Ring of Terror (1962)

In short, it's a disaster., 3 July 2007

Lewis B. Moffitt is a medical student who seems to have it all. But what many don't know is that Lewis has an irrational but deep-seeded fear of the dark. He came by his fear quite honestly following his grandfather's wake which was held in his family's home. His mother (in a failed attempt to win "Mother of the Year") threatened Lewis that his dead grandfather would return from the dead to do him harm if he didn't go to bed! Well, as part of his fraternity initiation, Lewis has to sneak into a mausoleum to retrieve the ring from the cadaver the young med students had earlier seen autopsied. Of course Lewis has to do this at night – in the dark – of which he's deathly afraid. You get the idea.

Ring of Terror is the kind of movie that could have better been told as something like a Twilight Zone episode. There's nowhere near enough material to fill even the comparatively short 71 minute runtime. But the makers of the movie seem content to pad the film with something akin to one of those 1950s era educational films on dating with names like "Dating: Do's and Don'ts" or "Choosing Your Marriage Partner". Ring of Terror has that kind of "realism" and "excitement".

Getting past the padding to the rest of Ring of Terror: the acting is bad; the actors are far too old to be convincing in their roles; the movie relies on too many "fat" jokes; the ending is predictable after 5 minutes of the movie; and the opening and closing bits that sandwich the "action" are annoying. In short, it's a disaster.

But as bad a movie as Ring of Terror is, it makes for a very entertaining episode of MST3K. I found myself laughing out loud on more than one occasion. So while I may only rate the movie a 2/10, Ring of Terror gets a 4/5 on my MST3K rating scale.

2/10