Horror Film Review: The Haunted Palace (dir by Roger Corman)

Posted on October 16, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In the 18th century, the inhabitants of Arkham, Massachusetts yank Joseph Curwen (Vincent Price) out of his mansion and tie him to a tree. They accuse Curwen of being a warlock who is in league with the devil and who has been bringing young women to his “palace,” and putting them in a trance. They burn Curwen alive but, before the flames are lit, they also give Curwen a chance to speak and curse both them and their descendants.

You really do have to wonder about the logic behind witch (and warlock) burnings. They seem counter-productive because they always give the accused just enough time to cast one final curse before being burned to a crisp. Indeed, you have to wonder why witches and warlock were allowed any final words to begin with. I mean, at some point, you would think everyone would notice that the final words were always a curse.

Anyway. 110 years later, Joseph Curwen’s descendant, Charles Dexter Ward (Vincent Price, again) rides into town with his wife, Anne (Debra Paget). He is stunned to see that Arkham has apparently fallen on hard times, with many of the town’s people being horribly disfigured. It’s explain to him that the disfigurements and the poverty are all a result of his ancestor’s curse. That’s going to make things a bit awkward, considering that Charles Dexter Ward has not only inherited the Palace but he’s also inherited a copy of Necronomicon and a legacy of messing with Cthulhu. The townspeople don’t want Ward around but he and Anne decide to spend the night in the Place regardless.

Of course, it doesn’t take long for Curwen’s spirit to possess Charles. Soon, Charles is trying to resurrect Curwen’s mistress, Hester (Cathie Merchant) and pursuing Curwen’s goals of breeding a race of super humans by forcing the women of the town to mate with the fearsome Yog-Sothoth. Charles also seeks vengeance on the descendants of those who burned Curwen at the stake, as if all of the poverty and the deformities aren’t punishment enough. Again, this is why you don’t give warlocks and witches a chance to get out one last curse before being executed.

Though The Haunted Palace is usually considered to be a part of Roger Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe cycle, the story itself is actually based on H.P. Lovecraft’s The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. (In Lovecraft’s novella, Ward seeks out his evil ancestor whereas, in the film, Ward is more or less an innocent victim.) The film’s title comes from a Poe poem, which is recited at both the beginning and the end of the film. But the film itself, with its references to the Cthulhu mythos and its hideous New England setting, is definitely a work of Lovecraftian horror.

Fortunately, it’s an effective work of Lovecraftian horror, one that captures the feeling of people unwisely trying to control a force of evil that they cannot begin to comprehend. Roger Corman keeps the action moving quickly and creates a gothic atmosphere of impending doom. Vincent Price, toning down his usual theatrics, is chillingly evil as Curwen and sympathetic as Charles. The film’s strongest performance, however, comes from Debra Paget, who desperately tries to free her husband from Curwen’s control. Any woman who has suddenly felt as if she can no longer recognize the man who she once loved will be able to relate to Paget’s performance.

The Haunted Palace is a strong entry in the films of Roger Corman and Vincent Price and one of the better adaptations of the work of H.P. Lovecraft.

Horror Film Review: Tales of Terror (dir by Roger Corman)

Posted on October 14, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Eh, anthology films.

I have to admit that I’ve never been a huge fan of anthology films. Anthology films are almost always a bit uneven. Some filmmakers are better suited to making short films than others and, as anyone who has ever sat through one can tell you, sitting through a boring short film is actually worse than having to watch a boring long film. Too often, anthology films are just a collection of boring short films. If you get lucky, there might be a good segment hidden amongst all of the bad segments. But even so, that often means sitting through 30 minutes of bad filmmaking for 15 minutes of something that’s moderately entertaining.

1962’s Tales of Terror is an anthology horror film. Directed by Roger Corman, the film is a part of his Poe cycle and features adaptations of three Poe short stories, Morella, The Black Cat, and The Facts In The Case of M. Valedemar. While it definitely suffers from the flaws that afflict many anthology films, Tales of Terror is saved a bit by the presence of Vincent Price. Price not only appears in all three of the films but he also provides the narration that links each film. As I mentioned when I reviewed The Premature Burial, one cannot underestimate the importance of Vincent Price and his unique style of acting when it comes to discussing Corman’s Poe adaptations. With his dramatic flourishes and his theatrical style of speaking, Price was the perfect star for these films. As an actor, he perfectly complimented Corman’s flamboyant and colorful direction. It also helps that Price himself seems to be truly enjoying himself in all of these films. His eccentricity brings the film’s to life.

As for the separate stories that make up Tales of Terror, things get off to a rather macabre start with Morella. Leonora (Maggie Pierce) returns home to visit her father (Vincent Price), who is now a drunken wreck who continues to blame Leonora for the death of her mother, Morella (Leona Gage). Morella died while giving birth to Leonora. Leonora is shocked to discover that her father is keeping her mother’s decomposing body in the mansion. Leonora, who is suffering from a terminal illness, tries to take care of her father. However, Morella’s spirit remains in the house, leading this story to a rather depressing and unsettling ending. This story was effectively done, playing out like a particularly morbid companion to The Fall Of The House of Usher.

The Black Cat is presented as a comedy, starring Peter Lorre as a man who becomes convinced that his wife is cheating on him with a snobby wine taster who is, of course, played by Vincent Price. This overlong segment did not work for me and I have to admit that a lot of that is because I love cats, black cats in particular. Beyond that, the humor is a bit too broad. Corman could do comedy, as he showed with Little Shop of Horrors, but he seems to be trying a bit too hard here.

Finally, the third segment is The Facts In The Case of M. Valdemar, in which Vincent Price plays the title character. The dying Valdemar employs a hypnotist (Basi Rathbone) to put him in a trance to help relieve his suffering. However, the hypnotist hopes to marry Valdemar’s wife (Debra Paget) and, after putting Valdemar into a trance, he leaves the dying man there. Valdemar, whose body starts to decay, cannot die. But, once he becomes angry enough, he can still rise from his bed to seek revenge even as his body putrefies. This segment was the best of the three, featuring Price’s best work in the film and also a wonderfully villainous turn from Basil Rathbone. The makeup effects that were used to capture Valdemar’s decay remain effectively frightening today.

Tales of Terror is two good stories and one mediocre one, which is better than the usual anthology film. Still, not surprisingly, the main reason watch is for the wonderful Vincent Price.

Horror Film Review: Premature Burial (by Roger Corman)

Posted on October 6, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Poor Guy Carrell (Ray Milland!)

The character at the center of the 1962 Edgar Allan Poe adaptation, The Premature Burial, Guy spends his days terrified of being buried alive. Like his father before him, Guy suffers from a disease that can make him appear to be dead despite actually being alive. Guy is convinced that his father was buried alive and swears that he could even hear his father crying for help inside of his tomb. Though his fiancée, Emily (Hazel Court), insists that Guy is driving himself mad with his fears, Guy continue to spend his time trying to invent a coffin from which one can easily escape. Even after Emily and Guy are married, Guy continues to obsess.

Finally, faced with the prospect of opening his father’s tomb to discover whether or not his father truly was buried alive, Guy appears to drop dead of a heart attack. But is he really dead or is he about to be buried alive!? And who is responsible for the series of mysterious events that apparently drove Guy to collapse of fright? Watch the film to find out! Or read the Edgar Allan Poe short story.

This was the third of Roger Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe adaptations and it’s the first one to not feature Vincent Price as the lead character. For the most part, the members of the small cast all do a good job with their roles. Ray Milland is both sympathetic and a little frightening as the obsessed Guy. Heather Angel is properly enigmatic as Guy’s overprotective sister and Hazel Court will keep you guessing as far as her character’s motivations are concerned. Dick Miller has a small but key role as a grave digger who seems to take just a little bit too much enjoyment from his work. The film’s atmosphere is properly gothic and, if the film isn’t as visually audacious as the first two Poe films, Corman still finds time to include a creepy and psychedelic dream sequence.

That said, Vincent Price is still very much missed. Corman reportedly wanted to use Price but, because Corman produced and financed the film himself, Corman’s former business partners at American International Pictures would not allow Price to appear in the film. (Price was under exclusive contract to AIP.) By the time Corman and AIP worked out their disagreements and again joined forces, Ray Milland had already been cast in the lead role.

While the actors all do a good job, it’s hard to deny that Guy Correll would have been an ideal role for Vincent Price, even if it would have meant essentially re-doing his performance from The Pit and the Pendulum. It’s not just that the film misses Price’s theatrical acting style. The film also misses the energy that Price brought to the previous two Poe films. The Premature Burial moves at a stately pace and, in the end, it’s a bit too slow and respectable for its own good. Price would have jazzed things up and made a decent film into a truly memorable one. Fortunately, Price would return for the later Poe adaptations.

Horror Film Review: The Pit and the Pendulum (dir by Roger Corman)

Posted on October 4, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The second of Roger Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe adaptations, 1961’s The Pit and The Pendulum opens in much the same way as The Fall of the House of Usher. A young Englishman (played by John Kerr) rides a horse across a colorful but desolate landscape. A castle sits in the distance.

Of course, as opposed to the 19th Century British setting of The Fall of the House of Usher, The Pit and the Pendulum takes place in 16th Century Spain, at a time when the country was still scarred by the horrors of the Inquisition. And Francis Barnard is not traveling to the castle to see his fiancée but instead, he’s searching for information about the disappearance of his sister, Elizabeth (played by the one and only, Barbara Steele). At the castle, Francis meets Elizabeth’s husband, Nicholas (Vincent Price) and Nicholas’s sister, Catherine (Luana Anders). Nicholas explains that Elizabeth died under mysterious circumstances, while suffering from a rare blood disorder that seemed to quickly sap away her will to live. Nicholas’s best friend, Dr. Leon (Anthony Carbone), explains that Elizabeth died of fright after she locked herself in one of the iron maidens in the castle’s torture chamber….

Oh yes, the castle has a torture chamber. Nicholas’s father was a leader of the Inquisition and he used the castle as a place to conduct his business. Nicholas’s father was a madman who suspected that his wife was cheating on him. One day, while young Nicholas was exploring the torture chamber, he witnessed his father murder both his wife and his brother. Nicholas watched as his mother was entombed alive and ever since, he’s been terrified of the idea of premature burial. In fact, his fear that he may have buried alive Elizabeth while she was still alive is driving him mad. The sudden arrival of the suspicious Francis doesn’t help matters….

The Pit and the Pendulum opens with splashes of color spreading across the screen, a sign that Corman was once again in a pop art state of mind when he directed this film. The Pit and The Pendulum takes everything that worked (and didn’t work) about The Fall of the House of Usher and it turns it all up by a notch or two. The castle is even more gothic. Vincent Price’s Nicholas is even more mentally fragile than his Roderick Usher, though Nicholas is also a quite a bit more sympathetic. If Roderick was a control freak who used his family’s curse as an excuse to embrace his own authoritarian tendencies, Nicholas is just a frail man suffering from PTSD. He’s definitely more of a victim than a victimizer … or, at least, he is at first. Much like Mark Damon is The Fall of the House of the Usher, John Kerr is a bit of a stiff in the role of Francis but it doesn’t matter. Vincent Price is the main attraction here and Corman’s direction shows that he understood that.

And then there’s the Pendulum. It takes a while for the Pendulum and its swinging blade to make an appearance but when it does, it lives up to the hype. The Pendulum swings and Corman goes all out, zooming into Price’s crazed eyes while the Pendulum comes closer and closer to its latest victim. The images are tinted red and green and the Pendulum itself seems to swing in a slow motion, the cinematic equivalent of a nightmare come to life.

The Pit and the Pendulum is a wonderful work of gothic pop art. Featuring Vincent Price at his most wonderfully unhinged, this is a film we should all watch this Halloween.

Pit and the Pendulum (1961, dir by Roger Corman, DP: Floyd Crosby)

Horror Movie Review: The Fall of the House of Usher (dir by Roger Corman)

Posted on October 3, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1960 film, The Fall Of The House of Usher, opens with Phillip Winthrop (Mark Damon) riding his horse across a desolate landscape.

There’s a foreboding mansion in the distance but what the viewer immediately notices is that the land around the mansion looks almost post-apocalyptic. Even though the film is set in the 1800s, the misshapen trees and the high winds all bring to mind a film set in a nuclear-scarred world, the type where you expect to find radioactive mutants hiding behind every tree and rock.

Phillip is a young aristocrat who is traveling to the home of the Usher family. He is engaged to marry Madeleine Usher (Myrna Fahey) but, as soon as he arrives at the mansion, her older brother, Roderick (Vincent Price, with no mustache and blonde hair), informs Phillip that he will never be allowed to marry Madeleine. Roderick explains that the Usher family is cursed and he even takes Phillip on a tour of Usher family history, showing him a series of truly hideous paintings of past Ushers. One Usher was a murderer. Another Usher was blackmailer. An Usher wearing a pirate’s cap is identified as being a slave trader. The Ushers are cursed, with each family member destined to become insane. Roderick’s mission is to bring the Usher bloodline to a close and that means that Madeleine cannot marry.

Phillip disagrees, especially when the sickly Madeleine herself says that she wants to escape from her seemingly mad brother. With the house itself continually shaking as if it’s on the verge of collapsing, Phillip becomes determined to take Madeleine away. Roderick tries to warn him not to. Even the friendly butler, Bristol (Harry Ellerbe), encourages Phillip to give up. But Phillip remains stubborn and determined. However, when Madeleine suddenly collapses and dies, it appears that Phillip’s plans to marry her are at an end. But is Madeleine truly dead?

Based on a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, this was, at the time, the most expensive film that Roger Corman and American International Pictures had ever made. (It was also their first color film.) Of course, the budget was still just $300,000 and the Usher mansion was largely constructed out of props that were borrowed from other films. That said, the film had a name star and, with its vivid colors and its fiery finale, it certainly looked like a big-budget film. This film marked the first collaboration between Vincent Price and Roger Corman and it was a box office success, making a million dollars at a time when a million dollars really meant something.. Corman and Price would go on to do several other Poe adaptations together, all of which were distinguished by Price’s villainous performances and Corman’s pop art visuals.

Seen today, The Fall of the House of Usher can seem to be a bit slow. With only one location and a cast of only four actors, it often feels a bit stagey. Mark Damon is rather stiff as Phillip. (One can see why he abandoned acting to become a producer.) But Vincent Price’s performance as Roderick Usher continue to entertain, with Price delivering every line of dialogue with his trademark aristocratic archness. There’s nothing subtle about Price’s performance but Price’s tendency to overact perfectly matched Corman’s vivid visuals and it’s interesting to watch a hyperactive Price performance paired with the type of dull performance that Mark Damon offers up.

The fiery finale still packs a certain punch and, watching it, one can see why Corman and Price said, “Let’s do this again!” The Fall of the House of Usher (which is also available on some streaming sites as simply House of Usher) remains an enjoyable macabre Halloween treat.

House of Usher (1960, dir by Roger Corman, DP: Floyd Crosby)

Vincent Price Recites The Tell-Tale Heart!

Posted on October 31, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Earlier today, I featured Christopher Lee reading The Fall of the House of Usher.

Here to continue to spread the Halloween spirit is Vincent Price, performing The Tell-Tale Heart. This is from 1970 and was a part of a PBS special called An Evening With Edgar Allan Poe.

Get In The Mood For Halloween With Christopher Lee And The Fall Of The House of Usher

Posted on October 31, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Happy Halloween everyone!

Here to help you get in the mood for the best day of the year is Christopher Lee reading Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall Of The House Of Usher. Listening to this will require 40 minutes of your time but it’s totally worth it. Christopher Lee had an amazing voice and was a wonderful reader and one imagines that it was his voice that Poe heard in his head as he first wrote this short story.

Here is the wonderful voice of Christopher Lee….

The Film of Dario Argento: Two Evil Eyes

Posted on October 25, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 1990, long-time friends George Romero and Dario Argento collaborated on Two Evil Eyes, anthology film that was based on the writings of Edgar Allan Poe. An Italian-American co-production, Two Evil Eyes featured two stories. The first was directed by George Romero, while the second was directed by Argento.

The Facts In The Case of Mr. Valdemar

(Dir by George Romero)

The first story is Romero’s, a modernized version of The Facts In The Case of M. Valdemar.

Jessica Valdemar (Adrienne Barbeau) is the 40 year-old wife of 65 year-old, Ernest Valdemar (Bingo O’Malley). Jessica only married Ernest for her money and, now that he’s on his death bed, she and her lover, Dr. Robert Hoffman (Ramy Zada), have hypnotized to him to do and say whatever they tell him to say and do. Even though Ernest is essentially comatose, the hypnosis allows them to force Ernest to sign his name to legal documents and to tell his suspicious attorney (E.G. Marshall) that he indeed wants to leave all of his money to Jessica.

When Ernest dies while under the influence of hypnosis, Jessica and Robert attempt hide his body in the basement. But is Ernest really dead? Jessica is convinced that she hears groaning from the basement and she wonders if the hypnosis has somehow left Ernest in limbo, between life and death. Robert thinks that Jessica is being foolish but it turns out that she’s not. After much paranoia and betrayal, one conspirator is dead and the other is a part of the living dead.

Usually, I like Romero’s work but this one didn’t work for me. From the flat cinematography to the shallow performances, this film felt more like an episode of a television show than anything else. Perhaps if it had been a stand-alone film, Romero could have found a way to make the material a bit more cinematic. (The story’s final shot, of blood dripping on a hundred dollar bill, is the film’s strongest moment and the part that feels the most Romeroesque.) But as a shortened chapter of an anthology film, it fell flat.

The Black Cat

(Dir by Dario Argento)

The Dario Argento segment is based on several different Poe stories. While the majority of the story is taken from The Black Cat, it also contains elements of Annabel Lee, Telltale Heat, The Pit and the Pendulum, and Buried Alive. Though this segment doesn’t really work, it’s obvious that Argento is a fan of Poe’s work and, for other Poe fans, there’s a lot of fun to be found in all of the Poe references that Argento sneaks into his story.

Harvey Keitel stars as Rod Usher, a crime scene photographer who loves his work a bit too much. He’s excited about the fact that his book of photography is about to be published. He’s less happy about the fact that his girlfriend, Annabel (Madeleine Potter), has adopted a black cat that is constantly glaring at Rod. Rod is eventually driven mad by both the cat’s apparent hatred of him and the fact that the cat itself keeps showing up no matter how far he goes to get rid of it. (This film features violence against a cat, which I hated. But it also featured a cat getting revenge and I appreciated that.) Eventually, Rod’s paranoia leads to violence and murder.

Look, this is a film about a guy who has an obsessive hatred of a cat. Obviously, this is not a film that I’m going to enjoy because I love cats. That said, I can still judge the film on its merits, even if it’s not for me on a personal level. While Argento is able to build up a good deal of tension and suspense in this film, the overall film doesn’t work because Harvey Keitel, supremely talented actor that he is, was totally the wrong choice for Rod Usher. Keitel, who reportedly did not get along with Argento during filming, gave a self-indulgent performance that featured a lot of bellowing. It’s as if Keitel is trying to compete with the constantly moving camera. The problem is that a star of a film like this has to be the director and Keitel’s histrionics take the viewer right out of the story.

Considering all of the talent involved, Two Evil Eyes is a disappointment.