TERRIFIED (1963)

In a graveyard at night, a young man has been put into an open grave and a man in a ski mask pours cement into the grave, causing the guy to scream himself insane—literally. We later learn that the boy, Joey, brother to Marge, survived but is in an asylum, and the culprit is still at large. College-aged Marge (Tracy Olsen) works as a hostess at a diner run by Mr. Blake, a kind-hearted boss who has looked on her like a daughter ever since her parents died. The place where Joey was terrified almost to death is an abandoned part of town known as Ghost Town, and one night, Marge decides to head out there to talk to the cemetery caretaker, Crazy Bill, to see if he remembers anything about the night Joey was found. Marge's two boyfriends are with her at the diner. One is Ken (Rod Lauren, pictured), a college student, who seems intellectual and sensitive, and was close to Joey—his upsetting description of what happened to Joey is that "his mind snapped; he turned from a man to a slobbering oyster." He's writing a midterm paper on terror, in individuals and in societies (the Holocaust, the atom bomb). Her other boyfriend, David (Steve Drexel), is a more friendly, grounded guy—who looks about ten years older than her. He agrees to go with her to see Crazy Bill; they make their way through the creepy, empty buildings of Ghost Town only to discover Bill's dead body, impaled on the spikes of a fence. Ken winds up out there, too, and agrees to stay while they go back and get the sheriff. I was sure that Ken himself was the ski-masked terrorizer, but we hear that Joey has escaped and, in a long and somewhat repetitive sequence, we see Ken stalked through the empty street by Ski-Mask, who is trying to scare him to death or insanity, by threat of hanging and drowning. Ken's pretty sure it’s Joey, but we soon learn that Joey has been apprehended. So who’s the prowling villain and what is his motive?

This is one of five B-movies that teen-idol singer Rod Lauren (he had a top 40 hit with "If I Had a Girl") made in 1963. He’s broodily handsome and does a good enough job with the material, here and in THE CRAWLING HAND, but his career didn't last long—he married a Filipino movie star and left the business. (Years later, she was murdered and he was a suspect, but he skipped the country, and several years afterward, killed himself.) The movie is interesting in its concept of a killer who kills by instilling fear rather than using a gun or a knife, but the script is full of holes and the other actors are a bit disappointing, especially the dull Drexel. Most of it takes place in what seems like real time and the chase/catch/release scene between Ken and the killer goes on too long. The film does have a very good score by Michael Andersen. Lauren is the main reason to watch this, and when the focus is on Olsen and Drexel, your mind wanders. My favorite line: when David and Marge almost hit a jackrabbit on the road, Marge says it must have seen the headlights and froze; David replies philosophically, "Yeah… like most of us." [YouTube]