Classic Cinema Spotlight: The Shuttered Room (1967)

[A Vintage Nerd]

B movies can be defined as a type of cheap, low-budget film. A type of film that may have well known stars of the time in it but not necessarily have the big budget or the backing of a studio. Although B movies aren't usually popular in the mainstream, they are just as a fun and enjoyable as big budget popular films. The 1960's came out with slew of entertaining B movies-The Shuttered Room (1967) being one of them. This film is loosely based on an anthology called

The Shuttered Room and Other Pieces​

which was a blend of ​

fantasy

and​

horror

​

short stories

,​

essays

and​

memoirs

by American author​

H. P. Lovecraft

and others.​

The Shuttered Room (1967) stars Gig Young as Mike Kelton and Carol Lynley as his wife,

Susannah Whately Kelton. The film begins with some fantastic cinematography by ​

Kenneth Hodges who sets up the mystery and creepiness which was about to unfold perfectly. The next scenes show parents caring for their child when suddenly they are approached by an unexpected visitor who they store in a shuttered room. Fast forward fifteen plus years and a young wife named Susannah is seen with her distinguished husband Mike heading to an island called Dunwich. Susannah shares with Mike her worries and fears about returning to the home she once knew as a child.

While Susannah grapples with her past, every local they meet starts to warn them that they should leave the island immediately. Even Susannah's Aunt Agatha (Flora Robson) who reconnects with her after sending her off as a child, tells them both that the Whately property is cursed. Although Susannah and Mike want to make her old family home into their new summer home, they are rattled by the warnings.

Despite the possible dangers, Mike and Susannah decide to stay the night in her decrepit house. The next day they are met with not only more warnings but Susannah's bizarre cousin Ethan (Oliver Reed) and his gang of local thugs. Ethan begins to obsess over Susannah which creates some odd and uncomfortable situations. Ethan and his gang cause a lot of chaos throughout the entire film which was both creepy and distracting.

The mystery of Susannah's childhood and the house she is now reclaiming as an adult do not come to a head until the end of the film. It is in the films final minutes that the elusive shuttered room that was seen at the beginning of the film is finally revealed. There is a lot that goes unsaid about Susannah's family history and about the hidden person found in that room. What I found interesting was the question that was asked frequently from the beginning to the end of the film-if Susannah was pretty. I can only speculate that between the behavior of the local men and even the male folk in the Whately clan-that something dreadful happened to the crazed soul that was chained and locked in that shuttered room. In the final scenes of the film the Whately property burns to the ground and I couldn't help but wonder that perhaps not all mysteries need to be solved.








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