13 Ghosts

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

13 Ghosts
Directed by	William Castle
Produced by	William Castle
Written by	Robb White
Starring	Charles Herbert, Jo Morrow, Rosemary DeCamp, Martin Milner, Donald Woods
Music by	Von Dexter
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date(s)	July 1960
Running time	85 min / 82 min (black and white version)
Language	English
IMDb profile

13 Ghosts is a 1960 horror film directed by William Castle. To the dismay of some of the cast members, Castle gave top billing to 12-year-old Charles Herbert. ^[1]

Margaret Hamilton (The Wizard of Oz) plays the maid (with many a reference to "witch" by lead Herbert as a running gag), with broom in hand.

It was remade in 2001 under the title of Thir13en Ghosts, directed by Steve Beck.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Featured cast 3 The ghosts 4 Trivia 5 Notes 6 External links

[edit] Plot

When occultist uncle Dr. Plato Zorba wills a huge ramshackle house to his nephew Cyrus and his impoverished family, they get the shock of a lifetime. Their new furnished residence comes complete with a spooky housekeeper, Elaine, plus a fortune in buried treasure and 12 horrifying ghosts. As his terrified family--Hilda, Medea and Buck--soon discovers, these haunting ectoplasms include a decapitated man, a fully-grown lion, a wailing lady and a flaming skeleton, who are held captive in the eerie house and must find an unlucky 13th to free them. Dr. Zorba leaves a set of special goggles, the only way of seeing the ghosts. Unfortunately, there is someone in the house who is also looking for the money and is willing to kill for it.

[edit] Featured cast

Actor	Role
Charles Herbert	Buck Zorba
Jo Morrow	Medea Zorba
Rosemary DeCamp	Hilda Zorba
Martin Milner	Benjamen Rush
Donald Woods	Cyrus Zorba
Margaret Hamilton	Elaine Zacharides
John Van Dreelen	Van Allen

[edit] The ghosts

Most of the ghosts were not fully explained in the movie. The following list is from the IMDB message boards [1], with corrections made based on the way the ghosts are numbered in the movie.

1. The Screaming Woman
2. The Shrouded Spirit
3. The Floating Head
4. The Burning Skeleton
5. Emilio - the ghostly cook with meat cleaver who killed his wife, mother-in-law, and sister-in-law
6. Emilio's Unfaithful Wife
7. The Wife's Lover
8. The Hanging Woman
9. The Executioner
10. The Lion
11. Shadrack the Headless Lion Tamer
12. Dr. Plato Zorba
13. Benjamen Rush, the Lawyer

[edit] Trivia

• As with most Castle productions, there was a gimmick to promote the movie. In this film, the ghosts could only be seen with the special glasses left by Dr. Zorba. In the theatres, the ghosts were depicted using shades of red and blue such that they were difficult to see without the special glasses handed out at the film's showings. Later DVD versions have varied in their preservation of this effect, with the latest DVD release including versions with and without the ghost outlines and a set of the special glasses.

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

• 13 Ghosts at the Internet Movie Database