Features: DVD
Editor's Note
This eerie, dreamlike horror film has become a cult classic, thanks to the imaginative direction of German director Frank Wisbar. In a remote swamp, the ghost of a ferryman hung for a crime he didn't commit stalks those who sentenced him, and their kin. Lovely Rosemary La Planche (Miss America 1941) stars as Maria, one of the kin, and the new ferry operator. Blake Edwards is Chris, another. They fall in love while hanging out at the ferry, little realizing the strangler has them in his ever-tightening noose of trouble. Charles Middleton (Ming the Merciless in the original FLASH GORDON serials) plays the strangling ghost. He's pretty creepy with his blackened eyes and ethereal presence, and so is the film. The swamp setting is so thick with mist and vegetation that it seems to creep right off the screen. The leads all acquit themselves nicely, and La Planche and Edwards exhibit a breathless chemistry in their scenes together. This short little film has no dry patches, it swims with murky, delirious atmosphere all its own.
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