The Masque of the Red Death

Prince Prospero, a petty tyrant, fills his castle with the rich and powerful as a plague ravages the countryside. Having sold his soul to the Devil, Prospero believes himself to be immune to all of the suffering and death that surrounds his land. Meanwhile, Death itself has other ideas. Thanks to some British tax incentives and a wealth of award-winning sets, The Masque of the Red Death is one of the best-looking films that Roger Corman ever made. Vincent Price is fantastic as Prospero and the rest of the cast is filled with great British character actors like Hazel Court, Jane Asher and Patrick Magee. The gothic atmosphere and creative use of color give the film Italian vibes, somewhere between the works of Mario Bava and Dario Argento. Deemed too pretentious by the powers-that-be at American International Pictures, The Masque of the Red Death ended up being the beginning of the end for Corman and his cycle of Poe films.

Rating: 66.6%

(Image from Wikipedia)

The Haunted Palace

Convinced that he is a warlock, the townspeople of Arkham drag Joseph Curwen from his palatial estate and burn him alive. Before he dies, Curwen puts a curse on Arkham and vows to come back from the dead to take his revenge on the descendants of those who killed him. One hundred and ten years later, Charles Dexter Ward, the great-great-grandson of Joseph Curwen, comes to Arkham to claim the property that he has inherited. The people of Arkham are immediately suspicious of Ward, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Curwen. Is it just a coincidence or has Joseph Curwen finally come back to take his revenge? Despite AIP's marketing, The Haunted Palace is primarily based on H. P. Lovecraft's novella The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. Surprisingly, it is the also the very first movie to be based on one of Lovecraft's works. The sets and the performances are all very good, especially Vincent Price's dual/dueling roles. The only thing that isn't great in the film is the makeup design, everything just looks a little off-color. Despite that, The Haunted Palace is easily one of Corman's best "Poe" films.

Rating: 68%

(Image from Wikipedia)

The Raven

Instead of trying to adapt Poe's poem, Roger Corman's The Raven is primarily about a trio of squabbling magicians played by Vincent Price, Peter Lorre and Boris Karloff. Much like in Tales of Terror, Price and Lorre have great comedic chemistry together. While Karloff is mostly there to lend gravitas to the picture. Hazel Court is lovely as the devious Lenore and a young Jack Nicholson plays Lorre's son Rexford. Despite indulging in many of the same tricks and tropes, The Raven is much more of a straightforward comedy than any of Roger Corman's prior Poe pictures. There are plenty of jokes throughout the movie but the climactic magician's duel at the end of the film goes for broke with big, Looney Tunes energy.

Rating: 62%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Tales of Terror

Tales of Terror is made up of three short stories by Edgar Allan Poe, with Vincent Price playing a different character in each story. The first story, "Morella," is about a young woman reuniting with her alcoholic father (played by Price) after decades apart. The young woman, Lenora, was blamed for her mother's death and was sent away to be raised in boarding schools. After returning to her father's house, the ghost of Lenora's mother kills everyone and burns the house to the ground. In the second story, "The Black Cat," Peter Lorre plays a miserable alcoholic. After a renowned wine taster (played to the hilt by Price) steals his wife, Lorre's character gets his revenge by entombing the wine taster, his wife and their black cat in the basement "Cask of Amontillado"-style. In the final story, "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar," Vincent Price plays Valdemar, a dying man who agrees to be put under hypnosis at the moment of death. The devious hypnotist, played by Basil Rathbone, traps Valdemar's soul in limbo and attempts to extort Valdemar's widow. Of the three stories, "The Black Cat" stands out the most because it's the only one of the stories that has any humor in it. Lorre and Price play very well off of each other and their wine tasting duel is easily the most memorable part of the film.

Rating: 63%

(Image from Wikipedia)

House on Haunted Hill

Five strangers are invited to a party in a haunted house by an eccentric millionaire. Each guest is promised $10,000, if they can survive the night. Are there really ghosts closing in on the partygoers or is their host... a murderer? I can see how William Castle's House on Haunted Hill might have been successful back in the 1950s. One of the film's original in-theatre gimmicks involved flying a plastic skeleton over the audience. To modern audiences, the movie will probably feel a little stiff and stagey, almost like it was the film adaptation of a radio drama. However, if you're the type of person who could go for a movie where Vincent Price sneaks around the Scooby-Doo hallways of an old dark house while dramatic thunder and lightning goes off, then this movie is for you.

Rating: 62%

(Image from Wikipedia)

The Pit and the Pendulum

After the success of House of Usher, American International Pictures (AIP) were eager to make another movie based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe. Roger Corman, using many of the same people (and sets), brought The Pit and the Pendulum to theaters a little more than a year after House of Usher was released. With Vincent Price, once again, top billed, The Pit and the Pendulum continued the moody, gothic style of House of Usher. Pendulum tweaked the formula somewhat with psychedelic silent film techniques and slightly more sadistic and shocking violence. It would go on to be even more successful than House of Usher, prompting AIP to double down on Corman's Poe gamble. AIP and Corman would go on to make another six* Poe-inspired films over the next three years.

Rating: 66%

(Image from IMDB)

*seven, if you count 1963's The Terror

House of Usher

aka The Fall of the House of Usher

After a couple of years of making low budget black and white movies for American International Pictures (AIP), Roger Corman was able to convince the distributor to let him make a movie in color with a half-decent budget. AIP was initially confused by his choice of subject matter. "Where's the monster?" they asked. "The house is the monster," he told them. And then they wrote him a check. That man could sell anything. House of Usher ended up becoming the first of eight films made by Corman loosely based on works from Edgar Allan Poe. The movie has a kind of lower-end Hammer vibe going on but it also has some surprisingly stylish elements. And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Vincent Price's stellar performance.

Rating: 68%

(Image from Wikipedia)

The Bat

The Bat is more of a mystery film than a horror movie but it features a killer in black wearing a glove with claws on it that he uses to tear out the throats of his victims, so it hardly seemed out of place during this season of horror. Agnes Moorehead plays the main protagonist in the movie, a mystery writer renting a creepy old house. In many ways the movie plays out like an episode of Murder, She Wrote wherein the female writer lead unravels a mystery involving the colorful characters orbiting around her after she turns up in town. One of those colorful characters is played by Vincent Price. Spoiler alert: though Price is not the main villain of the film, he does murder someone at one point, so he's not exactly a nice guy.

Rating: 61%

Fun Fact: Agnes Moorehead made her film debut in Citizen Kane.

(Image from Wikipedia)

Return of the Fly

I was going to write a legitimate review for Return of the Fly but I don't think anyone can sum it up better than Glenn Danzig already did:

Return of the fly
With Vincent Price
You guinea pig
Yeah, return of the fly

Couldn't have said it any better myself.

Rating: 70%

(Image from movieposterdb.com)

From A Whisper To A Scream

I miss the horror anthology - the movie like Creepshow or Cat's Eye that is actually a combination of 3-5 shorter horror movies. Trick r Treat was pretty good last year, but this is a phenomenon that seemed to exit with the horror boom of the early 90s. Anyway, this particular horror anthology is not that great, but at least it has Vincent Price in his twilight years I guess. The best stories are the last two, in which a glass eating carnival freak tries to break his contract, and a cruel Union soldier is held captive by a group of maimed Civil War orphans. If you're going to watch a movie from the end of Vincent Price's life that features an undead fetus beating up an old man, I suppose it might as well be this one.

RATING: 38%