13 Ghosts (1960) is a horror movie directed by William Castle and written by Rob White. It was filmed in "Illusion-O", allowing viewers to see the ghosts using special glasses made of red and blue cellophane; viewing them through the red filter made them visible, while watching through the blue filter made them vanish. (It is worth noting, though, that the ghosts were quite visible without using the red filter.)The film concerns Cyrus Zorba, whose occultist uncle Dr. Plato Zorba has willed a huge, ramshackle house to Cyrus and his impoverished family, fully furnished and outfitted with a housekeeper, plus a fortune in treasure. Now for the bad news: This house is haunted by twelve ghosts, who are imprisoned there, waiting for an unlucky thirteenth ghost to free them. The only way to see the ghosts is with special goggles left behind by Dr. Zorba In addition, there is a more mortal peril in the house with them, in the form of someone who wants to claim Zorba's money for himself, and is willing to kill its rightful heirs to steal it.The movie was remade as Thir13en Ghosts in 2001, Starring Tony Shalhoub as the unwitting heir to a glass house inhabited by the titular ghosts, held in check by Latin phrases etched in the glass panels.
Actor Allusion: Elaine is referred to as a witch multiple times, referencing the most famous role of her actor Margaret Hamilton: Wicked Witch of the West. This time, though, she's a Good Witch.
Losing Your Head: Shadrack the Great, who lost his head when he put it into mouth of the lion...and it bit him. The ghost of the lion also dwells in the house.
Our Ghosts Are Different: They can, and will given half the chance, kill humans. Although it turns out to mostly be just an act — the ghosts are really more harmless eccentrics who like scaring people. The only person they actually kill is the crooked lawyer when he finally turns on the family.
All There in the Manual: The DVD extras for the remake gives the background of each of the ghosts and how they fit into the Black Zodiac.
And I Must Scream: Ghost #2, the Torso, who is a naked man chopped into three pieces (torso, head, and legs) and wrapped in plastic. Extra information shows this is how he died.
Blessed with Suck: Dennis Rafkin is a medium with the ability to detect ghosts and and instantly read minds through physical contact. He also has no control whatsoever over his powers and they tend to give him seizures.
Creepy Child: Ghost #1, the First-born Son, who is dressed as a cowboy with an arrow through his head and carries a tomahawk around. Played oddly with the Great Child, who isn't an actual child, but is a huge, 40-year-old man in a diaper holding an ax.
Cruel and Unusual Death: A good number of the ghosts died in downright horrible circumstances. Also, Ben Moss and Kalina both meet very grisly fates.
Dead All Along: Inverted. Cyrus is alive the whole time.
Earn Your Happy Ending: The film ends with Cyrus being violently punished, the ghosts being released, and with all the members of the Kriticos family and Maggie alive, and even the ghost of Jean seems to have found peace at the end.
Likewise, Dennis finally found peace after his Heroic Sacrifice against the Hammer and the Juggernaut.
Even Evil Has Standards: Kalina may be in on the whole thing, but she is horrified when Cyrus suggests putting Arthur's kids in danger.
The Bound Woman as well, though she doesn't appear as often as The Jackal does. This is particularly evident after the ghosts kill Cyrus.
Eye Scream: The Angry Princess committed suicide after an attempt at performing self-cosmetic surgery went horribly wrong and left her blinded in one eye.
Fainting Seer: Dennis Rafkin's visions are in Screamer form, so it's no wonder even the mildest of them leave him grabbing his head in pain.
Ghostly Goals: Largely Type 2, but many of them are in the house specifically because they are trapped there.
Go Out with a Smile: In a sense. Dennis doesn't actually die smiling, but, when he later appears as a ghost, he seems a lot more content and at peace then when he was alive.
Gotta Catch 'Em All: In the remake, Cyrus Kriticos must find thirteen specifically-themed spirits to power his infernal machine. His nephew Arthur would have been the thirteenth ghost, if he'd killed himself as Cyrus planned.
Half the Man He Used to Be: Ben Moss finds himself backing away from the Angry Princess until - CHOMP - he gets vertically bisected by a glass door slamming shut. We get a nice shot of his cross-section when one half falls away.
Leading to an awesomely funny line: "Did the lawyer split?"
Hates Being Touched: Dennis, and for a good reason. And according to the ghost backstories, The Jackal hates it as well after his stay in a mental hospital and might be the reason he died when the place went up in flames.
Haunted House: Inverted: Cyrus Kriticos builds the glass house as an infernal engine, and then deliberately moves specific ghosts into it as a power source.
Heroic Sacrifice: Dennis fights the Hammer and the Juggernaut alone because there's only enough room in the corner behind the shield for one, so he throws Arthur behind it because he has a family to rescue.
Subverted with Arthur, who's led to believe that he has to perform one to save his family. At the last moment, he realizes it's a Batman Gambit by Cyrus and his death would actually fulfill his uncle's plans.
Hoist by His Own Petard: Cyrus is thrown into the spinning rings by most of the ghosts and chopped to pieces.
Dennis: They wait for your to stick your FACE right up against the glass! And then give you a big, fat "boo"!
Karmic Death: Cyrus Kriticos, who gets killed by the ghosts he captured and tried to exploit, and Kalina, who taunted Dennis for not realizing he was being used by Cyrus - except she was being used by him too. Ben Moss also counts - he is in on the whole thing and taunts the Angry Princess when he sees her inside her containment cube, and is later killed when he is bisected by glass doors while backing away from said ghost.
Kick the Dog: Cyrus does this at the beginning, when he slaps Dennis' medication out of his hand for no discernible reason. He also does a more extreme form of dog-kicking later, when he has Kalina squished to death between two panels of glass.
"Well, the other option is I have enough explosives to blow us back to the middle ages, of course none of us would be around to brag about it afterward."
Name's the Same: The Torn Prince's name is Royce Clayton and he was a baseball player. There was actually a major league baseball player named Royce Clayton.
Screamer Trailer: Used in-universe as new ghosts are revealed or about to get up to their usual shenanigans.
See Thru Specs: Both movies used special glasses to see the ghosts, but in the original the audience got them, while in the remake the characters got them.
Spanner in the WorksCyrus is beaten in the end when Maggie (who has just woken up from being knocked out by Kalina) happens upon the records playing the chants that are controlling the ghosts and messes with them. This causes the ghosts to break free and turn on Cyrus.
Spirit Advisor: Ghost Dennis, who seems much more at peace with things than he was when he was alive, briefly acts as one for Arthur, complete with a You Will Know What To Do message.
Stop Helping Me!: When Dennis goes into spasms, Arthur grabs him in an attempt to help him and unknowingly makes his condition worse.
"If you haven't noticed, I'm a little bit of a freak! I come within ten feet of anything dead, I go into seizures. I touch somebody, and a whole life full of shit just flashes in front of my eyes!"
What Could Have Been: The story was originally planned to take place over several days, and featuring a subplot in which Kathy falls for Moss, but the director felt it was ridiculous. He also wasn't pleased with the original plan of Maggie of all people turning out to be The Mole, so Kalina ended up in this role instead. In addition, the death of Kalina was originally going to be much, much gorier (complete with her eyes popping out and her brains squirting out) than the finished version and was apparently filmed, but the creators didn't think they'd be permitted to keep it in.
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