by A.J.
This is my favorite time of year, second only to Christmas. Autumn has arrived, the weather is cooling down, and October becomes the month-long celebration of scary movies called Shocktober. So, for the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some horror movie recommendations to help you celebrate Shocktober.
Night 11: Vincent Price & Roger Corman Night
“And it is with death and dying that we concern ourselves.
What happens at the point of death? What happens afterwards? What happens after
death to someone who does not choose to stay dead…”
Here are two of my favorite Shocktober subgenres in one
movie: a Vincent Price-Roger Corman movie and a horror anthology. It gets even
better. Tales of Terror is made up of three short films, each starring the great Vincent Price and each based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe. I’m not sure it
gets more Shocktober than this. Legendary B-movie producer-director Roger Corman made so many films of such wildly differing quality that you never know
if you’re going to watch a quality entertaining picture or fodder for Mystery
Science Theater 3000 or Rifftrax. Corman hit his stride in the early 1960’s
with a cycle of Edgar Allan Poe adaptations starring Vincent Price. The best of
these is The Masque of the Red Death (1964), probably the worst is The Raven (1963). Tales of Terror (1962) leans more toward The Masque
of the Red Death on the Corman-Price spectrum.
Each of the three stories is prefaced with a narration by
Price and red silhouettes on a black screen hinting at the story to come. The
first story, based on Morella, has a young woman, Lenora (Maggie Pierce), arriving at the dilapidated mansion of her long-estranged father, Locke
(Price). Her mother, Locke’s beloved Morella, died in childbirth and he blamed
and resented his daughter so much for “killing” Morella that he sent her away.
He begins to open up to her but mysterious apparitions and Lenora’s own
sickness intervene. It is a weird, creepy story that maintains a tone very much
in keeping with Poe’s more melancholy, macabre stories.
The second story is the standout of the anthology. In an
impressive feat, it successfully combines Poe’s The Black Cat, The
Cask of Amontillado, and even touches upon the Tell-Tale Heart. Of course,
an adaptation of any Poe short story necessitates expanding the characters and
plot. In a brilliant stroke, screenwriter Richard Matheson (writer of several The Twilight Zone episodes and author of I Am Legend) combines two stories
with the same plot device (hiding a body behind a wall) and allows the
expansion to come from Poe’s stories. The Black Cat is about a man who
murders his wife and then must dispose of her body. In this short film, he
murders her is because she was having an affair with his rival. The choice to
make the man Montresor (Peter Lorre) and his rival Fortunato (Vincent Price) is
such a smart one that it seems obvious. This is the comedic entry in the
anthology and it blends comedy and the macabre well. The comedy doesn’t really
kick in until Price makes his entrance and starts hamming it up as the vain and
ridiculous Fortunato, a famous professional wine taster. Peter Lorre is great
as Montresor, a down on his luck wine taster. They have a wine tasting duel
which is pretty silly and very entertaining. Montresor is a mean drunk always
in search of money but Lorre plays him as a buffoon. This doesn’t make him
sympathetic but makes him a tolerable character, especially since you know he
is headed for a comeuppance.
The final installment is an adaptation of The Facts in
the Case of M. Valdemar, not exactly a horror story but a macabre one. It
involves a dying man, Valdemar (Price), hypnotized at the moment of death to
allow for a more peaceful crossing into the afterlife. However, the hypnotist,
Carmichael (Basil Rathbone), is a cruel and sinister man with designs on
Valdemar’s soon to be widow, Helene (Debra Paget). Rathbone is most famous for
playing Sherlock Holmes in a series of films in the 1940’s, but he is also
great at playing a dastardly villain. This short departs the most drastically
from Poe’s original work, involving a zombie of sorts, but the additions work and it provides a nice conclusion.
Each of these tales plays like a daytime friendly Tales From the Crypt
episode. They involve unsavory or cruel characters but the short
length makes them easy watch. As with Corman’s other Poe adaptations, the period
costumes and sets go a long way to creating atmosphere. Each of the
characters Vincent Price plays are very different from each other, allowing him to show off his range and skill as an actor. In Morella
he is a cruel, cold person haunted by heartbreak. In The Black Cat he is an immoral but ridiculous character. In the last story he is a kind,
innocent old man, who, in a macabre way, ends up being a hero. Price is easily
convincing in all three roles. One of the great things about Tales of Terror
is it also has great roles for Peter Lorre and Basil Rathbone to show off and
have fun. The special effects are dated but that is part of the atmosphere and
appeal. These Vincent Price-Roger Corman movies are not scary, but they are
spooky great fun to watch on any Shocktober night.
Tales of Terror is streaming on Amazon Prime Video and Paramount Plus.
