Dirt Nap

Films: Premature Burial
Format: Streaming video from Tubi TV on Fire!

Whatever you might want to say about Roger Corman, there are a lot of positives. He had an amazing eye for talent based on the careers that the man started. His movies, as cheesy as they are in a lot of case, tended to make good money. And, one day he had the astonishing idea that he wanted to adapt a bunch of Edgar Allen Poe stories as films. A lot of his best movies are based on Poe stories. “Based on” is going to be the operative phrase here, since Premature Burial takes some liberties with Poe’s original work.

We’re introduced to Guy Carrell (Ray Milland), an aristocrat who is also trained as a doctor. Guy is paralyzed (no pun intended) by a fear of being buried alive because, he claims, he suffers from a cataleptic disease that causes him to fall into a trance that can be mistaken for death. This fear is brought out during a grave robbing episode where the corpse uncovered was, in fact, clearly buried alive. Guy’s fear is so crippling that it endangers his pending marriage to Emily (Hazel Court). To demonstrate just where his fear came from, Guy takes Emily to the family crypt and tells her that when his father died, he heard him screaming in the crypt, having been locked in.

Three Poes in a Row

Film: Tales of Terror
Format: DVD from personal collection on basement television.

One day in the past, Roger Corman probably did metaphorical backflips when Vincent Price decided to work with him on a number of Edgar Allen Poe adaptations. The Masque of the Red Death is still one of Corman’s best movies. That doesn’t say much at first when you realize the kind of movies Corman makes, but Masque is actually a lot of fun. Corman doing Poe stories is his natural wheelhouse, so I’m always interested in this kind of film. Tales of Terror is a Corman-lead troika of Poe stories (actually there are kind of four stories here) that feature the horror movie legends of Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, and Basil Rathbone.

Tales of Terror runs a spare 90 minutes, which gives us a skosh under 30 minutes for each of the three stories. The first, “Morella”, is probably not a story with which you are familiar, but when you hear the set-up, you’ll know immediately that it’s Poe. A young woman (Maggie Pierce) arrives to visit her father (Vincent Price), who she has not seen for years. He sent her away as an infant, because her mother, Morella (Leona Gage), died just after childbirth. Since this is a Poe story, he’s naturally kept the body. The daughter reveals that she is dying, and this somehow brings the corpse of Morella back to life.

Ten Days of Terror!: The Raven (1963)

Films: The Raven (1963)
Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library on The New Portable.

I said not that long ago that horror comedies aren’t that difficult, or at least don’t have to be. There are more or less two basic ways to do it. The first and most impressive way is the make the film equal parts horror and comedy. Plenty of movies have done this and done it successfully. The other way to do this is to make no real pretense about the horror part of the film and instead create a comedy that dances on the edge of horror—something that implies horror without actually being horror or anything like it. The Raven from 1963 follows this second path. It wants its audience to believe that it has something to do with the well-known poem by Poe, but in truth, aside from a few hints at the start and an overt mention at the end, they’ve almost nothing in common.

Not content to stick with something contemporary with Poe, we’re going to jump far into the past, into something like the 15th or 16th century. Dr. Erasmus Craven (Vincent Price) sits in his study when he is visited by a raven, eventually letting the bird into his house. It turns out that this raven is actually a person named Dr. Bedlo (Peter Lorre), who has been turned into a raven by a magical rival. Bedlo is convinced that Craven is also a practitioner of magic and should have the ingredients on hand. Craven denies this, but then claims that his father was a wizard and would have such ingredients like dead man’s hair and evaporated bats blood. Two concoctions later (the first one brought back Dr. Bedlo but left him with raven wings), and our two magicians have decided that they must pay a call on the man who transformed Bedlo.

Ten Days of Terror!: The Tomb of Ligeia

Film: The Tomb of Ligeia
Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library on laptop.

Every now and then, something wonderful happens in the film world. One of those wonderful happenings was when Roger Corman, king of the B-movies, was given the go-ahead to start adapting stories from the Edgar Allen Poe canon. Corman has made a lot of crappy movies in his career, but his best work in general is centered on his Poe movies. With The Tomb of Ligeia, we’re moving away from the main canon of Poe’s stories; “Ligeia” isn’t one that most people would consider essential Poe.

I feel like I should cover the story itself before getting to the actual film. In Poe’s original tale, the narrator tells us of his wife Ligeia, who like most of the ill-fated women in Poe’s stories, is resplendently gorgeous and of supreme intelligence in all things philosophical, linguistic, and scientific. Of course Ligeia isn’t going to live that long, and our narrator eventually enters into a second marriage with a woman named Rowena. It’s a loveless affair, but when she takes ill as well, our nameless narrator is still upset. Eventually, the Lady Rowena dies, and during the vigil for her death, he tries to revive her multiple times. Each time, she seems closer to coming back to life. When, at the end of the story she finally does, she has transformed into Ligeia.

Ten Days of Terror!: A Bucket of Blood

Film: A Bucket of Blood
Format: Turner Classic Movies on rockin’ flatscreen.

I’ve waxed rhapsodic about the influence of Roger Corman on the film industry before and almost certainly will again. For a month on TCM in 2016, Corman did a guest spot talking about American International Pictures movies, many of which he directed or produced on minimal budgets and filmed in less than a week. I like Corman. Sure, a lot of his movies are shit, but I like Corman as a person, or at least I think I would if I ever got a chance to meet him. He seems like a really cool guy, someone who doesn’t take himself that seriously but just wants to make a few movies and have a good time doing it. He also seems to realize that a lot of his movies are crap, but he actually has something to say with some of them. A Bucket of Blood has one of his better titles, so I was interested in seeing it.

According to Corman in the interview preceding the film, he got the idea for a horror comedy when he noticed an audience watching one of his films. He’d arranged a particular series of shots to get a scare and got it, and then after the initial shock, the audience laughed. So, the idea for a horror comedy seemed natural—get a scare, then get a laugh after the scare. Truthfully, A Bucket of Blood isn’t remotely scary. It’s also not laugh-out-loud funny, but the whole thing does work pretty well.

Wednesday Horror: The Haunted Palace; The Resurrected

Film: The Haunted Palace; The Resurrected
Format: MGM Channel on rockin’ flatscreen; Internet video on laptop.

You can say what you want about Roger Corman, but the man does have a couple of particular talents. First, judging by the people who made films for him, Corman was a great judge of directorial talent. Second, he was capable of doing a great deal with a limited budget. Third, the man found a tremendous niche with films specifically based on the writings of Edgar Allen Poe. With The Haunted Palace, Corman stepped a little outside of that comfort zone, making a film that is clearly based on Lovecraft’s “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward,” but he made this essentially as one of his Poe films, so that strange connection of making something watchable carried through.

The film starts a few years before the American Revolution in Arkham, MA. Women in the town are mysteriously drawn to the rebuilt palace of Joseph Curwen (Vincent Price). The townspeople have decided that Curwen is a warlock and storm the palace. They drag him out and burn him at the stake, although they are convinced not to attack his mistress, Hester Tillinghast (Cathie Merchant). Before he dies, Curwen pronounces a curse on the town, saying that those who are burning him, their children, and their children’s children will suffer.

Off Script: The Pit and the Pendulum (1961)

Films: The Pit and the Pendulum (1961)
Format: Turner Classic Movies on rockin’ flatscreen.

I know Roger Corman made a lot of shitty movies, but I’m really getting to the point where I have to admit that I like a lot of them. He didn’t make a lot of loser films in terms of box office, and when he was on, he was really on. He also managed to work with a lot of great people during his career, including making a lot of movies starring Vincent Price, one of the gold standards of ‘50s and ‘60s gothic horror. The Pit and the Pendulum is a film that plays on a couple of important Corman tropes. First, it’s a period piece, which means capes and poofy costumes. Second, this is one of his Poe films, and his Poe films rank among his best.

Another of Corman’s touchpoints in his Poe films is that there’s a lot of material added here. Many of Poe’s stories were really short and might make a dandy short film. To make something of feature length, a great deal needs to be added. In this case, it’s the entire first hour or so of the movie, which was created in service of getting on character strapped to a rack while a bladed pendulum slowly descends toward him with the intent of chopping him in half. Hey, you want ao good scary moment, you need to work for it.

Wednesday Horror: X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes

Films: X (X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes)
Format: Turner Classic Movies on rockin’ flatscreen.

I do love good science fiction and I always have. I think we’re often guided by the things that are most formative to us. Both of my brothers loved science fiction and many of my earliest film loves were in this genre. There are, of course, plenty of truly great science fiction films with large budgets—the sort of summer tent pole films that are plenty popular. I love the ones from the ‘50s and ’60s, too. Of these, one of my favorites is X, more formally known as X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes.

The worst of science fiction takes a stupid premise and does what it can. The best of science fiction takes an interesting premise and offers a view of what might happen. With X, we’re more in the second category by way of the first. What would happen, the film asks, if a man could discover a way to see more than just the visible light spectrum? What horrors might await us with the ability to see below the surface?

Price is Right

Film: The Masque of the Red Death
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on middlin’-sized living room television.

There are a few names that are natural to the idea of horror. Edgar Allan Poe is one of those names. Another is Vincent Price, who made a career for himself for a number of years by being really creepy in low-budget horror films. There’s something particular about a Vincent Price performance. Much of this came from his distinctive voice; Price had an untraceable accent, which is quite a feat for a guy born in St. Louis.

Roger Corman’s The Masque of the Red Death is based on the Poe short story of the same name. In Poe’s story, a wicked, dissolute prince holds a masquerade ball during a time when his lands are ravaged by a terrible illness called the red death. As penance for his terrible crime, a figure appears at his ball disguised as a red death victim, who then proceeds to infect the entire party, killing them all horribly. It’s a great story, one of my favorites from Poe’s pen.

The operative word in “short story” is “short” in this case. What this means for us as the audience is that Corman had two choices—make a really short movie or add a whole bunch of new stuff to make the tale even more lurid. Fortunately for us, Corman went with option two. In addition to putting his own stuff into this already fairly lurid tale, he included elements of another of Poe’s tales: “Hop-Frog.”

Wicked Prince Prospero (Price) rules an unnamed land cruelly. While driving through one of his towns, his cart nearly tramples a young child, who is saved at the last moment by a peasant named Gino (David Weston). Gino confronts the wicked prince, and is thus taken prisoner to the castle along with Ludovico (Nigel Green). Prospero is swayed from killing them both outright by Francesca (Jane Asher), who happens to be Ludovico’s daughter and Gino’s love. It’s at this time that a prophecy that happens at the start of the film seems to come true—an old woman who was told that deliverance from Prospero was at hand. Well, her deliverance comes painfully—she is stricken with the red death.

Segue to the castle, where we discover just how degraded Prospero and his people have become. In particular we meet Alfredo (Patrick Magee), who appears as interested in death, pain, and killing as Prospero. We also met Juliana (Hazel Court), who will do anything to possess Prospero for herself. It’s at this time we learn that Prospero is not a man of God, but worships Satan. Juliana gives herself over to a ceremony to become one of Satan’s handmaids. Gino and Ludovico will be forced to fight each other to the death by way of entertainment. Oh, and there are a couple of dwarf entertainers in the court—Esmerelda (Verina Greenlaw) and Hop-Toad (Skip Martin, who is sadly underrated). During the entertainment, Alfredo slaps Esmerelda, which sets this secondary plot from Poe’s other story in motion.

Of course, since this is a mid-60s horror film, a number of things should be known going in . First, anyone who professes his or her evil or allegiance to Satan is not going to walk out of this film alive. That’s a given. Since this is a low-budget horror movie, and a film by Roger Corman, we should also expect that much of what will be depicted here will be 1960s-style lurid.

There are some really exciting things here. If you were ever a Mystery Science Theater 3000 fan, you’ve seen more than your share of Roger Corman’s oeuvre already. While still low-budget in general, it’s very high budget for Corman. It also came with a much longer film schedule, which allowed (one presumes) for reshoots for shots that didn’t work. The costuming here is quite good for a Corman production, and the sets might actually be described as “sumptuous.”

But the great sets and impressive costumes are just a small part of the sell here. What really sells this film is some of the most impressive scenery chewing of Vincent Price’s long and storied career. Prince Prospero is evil incarnate, and Price appears to absolutely revel in a role that allows him to be as evil as he can set his mind to being. And he is here—Prospero is cartoon villain evil, and he makes it work like few other actors could. For instance, when Prospero announces to Francesca who his master is, he intones a series of names by which Satan goes, and says them with such relish that it’s a joy to behold, and follows this with a wonderful act of cruelty that he enjoys just as much.

I also greatly appreciate the fact that Corman added most of the elements of the story “Hop-Frog” to this film. It’s a lesser-known Poe work, but one that I happen to like quite a bit. Like a lot of Poe, it’s disturbing, involves terrible revenge, and ends with a horrible death (in the original story, it was eight or nine horrible deaths). I love seeing it here, and seeing the skill with which Skip Martin handled this role makes me want to find other movies he appeared in.

This is not a great movie by any stretch of the imagination. It’s far too extreme, far too weird, too garish, too Roger Corman-y to ever be considered as one of the greatest films ever made. But boy is it fun! There’s nothing like watching people getting their freaky-deak on, and this one brings it. I’m not in love with the last fifteen minutes, which play like bad musical theater in a way, but even this can’t stop this movie from being the kind of entertainment that made Svengoolie and similar late-night “scare” mavens so much damn fun.

Why to watch The Masque of the Red Death: Vincent Price at his evil, scenery-chewing best.
Why not to watch: The fact that it’s Roger Corman’s best doesn’t really say much.