"... mild little spook melodrama... It's a simple, old fashioned haunted house yarn, written by Robb White... If only (Castle) would forget all the monkey business and settle for a trim, uncluttered thriller."
Howard Thompson, New York Times

"... a spook saga that is fun and exciting... screenplay is no great shakes as a story but it's as neatly constructed as a skeleton..."
Hollywood Reporter

"Juvenile, gimmicky, and pretty entertaining..."
Ed Naha, Horrors: From Screen to Scream

"The ghosts were printed in one colour and audiences were given a viewer with two filters: if they looked through the red filter, they could see the ghosts and if they looked through the blue filter, the ghosts disappeared. Presumably the latter method was for the skeptics or the faint of heart: they needn't have worried on either count."
Alan Frank, The Horror Film Handbook

"Campy, unimportant horror film... The Robb White story is on a very juvenile level... Ghosts come and go in tedious fashion."
John Stanley, Creature Features Movie Guide

"Fun scares..."
Michael Weldon, The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film

"Thirteen proved to be an unlucky number for gimmicky filmmaker William Castle, who had produced the far more lively fright flick The Tingler [1959] the year before... juvenile story..."
Gene Wright, Horrorshows

"... really rather silly and not particularly scary."
James J. Mulay (ed.), The Horror Film

"... a dismal little film... No amount of ghosts could enliven this deadly dull story."
Dennis Fischer, Horror Film Directors, 1931-1990

"Baby Boomers will appreciate this film for its own sake where younger audiences might find it a bit creaky... The cast is uniformly entertaining with veterans like Donald Woods and Rosemary De Camp and especially the Wicked Witch of the West herself, the great Margaret Hamilton in a suitably tongue-in-cheek performance... 13 Ghosts is appropriate fare for Halloween for the young at heart and a must for every Castle aficionado."

Christopher Dietrich, DVD Drive-In
"... a dull and crudely made haunted house tale..."
Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World Movie Reviews

"The performances are no more than competent, with Woods perhaps the most notable for his on-the-money Richard Carlson impression. The ghosts themselves are jokey and disappointing to behold-that is, when one can see them! But their emphatic groans, shudders and screams will fill your video room with all the nostalgic atmosphere of a carnival Spook House ride... 13 Ghosts will entertain you and hold your interest, but it is not as infectiously replayable as Castle's other classic gimmick vehicles."
Tim Lucas, Video Watchdog

"13 Ghosts is one of Castle's more routine films and... progresses in a dull and stolid way. The hauntings consist of routine and rather cheap double exposure effects or candles, biscuit tins and the like floating around on wires. One scene that momentarily generates some atmosphere is the séance. And Margaret Hamilton... has quite effectively cold and austere presence as the maid. Many of White's scripts raised haunted house themes but in the end transpired to only be mundane crime thrillers. Such is also the case here and it is something where White, in turning the latter third over to young Charles Herbert and his 'secret' and the attempts to find the money hidden in the house, kills the atmosphere."
Richard Scheib, The SF, Horror and Fantasy Film Review

"(Robb) White's sly, scabrous take on the human condition enlivened Macabre [1958], House on Haunted Hill [1959], and The Tingler with hard-boiled, poison-pen dialogue. In 13 Ghosts, the utter blandness of the characters, combined with the sterile back-lot facades, are no more cutting-edged than a Halloween episode of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet... Despite these failings, the movie's innocent ambition and plain desire to please is disarming... For many, the dim memory of a misspent Saturday will point to the movie's most enduring charm."
Charlie Largent, Video Watchdog

Compiled by Richard Harland Smith