​Family-friendly Blu-ray Castle movies for the holidays

A month ago I reviewed a pair of William Castle horror films released on a double-feature Blu-ray this summer by Mill Creek Entertainment. The same day, Mill Creek released another Castle double-bill with titles that sound like horror films but are really something else, especially the second.

Castle aimed his memorable thrillers “Homicidal” and “Mr. Sardonicus” (both 1961) mainly at teen and adult audiences. Both were serious horror films played straight, except for Castle’s cheesy promotional gimmicks (a built-in “fright break” for timid patrons to leave the theatre before the climax of the former, and an audience vote on the fate of the villain in the latter).

However, “13 Ghosts” (1960) and “13 Frightened Girls!” (1963) are kid-friendly, even Disneyesque family fare, with just enough suspense to engage adults but enough comedy and over-the-top situations to keep children entertained while simultaneously wrapped up in plots that depict kids getting critically and heroically involved in dangerous adult schemes.

“13 Ghosts” has another Castle audience participation gimmick called “Illusion-O,” which Castle as usual introduces to the audience personally at the beginning of the film. Although shot in black-and-white, scenes showing the ghosts were printed in blue with the ghosts in red. Audience members could then choose to look through either a red filter or a blue filter in a special “ghost-viewer” so they could either see or not see the ghosts. The Blu-ray edition has the colored ghost sequences but does not include any ghost-viewers. Anyone interested in the effect can easily construct a viewer with red and blue cellophane or just use an old pair of red-blue 3-D glasses.

The plot begins as a family with money problems is having their furniture repossessed -- again. Just as the little boy Buck (Charles Herbert) makes a birthday wish for a home with furniture, the father (Donald Woods) receives a notification that he’s inherited the old mansion of an eccentric uncle, who apparently captured ghosts as a hobby. His collection of eleven ghosts comes with the mansion. The uncle’s ghost is the twelfth, and the thirteenth is to be someone living in the house. Despite all the supernatural legends, warnings from the uncle’s young lawyer (Martin Milner), and a spooky maid that Buck thinks is a witch (the wonderful Margaret Hamilton), the family is happy to have a fully-furnished house, haunted or not.

Another major plot point is that the uncle’s fortune is hidden somewhere inside the house. As things develop, it becomes clear that the film is as much a family sit-com and a murder mystery as it is a ghost story. Teenage daughter Medea (Jo Morrow) is attracted to lawyer Ben, who also makes friends with little Buck.

“13 Ghosts” is designed to provide spooky thrills for younger children and campy comedy for teens and adults, and succeeds in both counts. It would make an appropriate double-feature with the classic Don Knotts old-dark-house comedy-thriller “The Ghost and Mr. Chicken” (1966).

Picture quality on Mill Creek’s Blu-ray is excellent, and audio quality is very good. There are unfortunately no bonus features.

13 GHOSTS on Blu-ray – Movie: B / Video: A+ / Audio: A / Extras: F

“13 Frightened Girls!” was obviously titled to cash in on the earlier “13 Ghosts,” but does not in any way resemble a horror film and actually involves fifteen girls at an exclusive Swiss academy for daughters of diplomats. In Australia the film was called “The Candy Web” and in Italy it was “The Incredible Spy,” either of which would be a far more accurate indication of its content.

Castle’s promotional gimmick was a preproduction international contest to cast girls from the foreign countries, and each foreign release would feature a special scene starring that country’s girl driving the school bus, as well as talking about the film in the local trailers.

Kathy Dunn stars as Candace “Candy” Hull, the precocious 16-year-old daughter of American diplomat John Hull (Hugh Marlowe), who has a crush on her father’s CIA agent Wally Sanders (Murray Hamilton), a frequent visitor to their consulate and home in England.

While visiting the home of Chinese classmate and friend Mai-Ling (Lynne Sue Moon), Candy discovers the murder of another foreign diplomat that Red China has arranged to blame on the U.S. She immediately decides to help out the American intelligence officer she loves by sending him an anonymous tip signed “Kitten.”

After this success, she sets out to become a super-spy by following the gossip among her schoolmates, even wooing away their boyfriends to gain information, and quickly builds up a reputation in spy circles around the world. All this is unbeknownst to her father, who believes Kitten is a secret agent code name whose identity the confused but pleased Wally wants to protect.

It doesn’t take long for Candy to get in much deeper and in more danger than her romantic notions of espionage prepared her for. Things especially heat up when she tries to seduce a foreign spy who catches on to her, with potentially disastrous results. There are a couple of unexpected twists along the way, and at least one traditional William Castle “shock” moment inside a dumbwaiter.

Overall it’s an almost exceedingly cute Cold War spy comedy-thriller that came out around the same time the James Bond craze was starting. But instead of being a campy and risqué action-adventure for boys and young men, this film targets girls and families. It provides an empowering role model for young girls (perhaps a bit too empowered for today’s PC ultra-sensitivity about certain underage activities), while promoting interracial friendships and cooperation, all against a backdrop of early 1960s Cold War issues with China, the USSR, and foreign intrigue in general.

The Blu-ray quality is again outstanding, with bright colors, a crisp film-like image, and fine sound. Again, sadly, there are no bonus features.

13 FRIGHTENED GIRLS! on Blu-ray – Movie: A- / Video: A / Audio: A / Extras: F