, or ignoring them, by looking through a "ghost-remover" tinted glass during the same scenes! The premise for the film is fun in itself! A poor family is about to be thrown out of their home, when a potential windfall arrives via telegram. They've just inherited an old house from a crazy uncle. The house is supposed to have 12 ghosts within it, and if they find a "13th" victim, they'll all be freed! The scares are all fun, and so is practically everything about this film! "WIZARD OF OZ" fans will love seeing Margaret Hamilton as the maid here! COLUMBIA TRISTAR has included two formats for the film, both with 1.85:1 aspect ratio and 16:9 enhancement. One version is the standard black&white treatment. The 2nd version offers the "Illusion-O" format! While there's some grain in both versions, the contrast is generally quite good, with deep blacks and grays. The image is extremely sharp in almost every scene! Any defects are due to the film's age, which is now over 40 years! The "Illusion-O" format offers the same black&white transfer, and specific "Ghost-scenes" wherein color tints allow for the viewer to either choose to see the ghost image or ignore it via the special glasses included here. Unfortunately, COLUMBIA TRISTAR has only supplied "one" pair of glasses, although more are available at $2.95 plus shipping each! The original monaural track is intact here. But, while there's limited fidelity, there's also a refreshing lack of distortion and hiss! There is a featurette included, "THE MAKING OF ILLUSION-O", that's nostalgic and worth viewing! It's short, but allows for some information about the process and comments from a film historian as well as two other fans of Castle.