The Haunted Palace (1963)

 "One becomes accustomed to the darkness here."

Not many films have been made adapting the works of H.P. Lovecraft, writer of cult horror stories evoking the nameless, ancient horrors that lurk behind everyday reality... and, er, massive racist, by the standards of his own time, let alone ours. Imagine my surprise, then, that this- the first ever cinematic adaptation of a Lovecraft tale (his only full novel, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward)exists... and was helmed by Roger Corman himself in the style of the Poe films he was also busy making. 

Naturally, the title is pinched from Poe, we end with some verses from Poe, and the style absolutely evokes the Poe films, with Lovecraft very much downplayed. Yet this is, nevertheless, full-on Lovecraft, full of delightfully overwrought existential dread, and explicit mentions of not only the Necronomicon and the Great Old Ones but specifically of Cthulhu and Yog-Sothoth.

And it's really rather splendid, with Vincent Price hugely entertaining as both the eponymous Ward and his depraved warlock of an ancestor. We have unspeakable horrors from the past; unfriendly locals in a tavern aside from one scientifically minded individual; "satanic" rituals"; disturbing body horror with the mutated locals (particularly the girl born with no eyes!) and a perfectly paced horror movie that ends up feeling very similar indeed to Corman's Poe films.

There is an extremely uncomfortable scene featuring attempted marital rape, which is not exactly the right kind of disturbing. But there are angry villagers with torches. There's a snake and a tarantula. There'sa creepy old portrait with terrifying eyes. And the whole things just so damned entertaining.

The Raven (1963)

 "But you'd be kiled!"

"I do hope not..."

I haven't checked how many of Roger Corman's Poe films I've seen. It's a lot. It's possible, with this film, I've seen them all. 

They are, of course, all B movies, bless them. They all acknowledge the fun side of that. Corman has always understood the power of kitsch... except in Frankenstein Unbound. This film makes me wonder if the tongue in cheek subtletiesof his other Poe films are wittier than they come across, Because this film is full of ironic, fourth wall- threatenning humour.

Understandably, many films are based on novels or plays. Few films are based on poems, yet this film begins with a recital of Poe's masterpiece- I love the poem, unfashionable thought it is; compare it to the adolescent nature-wanking drivel of John Keats- and just has fun.

Vincent Price is a great avtor, one who deserved more than B movies. Here he shows his prowess at deadpan humour. Peter Lorre not so much, but you can't take your eyes off him Hazel Court is more of the classy straight actress, but her performance works very well indeed. Boris Karloff cannot fail to be the consummate evil sorcerer. He was born to play such a role.

Yet Jack Nicholson- yes, he was once this young- turns out to be a bloody good comic actor, moving beyond the point of treating B movie characters like Shakespeare, as he was previously known to do, and showing a real comic timing. 

This film is a joy, despite the tenuous connection to Poe, and the cast is fascinating. So is the deliciosly garish direction, exalting in the possibility of Technicolor.

I know this film is very silly, but I love it.

Frankenstein Unbound (1990)

 "This is not the end of the world."

Some films are very good, so you enjoy them. Some films are pants, so you dontr. This film fits into an interesting third category: the interesting failure. And this is one of those: Roger Corman's first film in twenty years and one which is, although right up his street- a mainly period adaptation of a novel by serious science fiction author Brian Aldiss featuring both interesting ideas around time travel and a postmodern riff on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein featuring the lady herself... er, shagging John Hurt's hero. Er, yes.

The film starts in the (this being 1990) far fututre of 2031, where there are no longer any Brazilian rainforests and KITT from Knight Rider exists, thus predicting both the disgusting Jair Bolsonaroand self-driving cars. If only cars in 2022 looked so cool.

Anyway, John Hurt is maverick scientist Joe Buchanan, selling out his country to the Yankee dollar, tut tut, and risking tim slip side effects in his attempt to sell a superweapon to the US military. He fails, but is propelled back in time to 1817, where he meets not only Mary Shelley but Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron, both of whom are played for laughs, at Lake Diodati, in an early Nineteenth Century Switzerland where language differences are airily handwaved. There's all sorts of what I rather suspect are clever subtexts about the meaning of "unbound" from the novel that are never quite explored and which remain unclear.

John Hurt is superb. He cannot be otherwise, Bridget Fonda is adequate, as ever. Raul Julia chews the scenery with his usual class. Yet something doesn't quite work. Nevertheless, the film is far from dull.

Premature Burial (1962)

 "I don't enjoy life. I merely experience greater or lesser degrees of tedium."

I haven't seen any of Roger Corman's Poe films for quite a while. This is mainly because there aren't many left to blog and I don't want to end up with none left. This one, while its reputation is solid enough, is not much talked about. 

Well, it's brilliant. From a short story by Poe with very little incident it takes the concept of premature burial itself, the idea of catalpesy making one appear dead; and the horrible irony of the fear of premature burial causing said catalepsy. But little else is taken from Poe, mainly because there isn't much else; Poe's brilliance is in his prose.

So, instead, we have the character of Guy, loosely based on the short story's narrator (Ray Milland does a decent job but the role, alas, is one that Vincent Price was born to play. And, for once in a Corman Poe fim, he doesn't.) and a delightfully gothic, obviously studio-bound setting, which quite rightly prefers the gothic and macabre over the realistic. This is a world where the weather, the Technicolor lighting, the shapes of the trees, all are carefully arranged in order to maximise the gothic eeriness.

More than this, though, the plot is awfully clever. We spend the early scenes building u the tension and enjoying the facr that, as this is shot and scripted the way it is, Guy will be buried alive in the end. We expect the whole film to be predictable... and yet the plot is awfully clever, with multiple twists at the end that are all the more effective for the fact the film gave no indication that any twists would be forthcoming.

Oh, and Alfred from the Adam West Batman series (look at the pages on the right) has easily the best line.

The Wasp Woman (1959)

"Oh, women!"

This Roger Corman film is, I admit, a bit of a cheat. The picture you see opposite is in no way represented in the film, which shows no women turning into anything resembling wasps until the last ten minutes, and that just brief shots of fairly crap prosthetics, with most of the exciting stuff happening off screen.

And yet... this is actually a pretty impressive B movie, if admittedly most certainly a B movie, with an actual subtext on the subtext of hubris. Even the inevitable dodgy sexual politics, definitely present, are blunted by the fact that Janice, the protagonist, is the boss.

In fact, although the characters are admittedly all ciphers, and the closest thing to a hero is a fairly flat pipe smoking bloke, you can identify with both Janice and the obligatory mad scientist Zinthrop (played by an actor born in 1886 in the Russian Empre of Alexander III, incredibly), in their hubris of wanting both youth and scientific fame respectively. Importantly, the wasp injections do in fact work in rejuvenating Janice until they are taken too far. The film’s faults lie in its budget only; the script is sound and the concept actually quite strong, as one may expect from Corman. Alas, though, there’s very little wasp-related spectacle here.

The Masque of the Red Death (1964)

"Each man creates his own God for himself, his own Heaven, his own Hell."

I'd seen and blogged a couple of Roger Corman’s Poe films before, and found they’ve always been impressive in how they were scripted, shot and acted. But this one absolutely stands out as the finest by far. It’s superb, taking an Edgar Allan Poe short story and making a dark philosophical treatise that almost echoes Bergman’s The Seventh Seal.

The setting is simple; a gothic castle in Renaissance Italy and the dark, plague-ridden countryside. But the film eschews realism in order to make the countryside darkly stylised, while there’s a sense that this community is cut off from the rest of Italy, giving Prince Prosperous absolute power over all he surveys. An openly Satanist prince would not possibly have been able to survive in Renaissance Italy, of course, but the film exists in its own claustrophobic, deeply atmospheric little world.

And at the centre of it all is the magnificent, extraordinary Vincent Price, giving one of the performances of his career. His mellifluous voice, the arch of his eyebrow, the looks of sardonic sadism- all this makes him utterly compelling as a charming sadist with absolute power and a love of Satan. There are subplots- Hazel Court as a princess fated to a gory death after giving herself to the Devil, and the horrifying revenge of a dwarf for the insult to his lady- but the film entirely focuses around the compelling figure of Prospero, and his eventual comeuppance is glorious.

I’ve blogged a fair few Roger Corman films by now, many of them excellent. But this is his finest achievement by far.

The Terror (1963)

"Mark you, you are getting yourself into things beyond your understanding!"

Roger Corman, O Roger Corman, you have your tropes. I mean, this film isn't even based on a Poe story but it might as well be. It's all typically gothic, set in "the remains of a noble house" and full of the sinister suggestion that the sins of the past may come to find us. Oh, and we have Boris Karloff and Jack Nicholson in the same film, a witch, a bloke getting his eyes pecked out by a bird, and Nicholson being delightfully excessive throughout in really trying to find motivation in the cipher of a character he's playing; he actually manages to imbue his shitty lines with some depth. Wow.

But let's not be too harsh; this is a fun film and exactly what you'd expect from Corman. It's a precious artifact from those last few years of Boris Karloff's life in which he was again fashionable, and both he and Nicholson are excellent in a competent film, if a cheap one and formulaic in the best possible way. This is pure distilled Corman, with two excellent performances from its leads, so much so that we can avoid the unfortunate continuity error about when Ilsa is supposed to have died, and the frankly implausible twist about the Baron that comes at the end. What counts is atmosphere, and Karloff, and Nicholson. Typical Corman in the best possible way.

The Pit and the Pendulum (1961)

"Do you know where you are, Bartolome? I'll tell you where you are. You are about to enter Hell, Bartolome, HELL!... The netherworld. The infernal region, The abode of the Damned... The place of torment. Pandemonium. Abbadon. Tophet. Gehenna. Naraka. The pit... and the pendulum!"

One of the first films I did for this blog was Roger Corman's House of Usher; I didn't expect it to be quite as long until the next one of his Edgar Allan Poe films which happens, coincidentally, to be the second one made. I seem to have accidentally managed to do them in order so far.

This is a far superior film to its predecessor, with the use of a blurred and tinted picture for the flashbacks being a particularly inspired directorial flourish and Vincent Price being superb. Only the very end of the film is faithful to Poe's (very) short story with a plot invented to sound vaguely Poe-like, utilising many of his tropes, not least of which is premature burial. It works, and the plot is superb with a fantastic twist.

This is a profoundly gothic film in which the sins of the past- both before and after the twist- threaten to destroy the well-meaning but helpless present generation with the sheer weight of their evil. In this case it is the tortures of the recent Spanish Inquisition which weigh oppressively on the present, and the acting and superb direction Jane this a genuinely powerful and disturbing film. I'm left to ruminate that gothic horror is fundamentally progressive: it is fascinated by the past but all too aware that bad things happened there.

I was expecting a bit of campy fun with this film but instead, in spite of John Kerr's dodgy acting, I found a genuinely excellent film. Highly recommended.

The Little Shop of Horrors (1960)

"I didn't mean it!"

Ah, I love me a good old low budget piece of retro fun. I only actually watched this as preparation for the musical remake, which is coming next, but there are much worse ways of spending late afternoon on a Friday. It may not be The Godfather, there's no real depth or subtext to it, and it looks as though it cost about $4.40, but it's bloody funny. And filming in black and white can paper over a multitude of budgetary sins, most of the time.

The film is a black comedy, with increasing amounts of farce. The customer who starts munching on carnations in the first few minutes tells us that this is going to be a very silly film indeed. It's gloriously camp; all the characters are grotesques, and all of them have delightfully silly names that the film just revels in. Seymour's hypochondriac mother and the mad, scary dentist (is this the birth of a trope?)  are both personal favourites of mine, but the best of them has to be Jack Nicholson's unforgettable cameo as Wilbur force, a man with a massive, masochistic craving for dental torture. He spends a most enjoyable afternoon, which I suppose makes Seymour some kind of dominatrix. Hmm.

Seymour's accidental murders get increasingly silly, with the last one positively revelling in its silliness; Seymour doesn't have a coin so he flips a rock. And accidentally kills the poor gorgeous lady trying to seduce him by missing the ground and throwing it clumsily at her head. it's funny because you can see it coming. And what's this about all these women throwing themselves at Seymour? I want some of his irresistible sexual magnetism, dammit.

There's a good reason why this film is thought of so fondly. As always, it's the script and the performances. If those two things are bloody good, as they are here, then any faults elsewhere don't matter so much. It's interesting to compare this with, say, Plan 9 from Outer Space. Both are cheap. Both are hilarious viewing. But one of them is actually good and the other one… isn't.

One slight oddity, mind. I know I'm British, but surely the dialogue indicates that the film is set in LA, and a lot of characters seem to have New York accents?

The Fall of the House of Usher (1960)

“…And with every evil rooted in its stones…”

Yes, I know. Five film reviews, and all of them horror films. The next one will be different, I promise, and this time I mean it. Honest.

The opening scenes of the lands belonging to House of Usher, the eerie and claustrophobic setting within which the whole film is to be set, are great. There’s no attempt at realism, of course; this is a heightened reality of smoky mists, gnarled, dead trees and eternal dusk. It looks more like a theatre set than anything you’d see in real life, but so it should. These scenes not only set the tone but signal to us that we’ve entered a heightened version of reality.

It’s a heightened version of reality we see indoors, too. Not only is the house itself an increasingly sinister presence, but the claustrophobic mood is enhanced by the fact that the entire film has a cast of four. You don’t get more American Gothic than Poe, of course, but I think there’s something distinctly American about the eerie mood of this film, especially to this British viewer. For a start, there’s a real sense of isolation. The comforting normality and life represented by Boston, representing “our” world, are a long, long way. The wide, open spaces of America (yes, even New England, from a European perspective) are used here to emphasise the isolation, a trope often and successfully used in American horror films of all kinds. And the existence of aristocratic families such as the Ushers and the (real life) Winthrops, with their grand homes and butlers and inherited wealth, looks particularly decadent and decayed in the context of this young republic (Poe wrote the short story in 1839, and the costumes indicate a similar date for the film. The United States was sixty-three years old).

The isolation and alienation of the setting is carried much further than in the original; Poe has his short story narrated by an old friend of the narrator, which adds a certain touch of cosiness. The writer here (Richard Matheson, no less) gives us a protagonist, in Philip Winthrop, who is in a position to be as unsettled by his surroundings as we are, being a stranger to the house. He’s the fiancé of Madeleine Usher, with whom he fell in love in the happier surroundings of Boston, but a stranger to Roderick, and the house. We first meet him traversing the bleak lands of the house, approaching the large, intimidating doors, and using one of those big, iron ring-like knockers which always appear in films like this. He’s accosted by a sinister butler, Bristol- there’s another horror trope- and warned that his employer will not accept visitors. It isn’t long, though, before we meet Roderick Usher- Vincent Price is sublime in the part- and the beautiful yet doomed Madeleine.

We begin slowly as the mystery is gradually and unsettlingly established. We know that Roderick Usher, and the his sister, are unable to bear any strong sensation with any of their senses- which indicates that Madeleine would probably not make the best of sexual partners for Philip! This kind of medical condition is also, of course, the sort of thing which affects those with money and leisure suspiciously more that those who need to work for a living…

We learn that the sinister Roderick is unwilling to allow either himself or his sister to leave the house or, worse, beget children. For the moment, the sense of dread is dialled down. But it isn’t long before two incidents- a falling chandelier and an unsteady railing on the stairs- make it clear that there’s something very unnatural and eerie about this house.

We get hints early on- an Usher family history of madness, ensuing superhuman strength, a dark family history meaning the family line should not be perpetuated- but the opening scenes centre on a to- and fro between Philip and Roderick over the doomed Madeleine. But things ratchet up after Madeleine shows Philip the family tomb, with places for herself and her brother. This horrifies Philip, who is by this point explicitly having a parallel experience of the film to the viewer.

At last Philip confronts Roderick and gets an explanation. The speech is poetic and so wonderfully delivered by Vincent Price, whose performance is simply astonishing. Not only does the family have a history of moral dodginess (although not all of the ancestors described by Roderick, and painted in that strange Goya-cum-Graham Sutherland style, are all that irredeemable, surely?), but it seems the house, and its grounds, are a metaphor made literal; the grounds have become tainted and infertile, while the house is rocky, unstable and, Roderick believes, actively trying to kill Philip! This echoes the earlier references to the “settling of the house” by Bristol, a butler of sixty years who appears to essentially be an integral part of the house himself.

Of course, Philip is appalled by such superstitious nonsense, and immediately convinces Madeleine to come away with him. She starts packing immediately but, alas, seems to die while arguing with Roderick. A disconsolate Philip helps her brother to bury her in the crypt. He’s about to leave until Bristol’s casual mention of “catalepsies” brings him to a horrible realisation. It’s evident that the Americans of the early nineteenth century had a much wider medical vocabulary than the British of the early twenty-first!

Madeleine has been buried alive! Horrified, Philip rushes to her coffin and finds that it’s empty. He confronts Roderick, who glumly confesses that he deliberately buried his own sister alive, but refuses to tell where he left her coffin. Tiring himself after searching for hours, Philip settles to sleep. Roger Corman’s directorship has been superlative up to this point, but the ensuing dream sequence is inspired and extraordinary. It’s an abstract, tinted, sepia dreamworld, evoking the imagery of silent film and the surroundings of 1920s German Expressionist film in particular, with some extraordinary out-of-focus shots of various ghostly Ushers, who look like something Lon Chaney could have portrayed during the 1920s. This sequence raises the dramatic stakes; as Philip wakes, we know this is the climax.

An initially calm Roderick confesses to Philip that he has heard every scream and every scratch of Madeleine’s bloody fingernails as he listens to her slow and horrible death. Finally, Madeleine appears, mad, and strong enough to have ripped the coffin lid from its hinges. The house begins to fall apart as Madeleine strangles her brother. Both of them are crushed by burning masonry as Philip barely escapes the house which crumbles around him.

Extraordinary; the script, the direction, the set design and the central performance from Vincent Price are all of the very first class. This is one of the best horror films I’ve ever seen and certainly the best I’ve watched for this blog so far.