The line “Tom Stewart killed me” to me is the most memorable piece of dialogue spoken in Bert I. Gordon’s Tormented, a 1960 ghost horror mystery film from Allied Artists Picture Corporation where a man murders the woman in which has had an affair with. With this picture, Bert I. Gordon goes from making movies with giants to a film with a ghost!
Screen legend Richard Carlson (The Magnetic Monster, The Valley of Gwangi, It Came from Outer Space) plays Tom Stewart, a pianist who is engaged and will shortly be married to Meg Hubbard (Lugene Sanders) but is also in a steamy affair with Vi Mason (Juli Redding). Because he is feeling guilty because he will soon be married, Tom wants to end the affair but Vi refuses to let it end and intends to blackmail Tom so they will be forced to stay together! Vi falls off a railing at the top of a lighthouse where they are arguing, and Tom hardly reaches for her hand, and decides to pull his hand completely back. The railing proceeds to break, and Vi spills off from high above into the water, causing her death. But Vi, even in death, still continues to torment Tom to prevent him from marrying Meg! Meg’s young daughter Sandy (Susan Gordon, Bert’s real-life daughter) who strongly admires and loves Tom, starts to notice a change in Tom’s behavior and suspects something is wrong, especially when he tells the poor child he wants to be left alone. It gets even worse for Tom as a beatnik ferryman that dropped Vi off at the island where Tom resides wants to collect $5.00 for giving Vi her ride! Tom hesitates, and the now suspicious ferryman decides to stick around looking to collect more than the $5.00! It still gets worse for Tom and the ferryman, but I won’t spoil the fun!
This crazy fun ghost story is directed by the one and only Bert I. Gordon who also credited with being a co-writer, co-producer and did his own special effects for his picture. Do-it-all Gordon’s special effects wizardry in Tormented are chillingly effective. There are some amazing effects which include a talking decapitated head and ghostly images of Vi surrounding Tom. Richard Carlson as Tom is fantastic as a guilty murderer, so guilt-ridden in fact that it causes him to hallucinate images of Vi. No one else but Tom sees Vi after her death.
As most know, Bert I. Gordon was known for his crafty work on The Magic Sword, The Spider, The Cyclops, The Amazing Colossal Man and War of the Colossal Beast and other great science fiction fantasy films mostly with giants. In Tormented he goes in a different direction, creating a creepy ghost story. And arguably one of his best!
Film Masters has hit another grand slam with their Blu-ray release of Tormented. The Region Free disc has been given a 4K scan from the original 35mm elements. The widescreen image looks fantastic with solid, inky black levels, rich whites, and a balanced grey scale. I felt the black levels were plenty dark and not lacking in detail. Both the actors and the scenery look marvelous and there is plenty of texture and detail. As many know, Warner Brothers did release Tormented on DVDr as part of their archive collection years ago, which was also excellent. This Blu-ray is a step above that with looking even richer, more detailed, with more texture to the image.
On their Blu-ray, both English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 and Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtracks are the options which has been the case with all their releases. Both sound great and it is just a matter of preference with either option. The two options have crisp dialogue, with the snazzy music by Albert Glasser and Calvin Jackson along with action sounds and screaming coming in clearly and perfectly balanced. No age-old anomalies such as hissing, or drop-offs were detected. English SDH subtitles are offered for this release.
The Blu-ray is chock full of extras. There is a commentary track by Gary Rhodes, a friend of the late Joe Turkel (the beatnik ferryman who is blackmailing Tom) and author of The Birth of the American Horror Film. In his commentary he talks about the writer of Tormented, George Worthing Yates and his films. He discusses and reflects on Bert I. Gordon, Richard Carlson, and their films.
There is a booklet essay on Tormented written by the great Tom Weaver. There is also a bonus essay provided by John Wooley who focuses on Susan Gordon.
Ballyhoo Motion Pictures presents “Bert I. Gordon in the 1950s & 1960s: Bigger Than Life,” featuring C. Courtney Joyner. This is a forty-minute documentary covering Gordon’s career in the fifties and sixties with C. Courtney Joyner discussing it with great enthusiasm. This is a must watch.
Another Ballyhoo Motion Pictures extra is an archival interview with writer/director/producer Bert I. Gordon. In this featurette, he discusses his film life and history.
Another groovy extra is the MST3K version of Tormented. This episode was part of the 4th season of the show. It is presented in full screen and looks the same as it does on the MST3K Volume 6 DVD. This is how I was first exposed to Tormented, by watching this episode. You can see why it was selected to be part of the show and makes for a great “experiment” for MST3K. There are lots of Bert I. Gordon films which were part of the MST3K TV series and is a great way to get introduced to many of his films!
There is a new visual essay by The Flying Maciste Brothers (Howard S. Berger and Kevin Marr) which runs for about 20 minutes. In this essay, they compare Tormented to The Telltale Heart and discuss other tidbits.
There is an unreleased TV pilot episode of Famous Ghost Stories, with Vincent Price, which ended up being an edited version of Tormented and runs for about 5 minutes.
Trailers for Tormented round out the supplements. You get the original trailer and a new one that is scanned in 4K from 35mm archival elements.
This Blu-ray release by Film Masters is a must for fans of films in this era and especially Bert I. Gordon film fans. This is an awesome package, with fantastic audio and video quality, with a plethora of extras making this a superb package and should be on the shelves of many classic film collectors!
Tormented
Director –Bert I. Gordon
Cast- Richard Carlson, Susan Gordon
Country of Origin-USA
Distributor – Film Masters
Number of Discs – 1
Reviewed by – David Steigman
Date – 4/7/2024