User reviews

William Castle set out to make a fun, spooky, scarey picture for anyone who ever believed (or wanted to believe) in ghosts, and the result, 13 GHOSTS, is a marvelous and memorable little picture, that even after 40-odd years, still has creeps, scares, thrills and fun galore.

If at all possible, see it the way it was meant to be seen- - -with proper Ghost Viewers-(available with the DVD edition) -so you can experience Illusiono, by which you can actually see the ghosts in Ectoplasmic Color!

The plot, acting and production values may be unsophisticated, but what matter?- -The important thing is THE GHOSTS- -and they are all there as promised, including the mysterious thirteenth ghost- -and a wonderfully familiar witch (who was delighted to play the part)- -

This is a great movie for kids (and adults) who love ghosts and spooky stuff, but are not at all ready (or desirous) of watching a movie full of gore, putrescent language or non-stop violence.

You'll remember the ghosts, the fun and the thrills, for years to come.

13 Ghosts has stood the test of time well, as have most of Castle's films. While much is made of the gimmick of seeing the ghosts with 3d glasses, the movie itself is well made and not just a vehicle to carry the gimmick. Seeing the movie on television or video without the 3d glasses (but with the ghosts visible) makes you realize this is a well made film.

The scene where the father encounters the ghosts for the first time in the hidden room is quite spooky, and the special effects are almost hypnotic to watch. The story behind the ghosts being in the house is developed quite well, and makes the ghosts themselves more enjoyable. The ghosts range from almost comical to truly frightening, and it is fun to wait and see what kind of spirit you will encounter next.

The house itself is a rather nice piece of real estate, and I'm sure some people have driven around Los Angeles trying to find it. Martin Milner plays the lawyer who facilitates the will giving the family the house, and it is interesting to see him in his pre-Adam 12 days.

13 Ghosts is definitely worth watching, especially around Halloween. While some may find the plot and idea less than satisfying, I found it to be very spooky. And you really do get to see all 13 ghosts!

13 Ghosts is a real classic haunted house style ghost story. Films like this wouldn't do very well these days (hence the reason the remake is so different) as the chills mostly come in the form of wind whistling through windows and pots being thrown off kitchen shelves; things which wouldn't scare people anymore. However, it's delightful to see a film like this - especially one directed by one of the kings of horror entertainment; William Castle. 13 Ghosts works from the assumption that its audience wants to believe in ghosts; and the result is a cheerful little flick that Castle manages to steer away from patronisation and keep firmly within the realms of the fun horror film. The story is halfway between a tale of ghosts and a story about mad science, and we follow a family who find themselves between a rock and a hard place when the repossession men take their furniture and the father's uncle dies, leaving them his house. However, he dabbled in the occult; and the house that he's left his nephew's family is filled with ghosts!

Hot on the heels of his successes with Vincent Price starring films, The Tingler and House on Haunted Hill; 13 Ghosts is another gimmicky film with over the top special effects, and once again Castle does a great job of entertaining the audience. The plot doesn't have a lot of originality, but it doesn't matter because it's successful where it counts. The family are shown as the classic American set up of a father, mother, daughter and son; and they're all very easy to get on with, which makes both of the 'evil' subplots easy to buy into. The special effects are one of the most notable things about this film. William Castle clearly doesn't subscribe to the idea of 'less is more', and 13 Ghosts shows that quite clearly. The ghosts here leave nothing to the imagination, and I was very happy with that as the main reason I don't usually like ghost stories is that they take too long to get going. This one doesn't suffer from that, and although it's a bit silly at times - 13 Ghosts is a real good time, and comes highly recommended to all!

I was 8 years old when this movie came out. We saw it as a family at the Baseline Drive-in. At the time it really scared me and my siblings. I just saw it recently on video and my impressions now are of course different. What I remember were the special glasses that you had to use to see or not to see the ghosts. William Castle at the time was the PT Barnum of horror movies and this was one of his latest gimmicks. Probably what I remember the most was finding for weeks afterward the discarded special glasses in our families orange grove since we lived about 1 mile from the drive-in and our road was on the way home for many people. My dad couldn't stand trash on our property and would pay each of us 5 cents for each one we brought to him.

Schlockmeister William Castle's "13 Ghosts" is one of his classic horror films of the late 1950s/early 1960s. Castle was known, at least during this time, for gimmicks - the gimmick for this movie was special glasses to see the ghosts.

Absent-minded paleontologist Cyrus Zorba (Donald Woods), not to be confused with the Dr. Zorba played by Sam Jaffe on the Ben Casey TV show, inherits his eccentric uncle's house. His uncle Plato Zorba collected ghosts. 11 ghosts, including a killer Italian chef, a headless lion tamer and his lion that for some reason is split in half, a few flaming ghosts, and, for ghost #12, the late Plato Zorba.

Uncle Plato (apparently suffocated in a canopy bed) was discovered by his housekeeper Elaine Zacharides, played by the late, great Margaret Hamilton (best known as the Wicked Witch of the West in "The Wizard of Oz". Before Uncle Plato died, he converted everything he owned into cash and hid it in the house. His attorney, Ben Rush (Martin Milner) knows that there is a substantial amount of money, but he doesn't know where it is.

There are a few interesting things to ratchet up the scare factor - Ouija board that tells the Zorbas and Ben that one of them will be harmed, different ghosts causing objects to float in the air, these weird specs that light up inside the frames, a creepy housekeeper, a séance, and a hidden stash of cash.

Filmed in "Illusion-O". It's not a great film and by no stretch of the imagination is this on the same level as many other films from 1960, like "Spartacus", "The Apartment", or even "The Bellboy, but it definitely has its place in history.

13 Ghosts is produced and directed by William Castle and written by Robb White. It stars Charles Herbert, Jo Morrow, Rosemary DeCamp, Martin Milner, Margaret Hamilton and Donald Woods. Cinematography is by Joseph Biroc and music by Von Dexter.

When the Zorba family inherit a house from the recently deceased Dr. Plato Zorba, they think their luck has turned for the better. But pretty soon it becomes evident that Plato was known to be a dabbler in the supernatural and the house is haunted by a number of ghosts…….

By the time of 13 Ghosts' release, William Castle was well into his stride as a showman producer. Following on from The Tingler, one of his best films that featured his best gimmick (Percepto), he brought to his target audience Illusion-O, basically a two coloured viewer that the audience could use if they did or did not want to see the ghosts in the film, a subtitle flashed on the screen prompted use of the viewer. Unlike The Tingler, 13 Ghosts isn't a good enough film to be considered better than the gimmick that accompanied it. Yet there's a glorious sense of fun about the film, anyone under the illusion (o) that Castle was trying for a serious horror to scare the teenagers, could do with listening to Von Dexter's score for some of the ghostly goings on. Wonderfully tongue in cheek, the whole thing is played for nervous smiles rather than shrieker schlock.

The effects used (red images in a black and white movie) are more than good enough for tone and purpose of this particular production, in fact if you watch in the dark in the right frame of mind, then the ghosts do have a creepy enough vibe to them. The narrative, while hardly taxing for the brain, does contain a couple of surprises, while the presence of the wonderful Margaret Hamilton (Wizard of Oz's Wicked Witch of the West) is a major plus point, especially since she closes the picture down with eyebrow shifting glee. Critics across the years have always been hard on the film, and for sure it's weak in direction, writing and a high percentage of the acting, but it was a hit at the box office. There was a market for it back then, and there still is now, you just gotta be into fun and in an undemanding horror/comedy mood.

Just above average for a cheeky chiller blues lifter. 6/10

Cyrus Zorba (Donald Woods) and his family learn they have inherited the house of his late uncle Plato. This couldn't come at a better time for the Zorba family as they are struggling with financial problems. However, once they move in they discover the house is haunted by ghosts that dear old uncle Plato collected from all over the world. Uh-oh.

Filmed in "Illusion-O," William Castle never missed a beat with a good gimmick. This is a fun movie with no pretensions about doing anything other than entertaining you for eighty minutes. Charles Herbert was an enjoyable child actor with a good screen presence. Sadly this was his last credited film role. I guess the same fate befell him that would many other child actors. Donald Woods, decades removed from his leading man days, is very pleasant and likable in this. Lovely Jo Morrow plays the daughter Medea. Margaret Hamilton has fun with her Wicked Witch reputation here. The direction is solid, the music very nice, and the special effects are fun. Okay, they are relatively simple effects but still fun. Maybe it's not that scary but it sure is enjoyable. Way more entertaining than the gory CGI remake.

Cyrus Zorba (Donald Woods) works in a museum and is completely broken. His wife Hilda Zorba (Rosemary De Camp) calls him and tells that their furniture has just been takes since he has not paid the installments. During the night, Cyrus, Hilda and their teenage daughter Medea Zorba (Jo Morrow) celebrate the birthday of their son and brother Buck Zorba (Charles Herbert), who is a fan of horror books, and he wishes to have a house of their own with furniture. Out of the blue, Cyrus learns that he has inherited an old mansion from his uncle Dr. Zorba. He visits the lawyer Benjamen Rush (Martin Milner) that tells that the house is haunted and he can not sell it. Further, together with the house, he receives the weird housekeeper Elaine Zacharides (Margaret Hamilton), a hidden treasure and the collection of 12 ghosts that belonged to Dr. Zorba, who was a master of the occultism.

The family moves to the mansion and soon Cyrus discovers a set of special goggles that makes possible to see the ghosts. When Buck accidentally discovers the hidden fortune in the house, the ambitious Benjamin lures the boy with the intention of stealing the money for him. But Dr. Zorba's ghost is also in the house and will protect his family. "13 Ghosts" is an original movie directed by William Castle, actually a family entertainment. The plot is very simple but the greatest attractions are the ghosts in Dr. Zorba's mansion. The DVD delivers special goggles that allows the viewer to see the ghosts in a unique frightening experience. The only problem is to repeat the scenes to share the goggles since everybody wants to see the ghosts. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "13 Fantasmas" ("13 Ghosts")

I still remember as a kid all the publicity surrounding 13 Ghosts and how when you went to see the film you were given tinted cardboard framed plastic glasses. The better to see the ectoplasm on the screen.

Sadly my VHS copy doesn't have the ghosts in color. They just appear very pale on the screen and the film has to carried by the players who don't look too motivated by the lines they have to utter.

Dr. Zorba played by Donald Woods inherits an old haunted house with a witch housekeeper, Margaret Hamilton, to go with it. Woods moves in his family which consists of Rosemary DeCamp, Charles Herbert, and Jo Morrow. The lawyer handling the estate, Martin Milner, takes quite a shine to Ms. Morrow, but he also has a whole other agenda as well.

Of course after they move in, various apparitions start appearing and it's pretty disconcerting believe me. Action has to be taken and it's took all right.

If you're interested by all means see the film. It's acquired a cult status over the years. The special effects, impressive back then, don't quite hold up as well as say DeMille parting the Red Sea in The Ten Commandments.

Don't confuse this movie with the awful remake. Thankfully this movie was shown on one of the old movie channels before the remake came out or I might have passed on it. Maybe I'm biased having grown up watching all kind of horror movies, but I've always enjoyed the older movies like this one rather than the in your face remakes of today. Subtlety goes a long ways in telling the story!

Yes, it may be old but I find it better than the "new revised" version that terribly stunk. Sure, when we see floating candles and furniture we can only imagine a small thin piece of string on the tip but hey, at least they used their imagination and had fun with it. The part played by the wicked witch from "The Wizard of Oz" was the best part. She was perfect in the film. As well as the family. They played their parts better. The father didn't act as stupid as the one in the modern version and the rest of the actors/actresses were better as well. There were alot of parts in the film that did not match the ones in the modern version but hey, thats why I liked it better they didn't have all those boring motives that the modern version had. And the ghosts were even scarier even though you could tell that it was a man in a costume with a reflecting light.

This film by William Castle about a family of four moving into a house professed to have no fewer than 13 ghosts is a great deal of fun. Donald Woods is Cyrus Zorba, a paleontologist down on his luck. His furniture has just been removed from his flat and his wife and two children, Medea and Buck, seem used to being in continual dire financial straits. While sitting on the floor for Buck's birthday party, a creepy message comes telling Cyrus to see a lawyer in the morning. Cyrus and wife Rosemary Decamp go and discover that Cyrus has inherited a huge mansion from his Uncle Plato as well as a package containing some weird type of glasses. It seems that Uncle Plato collected ghosts. The rest of the story details what life is like in this house that has these ghosts. I did not have the pair of glasses so cannot tell you what it looked like in Illusion-O, but I bet it was even more fun. Castle always seems to do a good job at creating entertaining, fun films, though none of them ever seem to be much more than that either. The mystery is not hard to figure out at all. The acting is good all around with youngster Charles Herbert giving a nice performance as Buck. Woods is good as the family patriarch and Jo Morrow is just beautiful as daughter Medea. Martin Milner plays Ben the lawyer. And as a retainer in the house is Elaine, played by none other than Margaret Hamilton(always a joy to see her). When Ben first arrives at the house to see how the Zorbas are doing, Buck says "ring the bell and you'll see a witch." Of course the witch reference goes throughout the whole film as Hamilton looks witch-like and this is one marvelous inside gag about her Wizard of Oz performance. The effects for the film are pretty tame and very hokey, but this film is just good, old-fashioned fun. I liked it from beginning to end. If you loved the new one and decide to go back and see the old one - you will be very disappointed. Just as I was disappointed having seen the old one and moving to the new one. They have nothing except some threadbare incidentals in common and a producer named Castle(though a different first name for each).

Well... For those of You in Your late late 60's (or OLDER Still!) You might be able to remember seeing this movie in a movie theater! If You have heard the words... GIMMICKY HORROR ... They were first used in relation to this movie!!!

When I was a kid.... and until I was into my mid.teens... Horror/Sci-Fi Movie was my default setting go to Movie GENRE! I was only 12 years old when 13 GHOSTS had its movie theater release! Owing to the intense Media Blitz to promote the film.... My expectations were SKY HIGH! Can You imagine my opinion after actually seeing it!?!?!?

CORNY!::: HOKEY! Those are the words that were in vogue Cerca 1960! And those were the EXACT words I used... and heard many OTHERS use... to describe this film! In retrospect.... It really isnt THAT bad! My rating here is 5*****.... But probably, to be precise... I would say 5.5*****

Compared to most other films released around 1960... There are a majority of production values that are probably a cut above average... To be honest! A lot of smirks... chuchles and laughter! But, again... to be fair... Much of that resulted from being just a tad uneasy while watching the movie!

The basic concept of 13 GHOSTS itself is rather interesting and unsettling! Saw it again, recently, and I was rather surprised that it is somewhat BETTER than I remembered it to be! You do get the impression at times that Dirrctor William Castle engages in a considerable amount of psychological arm-twisting of the viewer! ...But after all.... It was really ALL in good fun!.... Wasn´t it!?!?!? The highly touted and promoted ending... In the end.... Really isnt so bad... Is it!?!?!?

If You want to see..Or Re-live... an interesting historucal footnote to this GENRE.... O. K.... Go ahead and do it! But in my case.... My recent viewing will suffice!.

William Castle directed this amusing comedy/thriller about the Zorba family, who have just inherited a house from Cyrus's(played by Donald Woods) uncle, a reclusive inventor who created a set of special goggles that enable the viewer to see the 12 ghosts said to haunt the home. So wife Hilda(played by Rosemary De Camp) daughter Madea(played by Jo Morrow) and son Buck(played by Charles Herbert) move in, to discover that the ghosts are real, and that there is a hidden treasure in the house, and that someone will kill to find it, thus creating the 13th ghost... Fun film used the "Illusion-O" gimmick of giving film goers tinted glasses so that they can also see the ghosts with the characters. Margaret Hamilton and Martin Milner costar in effective roles.

this is SO COOL!!! i love wlm castle!!! this is the coolest in dvd's just for the sheer kitch factor. the damn thing comes with ghost glasses! (red to see them, blue if you're a scaredy cat) i sat and watched this w/ my 8-yr old and he thought that is was the best thing since bionicles! we watched it several times just to play with it. i got this when it was released (or re-released) on dvd after the thirteen ghosts w/ matthew lillard came out. (see my comments there)this is the best that wlm castle put out besides the tingler -and i don't think they're going to include a seat buzzer in THAT dvd!!

13 Ghosts (1960) is a movie I recently rewatched on a random streaming service online. The storyline follows a family that moves into a house they recently inherited that is more than a little haunted and contains more than just human ghosts. A mysterious pair of goggles in the house allows them to see all the ghosts surrounding them. What do the ghosts want and what can they do to them? This movie is directed by William Castle (The Lady from Shanghai) and stars Charles Herbert (The Fly), Jo Morrow (Terminal Island), Martin Milner (Valley of the Dolls) and Margaret Hamilton (The Wizard of Oz). The ouija board was a good opening and setup for the storyline. The ghosts and horror elements were dated but fun. The peoples reactions in this and their expressions were scarier than the ghosts themselves. 😂. The kid was a bit annoying and a nuisance but the cast delivers solid performances overall. The ending and how they wrap the story up was perfect and a brilliant way to conclude the movie. This is far from one of the best films from this era but is definitely worth a viewing. I would score this a 6.5/10 and definitely recommend seeing it once.

Fun movie to watch in October. William Castle was such a showman. This is one of the movies I remember most from when I was a kid. It utterly terrified me, and gave me nightmares.

This film just is not as good as House on Haunted Hill, but Vincent Price was at his very best in that one. Not that the cast in this one is bad or anything, this film just suffers from being a bit too predictable and while most of the cast was good, the kid playing the son was just annoying. The effects were about what one expects from a film from this era while the tone is a bit more comedic in tone than what I was expecting.

The story has a man who works at a museum who seems to have a hard time paying his bills on time. His stuff is getting repossessed and his son wishes that they could get a house with furniture that no one can take away. As if by magic, the curator finds that he has inherited an old mansion. Of course, the catch is that he and his family has also inherited the ghosts the old man who owned the house 'collected'. A strange woman who insists on living on the premises tells the son of the ghosts as does the lawyer of the man who owned the house. Something seems suspicious, but at the same time the house does seem to be haunted as a box containing special glasses is also given to the curator and with them he sees the spirits at play.

I actually watched the remake of this one well before ever viewing this one. I am surprised by how much of this one's plot did make it into the remake. I was thinking it was going to be a remake in name only and perhaps both featured 13 ghosts, but the glasses in this one made their way to the remake's plot as did the fact the family was getting kicked out of the house. I prefer the remake, only because the ghosts in this one were just not very scary mainly being more funny in nature.

So I am glad I finally watched this film, if for no other reason to get another horror film under my belt. I prefer other haunted films from this era though like House on Haunted Hill, the one with Roddy McDowell and various others. This one was just a bit too cutesy as it played off a lot of the ghost encounters as funny. It started out with a bang, but after awhile it also gets repetitive and if you cannot figure out the one character's motives then you are really young or really naive.

William Castle sure was a master of macabre spooky tales. My personal favorite of Castle's films will always be the delightfully eerie "House on Haunted Hill" (1959) starring the great Vincent Price, but Castle's repertoire includes quite a bunch of other immensely entertaining gems, such as "The Tingler" (1959, also starring Vincent Price), or this "13 Ghosts" of 1960. "13 Ghosts" may be as campy as it gets, but it is nonetheless (or therefore) great fun to watch. My only regret with William Castle's films is that it is not quite possible to see them in their original greatness, as Castle always came up with ingenious gimmicks in cinemas (such as a skeleton flying through the hall, directly at the audience, in "House On Haunted Hill", for example). Seeing his films in all their glory would therefore require a film technician and cinema owner willing to restore all these gimmicks, which is unfortunately never going to happen. But even without these gimmicks, "13 Ghosts" is a great fun flick that no fan of Classic Horror films should miss. Buck Zorba, a museum employee and family man with monetary problems inherits a mansion from his eccentric uncle Cyrus. Cyrus, a scientist whose field of research was the supernatural, had the strange hobby of collecting ghosts... Even though more fun than uncanny, 13 Ghosts has several eerie scenes, especially the film's climax is quite creepy. Other than "House On Haunted Hill", however, this delightfully camp spooky tale was in for some improvements. It is therefore too bad that the 2001 remake was a missed opportunity, and more or less a piece of crap that hasn't any of the charms of the original (Even more so as the "House on Haunted Hill" remake of 1999 was basically a tribute to the original, which made it very enjoyable). My advice: Stick with the original and have great fun!

I honestly can't say that I am at all impressed with William Castle as a director of low-budget horror films from the 1950s & 60s.

I continually find Castle's direction to be noticeably flat and, oftentimes, quite unimaginative. If you ask me, Castle seemed to possess no real distinctive directing style, whatsoever. And he certainly didn't appear to understand the genre of horror at all.

I got the clear impression that Castle viewed horror as being nothing but a joke and something to be jeered and sneered at. And so, with Castle playing horror strictly for laughs that, of course, left us (the unsuspecting & gullible audience) as the direct brunt of his dumb jokes.

As a director, William Castle had about all of the skills (and motivation) of a used-car salesman who was knowingly selling his customers junk. In other words, Castle was a shyster as a director (and an amateur at that).

From its bad pacing, to its red herrings, to its poorly executed moments of horror & suspense - 13 Ghosts, pretty much, played out like a very dimwitted TV Sit-Com.

Like, if this was really supposed to be a story about a house that was being haunted by 12 authentic ghosts, then it was one of the most tame and non-scary hauntings that I've ever seen.

Anyways - When it comes to seriously considering William Castle as a noteworthy director - All I can see is an "Alfred Hitchcock" wannabe who obviously couldn't cut the horror-movie mustard - Not even with his lame-brained "gimmicks" as his biggest selling point.

The reason I watched this film in the first place was because one of my favorite actors (Martin Milner) is in it, but now it's one of my favorites. I don't generally like horror films, but this one is great. It has everything: ghosts, spooky little people, screaming women, weird special affects, and people who are more than they seem. I actually laid awake that night listening to noises in my house! Plus the little boy in this movie is a pretty good actor.

The one complaint I have is that the ghosts are hard to see. I'd like to see this released either on DVD or again on video, but this time with the special illusion affects William Castle put in it in tact, and special glasses could come with the DVD/video.

This may look to some like a typical cheesy 50's & early 60's horror film, but it's one of the best.

A family inherits a mansion owned by the father's uncle, a reclusive ghost hunter who allegedly trapped numerous ghosts from around the world in his home. Days after moving in, they are faced with two parallel narratives: how do they rid themselves of the troublesome ghosts and where is the fortune said to be hidden in the walls of the house? It may take the solution of one to find the other.

Today, most viewers are probably more familiar with the remake than this William Castle classic. And that's unfortunate. The remake is scary in its own right, with some nasty bloodletting. But for the time period the original came out in, it's also creepy. I was already on edge during the opening credits where the thirteen ghosts were shown in order... some of which are rather disgusting. And when they return throughout the movie (where they can only be seen when someone puts on special goggles) they are again creepy. There's an especially tense scene with a ghostly lion who traps the son, and another with an "apparition" (somehow different from a ghost, but not explained) that's like a rotting Swamp Thing.

The plot is rather good, and I was surprised with how the film blended a horror film and a family story. It was "Leave It To Beaver" gone wrong. In one scene we have ghosts throwing knives and in another there's a playful boy riding the banister. And then, completely unexpected, the father encourages the children to play the Ouija "game"... something I cannot imagine happening in real life.

Interestingly, Margaret Hamilton appears as a "witch". She is probably best known for playing the Wicked Witch of the West in "Wizard of Oz". Intentional casting job?

The blood of the remake is gone, as are the over-the-top ghosts. But this one is no less powerful today and in many ways has a charm that couldn't be duplicated today. At least not without losing a million dollars at the box office. No torture, no sex... just a good ghost story from a notable horror director.

"13 Ghosts" is one of Mr William Castle's creakier movies. The story is just about reasonable and the acting is equally average throughout. What was drive-in fodder 45 years ago is really only of interest now because of the "Illusion-O" gimmick where the eponymous ghosts appear and disappear. These were of course just colour sequences overlaid on a static background, which required similarly coloured viewing glasses to be effective. Neat idea, but sadly most prints in circulation do not include the coloured sequences and are black-and-white throughout. As a result the film falls rather flat (although I believe the recent DVD issue restores the gimmick).

If you are looking to see one of the better Castle movies, I would wholly recommend "Straitjacket" instead. No gimmicks, apart from an elderly Joan Crawford hamming it up with gusto, but a whole lot more entertaining. "13 Ghosts" is for completists only.