Ring of Terror (1961)

When I was in my undergraduate days, I took my girlfriend out for Chinese food, and my fortune cookie read: 'You see the good in everything.' Indeed that was true, and especially in my movie-watching, I try to imagine all of the effort, and the blood, sweat and tears, that goes into a film's gestation. Thankfully, I paid very little for this film (director Paylow's only cinematic feature), and it only took 71 minutes of my time. To its credit, it had an intriguing start, with an eerie atmosphere to its opening credits. But the introduction by the cemetery's custodian, 'R.J. Dobson', (complete with his crazed cat, 'Puma') was the first clue to me that something just wasn't right. But openings like that, with Dobson showing a tombstone, starting to explain how the death at such a young age occurred, then the flashback occurring, at least gave me the false hope that this could be a 'horror anthology', and that no matter how bad a piece was, at least others would come that might be better. But no. This had no credibility in any manner whatsoever. In its depiction of college life, particularly for the medical students (who bizarrely were all male), it was obvious the filmmakers had no idea whatsoever of human nature, or the way that people of that age group interacted. There were no horrific aspects whatsoever, and all of the resoundingly minor attempts at comedy fell disgustingly flat. Any high-school play from the era would have more life. What makes this the second-worst film I have ever seen is that, for all intents and purposes, everyone involved thought they were making something credible, and were giving it their all (nothing could surpass Lena Dunham's 'Tiny Furniture' as the very worst film of all time IMHO). What surprises me is that Paylow would eventually be involved, in different capacities, in two of the very best films of the 70's ('Close Encounters of the Third Kind' and 'The Conversation'). Obviously he was a talented man who, at least in the director's chair for this film, didn't deliver the goods, though by no stretch of the imagination was it his fault alone.