{"id":33769,"date":"2023-09-12T11:22:14","date_gmt":"2023-09-12T15:22:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=33769"},"modified":"2023-09-12T11:22:14","modified_gmt":"2023-09-12T15:22:14","slug":"mr-sardonicus-1961-z-view","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=33769","title":{"rendered":"“Mr. Sardonicus” (1961) \/ Z-View"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/b><\/p>\n

Mr. Sardonicus <\/em><\/strong>(1961)<\/span><\/p>\n

Director: William Castle<\/strong><\/p>\n

Screenplay: Ray Russell<\/strong><\/p>\n

Stars: Oscar Homolka<\/strong>, Ronald Lewis, Audrey Dalton, Guy Rolfe <\/strong>and William Castle<\/strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tagline:\u00a0 YOU decide the fate of Mr. Sardonicus during the “Punishment Poll”! Vote “mercy” or “no mercy” right in your theatre seat!<\/em><\/p>\n

The Plot\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

The year is 1880.\u00a0 Sir Robert Cargrave (Lewis), a world famous physician gets a letter from Maude (Dalton), his former lover.\u00a0 She requests that he come meet with her husband in a matter of great importance.\u00a0 Because Cargrave still has feelings for Maude he goes.<\/p>\n

Her husband is the rich and feared\u00a0 Baron Sardonicus (Rolfe).\u00a0 Upon arrival at Castle Sardonicus, Cargrave is greeted by Krull (Homolka), Sardonicus’ disfigured servant.\u00a0 When he meets Maude, she says that if Cargrave cannot cure her husband, Baron Sardonicus will take it out on her!\u00a0 Baron Sardonicus enters the room so she cannot say more.\u00a0 Cargrave is shocked to see that Sardonicus wears a mask.<\/p>\n

We learn that Baron Sardonicus’ face is hideously disfigured.\u00a0 Sardonicus expects Dr. Cargrave to cure him.\u00a0 If he doesn’t then Maude will be “punished”.\u00a0 As Dr. Cargrave decides his next move, he learns that as deformed as Sardoniscus’ face is, his sadistic behaviors are even worse.<\/p>\n

Thoughts (beware of spoilers)<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

William Castle, the King of Movie Gimmicks, came up with a winner.\u00a0 Before the start of the film, William Castle tells the audience that the cards they were given on entry will decide the ending of the film.\u00a0 Before the last scene, Castle will return to tell the audience to hold up cards with glow-in-the-dark thumbs.\u00a0 Sardoniscus will either be given “mercy” or not depending on how the majority of the audience votes. Thumbs up equals mercy.\u00a0 Thumbs down, no mercy.\u00a0 \u00a0Truth be told, there was only one ending – no mercy.<\/p>\n

Most William Castle films focus on horror and jump scares.\u00a0 Mr. Sardonicus\u00a0<\/em>places emphasis on suspense.<\/p>\n

Mr. Sardonicus <\/em><\/strong>(1961) rates 3 of 5 stars.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mr. Sardonicus (1961) Director: William Castle Screenplay: Ray Russell Stars: Oscar Homolka, Ronald Lewis, Audrey Dalton, Guy Rolfe and William<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":912,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,53,54,74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-celebs","category-horror","category-movies","category-z-view"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/912"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33769"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33769\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33770,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33769\/revisions\/33770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}