Horror Movies of the 60's: 13 Ghosts

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While Psycho

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and Peeping Tom

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caught attention, another horror/suspense movie was released in 1960: 13 Ghosts. The movie was the work of producer-director William Castle. During the early-60's Castle took the B-movie to another level and unlike Roger Corman (more about him later) Castle used the horror genre by using props (for this movie patrons were given special 3-D glasses called "Illusiono"). The movie's protagionists are the Zorba family: Cyrus (Donald Woods) a doctor who is married to Hilda (Rosemary DeCamp) and they have a teenage daughter named Medea (Jo Morrow) and a younger son named Buck (Charles Herbert).

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They are poor and things turn bad when a company takes away their furniture on the same day of Buck's birthday! Because Cyrus couldn't pay his university bills. As Buck blows out his birthday candles he wishes for no one to take away their furniture. A few moments later a man arrives at the door with a telegram stating that Cyrus' uncle Plato has died and has inherited the house. The Zorba family jumps at the chance and goes to the house south of Los Angeles. As fate seemed to have it, the house is beautiful and they soon meet Plato's caretaker Ellen Zacharias (Margret Hamilton). But what they don't know is that Plato was an expert of talking to ghosts. The family then uses an Ouija board.

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When Buck uses the board he asks if there are ghosts. The answer is yes and the number is 13. To make it worse the Zorbas must stay in the house or it will be sold to the state of California. As that were not enough the family discovers Plato's journal and reads that he is one of the thirteen ghosts and he is #12. Number 13 hadn't been discovered. Who is it? Could one of the Zorba's be next?

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Director Castle used a feature in which the ghosts would appear in different colors. The movie was remade in 2001. It's also important to know that the 1960's marked the end of the B-movie and underground film.