Terrified (1963)

Starring Rod Lauren, Steve Drexel, Tracy Olsen, Stephen Roberts, Sherwood Keith
Directed by Lew Landers
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)

A college student writing a term paper on terror is shaken by the crimes of a maniac out to terrify people to death, but ends up confronting the villain in a deserted ghost town.

We have here a low-budget shocker, but one competently directed by Lew Landers, the veteran director with over a hundred credits, and this per IMDB, was apparently his final film.  The ghost town isn't a bad setting for a horror film, and the story is compelling enough, but I didn't find the cast or the screenplay strong enough to make the film truly memorable.  Additionally, while there's a good deal of darkly lit scenes, the photography doesn't make too creative use of them, and while I liked some elements of Michael Andersen's music score, it didn't exactly leave me on the edge of my seat.  As a whole, it's not bad, and held my interest, but for a film about terror, there's too little attention paid by the filmmakers to creating chills within the audience.