The Dungeon of Harrow

source: The Dungeon of Harrow

The basic idea behind "Dungeon of Harrow" isn't all bad. The acting, however, is bad. The lighting is bad. The music is bad. The scenes of torture are without emotion. There really isn't much there to recommend this film. You know what kind of a movie you're in for when the credits say "Special Guest Star" and list someone you've never heard of. Might as well say "Rex Hamilton as Abraham Lincoln." because there's really no one in this movie you can identify. There are one or two decent moments, mostly toward the end and I think the basic plot outline may have contained an original idea, but that alone is not enough to keep you awake through this otherwise inept yawner.

This movie tries to be more than it is. First of all, the acting is horrible. You have to get past the incredibly bad delivering of lines and terrible emoting. The plot is quite interesting. A shipwreck occurs (apparently because it was made out of strings and balsa wood), and a couple of guys find themselves on shore. If this weren't bad enough, some guy named Count de Sade is living there as well. He lives in fear of pirates and has gone utterly insane. Anyway, he has a large slave, a young woman, and some dogs. There's another woman who doesn't speak and his wife, who is a leper. Anyway, things get bad as these men have to deal with this nut case. He is arrogant and likes to pose and deliver lines. The rest of the movie involves an attempt to escape. It has an ironic ending which I won't reveal and it kind of rescues the film. I wouldn't bother if I were you.

"The mad Count De Sade lives in his families' (sic) castle located on a remote island. Count De Sade keeps his wife locked up in a dungeon below the castle and his insanity strike (sic) fear into the staff. After a terrible storm, a ship's captain and the son of the ship's owner find themselves washed ashore on this lonely isle, not knowing the danger they face from the evil Count De Sade," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis. This hilariously awful spoof of "The Most Dangerous Game" could obviously be better, with a bigger budget and more directorial flourish. But the script, by Pat Boyette and Henry Garcia, is quite wittily written; and, the performances are delivered with appropriate tongues-in-cheek. Although its satirical intent serves to negate it as a "so-bad-it's-good" movie, "The Dungeon of Harrow" should appeal to followers of that genre. ***** The Dungeon of Harrow (1962) Pat Boyette ~ Russ Harvey, Helen Hogan, William McNulty

Survivors of a shipwreck come ashore on a tiny island inhabited by a mad Count and his sickly wife(who is kept confined within the subterranean dungeon of his castle). Foreseeable, derivative mayhem transpires. Could DUNGEON OF HARROW really be from the 1960s? Besides the fact that it's in color, it bears the distinct stylistic flavor of poverty-row horror films released during and shortly after the Great Depression. Hilariously unpersuasive model ship in a storm effects are the most amusing part of an otherwise rather slumberous little movie which makes fairly good use of hand-me-down Gothic sets. On the whole, this is a barely median example of paint-by-numbers filmmaking...too tame and straightforwardly white-bread to interest the cult/trash-film alliance, and too slipshod and routine a production to impress any but the most forgiving horror fans. 3.5/10...unessential, but not exactly a head-to-toe failure either.

This film just screams cheap-jack 60's horror comics ala Creepy and Eerie, and I mean screams with a capital S, and no surprise really, being director Boyette was a well-known horror comic scribe/artiste. Where "Creepshow" failed in really capturing that "EC-vibe", "Dungeon" succeeds 100% in getting that surreal budget label Charlton Comics thing down to a tee! I say, turn it on, shut down you brain and just soak in the oddness, and this film is way odd, dreamlike really, and best watched while slightly groggy after 1 AM (it has a similar dreamy quality akin to the classic poverty row noir "Detour" in this regard, call me crazy)...that said, though, I really only recommend it to hardcore genre fans, regional horror obscurity weirdos (like myself, especially fans of Texas-lensed regional oddities), and retro horror comic fans, so if this sounds like you, Dungeons is pure gold. Now, if someone could please find Boyette's lost film "The Weird One's" my life would be complete.

Okay, make no mistake - this is a pretty awful film, but I actually thought it had a couple of creepy scenes and overcame its pathetic budget every now and then. At the very least it's unintentionally funny in spots and has a definite air of creepiness and discomfort (a face burning scene, the part with the disfigured bride). This baby falls into the "so bad it's entertaining" category to me, and for that alone I would give it a star. The effects are terrible, the acting is abysmal, and the whole thing looks like it was shot in a day. You gotta love that toy ship at the beginning, too! It brought back childhood memories of seeing this on late night TV many years ago. While the Alpha DVD print looks weak and as though it was recorded directly off an old television broadcast or something, I actually liked that in this case! * out of ****