ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.

ChanFamous I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Senteur As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Sameer Callahan It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Michael_Elliott Ghastly Ones, The (1968) 1/2 (out of 4) Three couples spend the night in an old dark house so that they can collect an inheritance but a killer is running loose. This is my first Andy Milligan film and it's really no worse than countless other exploitation films that were out at the time. Everything about the film is bad, especially the sex scenes, which are probably the worst I've ever seen in a movie. The director does try to build suspense but this here comes off rather laughable but then again, everything here comes close to laughable.

Flixer1957 **May Contain Spoilers**A gore opera set in the late 1800s, made by one of the most infamous exploitationers of all time. Three sisters and their husbands convene on Crenshaw Island for the reading of the family will. The tired plot is given new blood–and guts–when a hooded mutilator starts knocking off the heirs with pitchforks, saws and meat cleavers. A real backyard effort, literally, since the $8,000 horror was shot on Staten Island property owned by Milligan at the time. Of course, you're better off filming at home when you set your actors on fire and splatter gore all over the walls. During one nasty murder, Milligan's voice can be heard on the soundtrack as he gives direction. Effects range from fake and obvious to fairly gruesome. These include dismemberment, eyeball-yanking, hanging, bisection, stabbing, evisceration, a cleaver in the skull and a severed head on a turkey platter. Except for Hal Borske's sympathetic portrayal of an abused hunchback, the acting is comically bad. This looney-tune for gorehounds is worth checking out--especially if you want to delight fellow trash-fiends and appall your friends who enjoy normal motion pictures.

HumanoidOfFlesh I remember reading Stephen King's book "Danse Macabre" about horror movies and this famous writer totally trashed this film.He called it "the work of morons with cameras" or something like that.I wouldn't go so far to call "The Ghastly Ones" a masterpiece,but I found it immensely enjoyable.Of course the acting is rather bad and the budget is extremely low,but the gore scenes are amazing.I loved especially the scene when one guy is butchered in the cellar and the amateurish gore frenzy during the climax.Though the production is rough from beginning to end you can sense a psychosis of sorts in the scenes of bloodletting.The hooded killer really rips into his victims after he's trapped them.The hunchback is an extremely funny and grotesque character.I laughed my ass off when he killed a rabbit.Check out this cheap and gory horror,if you like low-budget grindhouse fare.

reptilicus Whether you love Andy Milligan's films or hate them everyone is in agreement; they are a genre unto themselves! You know you are in some paralell universe in the opening minutes of this film when a mad killer attacks a couple having a picnic on a private island. The maniac gouges out the eye of the man and then turns to the camera holding up a tennis ball sized object that is meant to be the eye! If you listen carefully during the murder scene you can even hear Andy Milligan's voice calling out "Cutting away, move!" to the actors! When I met Andy in the late 70's he confided to me that whenever an enucleated eye was needed he found Hostess Sno-Balls not only filled the bill nicely but also provided an impromptu snack for his performers. The plot involves the gathering of heirs on a lonely island to hear the will of the rich, eccentric father. Andy knew that plot had a long white beard well before 1969 so he loaded his movie was sado-masochism, marital rape, homosexual incest, a hooded killer that you'd have to be deaf and blind not to know was stalking you, and of course the bargain basement gore that made him so (in)famous to the people who gathered at drive-ins to watch his movies. THE GHASTLY ONES was his first gore film. After doing soft core movies like THE NAKED TEMPTRESS, GUTTER TRASH and FLESHPOT he saw the market movie away from soft to hardcore and decided to move into the terror genre. Actually this film offers some interesting things. Neal Flanagan, one of his stock company, plays a withered ancient lawyer who appears to have stepped out of a Charles Dickens novel. Haal Borske,a writer and director of several plays, plays the first of many idiot characters in Andy's films. His character of Colin appears to have been the killer in the opening scenes and he looks perfectly normal (apart from being a total sociopath, that is) yet later in the film he has becomes a hunchbacked, snaggletoothed halfwit who eats raw meat. Maggie Rogers also appears in SEEDS OF SIN and TORTURE DUNGEON and her acting is actually several notches above what is expected in a Milligan film. Gore is very . . .well . . .unusual. Bloody scenes include a pitchfork to the throat, a man cut in half with a bandsaw, a hand chopped off, a head in a roasting pan and wait'll you see what happens to the killer at the end! Andy remade this movie a few years later as LEGACY OF BLOOD with a different cast but the same plot and effects. To further confuse matters there is another movie called LEGACY OF BLOOD that stars John Carradine, Faith Domergue and Rex Reason that offers a similar plot but more sex and better effects. Don't worry it will be impossible for you to confuse these movies; an Andy Milligan film is like no other. Back in '69 THE GHASTLY ONES played on a double bill with Kent Bateman's HEADLESS EYES. If I had not been only 4 back then I sure would have paid to catch a programme like that!