Tormented

Starring: Richard Carlson Director: Bert I. Gordon

A killer is haunted by the ghost of his murdered girlfriend.

This is defiantly, a Bert I Gordon production, made for drive-in consumption. What does plot, continuity or even common sense have to do with steaming up the windows of your dad's Dodge, on a Friday night?

The special effects are cheesy and cheap. The story repeatedly requires the viewer to abandon logic. There are no likable characters in the movie (I was hoping that Carlson-or anyone-would kill that obnoxious little girl after her first scene). Most of the characters are so badly drawn that they're not even good caricatures-they're little more than cardboard cutouts that Gordon and company moved around the sets, as the story (as it is) is played out in front of his camera.

But, throw away the dross and concentrate on the story of the young lover cast aside for the "good girl." The contrast between the two girls makes this thing work. Goody-2-shoes represents virtue. She's the girl for whom Carlson threw over the bad girl. This is homeroom soap opera, at its best. How many High School seniors are "tormented" by the girl who put out, but didn't get to keep the boy who moves on to a more "popular" or "acceptable" girl? How many 16 year old girls know the humiliation of being used by some young stud, only to be snubbed around his friends or ignored when he hooks up with someone "better". Ultimately, it is the ghost that much of the female half of the film's original audience could relate. She had been wronged and revenge was sweet.

It's a morality tale, a soap opera and a sweet little ghost story. It's typical 50's drive-in material, but, in its own way, this strange little movie works.

"Tormented" tries very hard to be dark and scarey but winds up being just depressing and disgusting. The only thing vaguely redeeming about this movie is that it occasionally manages to be pathetic enough to be funny.

I was particularly bemused by the sailor/milkman/blackmailer and his incomprehensible slang lingo.

With the old blind woman who is so "wise" deciding to walk up the decaying and dangerous lighthouse stairs all by herself, "Tormented" destroys any sense of involvement or tension with the sheer inane and unrealistic stupidity of the characters involved.

The ending is predictable yet nauseating, when he leads up the little girl with obvious intent to kill her and then falling of and finally ending the film with his demise.
This peice of cinematic smeg left me with the taste of recycled vomit that has been coughed up, choked back and swallowed only to be regurgitated a second time.