Last One For 2016

THE NIGHT WALKER-1964-This starts off with a narrator talking about dreams. “Fly! Fly! There's death in your dreams”. Trent (Hayden Rourke), a blind millionaire suspects his wife Irene (Barbara Stanwyck) is having an affair because of what she says when she's asleep. He talks about this with his attorney Barry Morland (Robert Taylor) while his wife listens in. Later Irene admits to Barry that she has a reoccurring dream about an unknown lover. When Irene displays her disgust for her marriage she runs away and hubby is killed in an explosion. Irene's dreams start mixing with reality and she meets her dream lover (Lloyd Bochner). But is he real or only in her mind? After she moves into the back of her beauty salon she gets crazy when she sees a shish kabob and Barry accuses her of killing Trent. Her dream lover whisks her away for drinks then marriage in a strange church with a lot of weird looking guests (they are all dummies). Was it real? She and Barry investigate. The dream lover hangs around unseen so you know it's not in Irene's mind. There are other clues that let you know this too. A suspicious assistant Joyce (Judith Meredith) obviously doesn't want to help and she's killed by Irene's husband! A lot of smokey mumbo-jumbo leads to the fact that Barry is trying to drive her insane but a double cross spells his end.

“Gimmick” director William Castle directed this twisting turning psychological drama from a screenplay by Robert Bloch. It has it's moments, although the end I suppose is fairly guessable. Castle made this between STRAITJACKET (also written by Bloch) and I SAW WHAT YOU DID. By this time Castle had all but given up on straight horror films instead making crime dramas and murder mysteries disguised as horror films. Music is by Vic Mizzy. Unusually stars Standwyck (in her last feature film) and Taylor had been married in real life at one time. They were already divorced 12 years when they made this. 

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