Tales of Terror 1962

     We go all the way back to 1962 for today's offering with Tales of Terror.  Another anthology movie, this one walks the line between horror and comedy.  Roger Corman pulled double duty on this feature as both producer and director.  Screenplay was written by Richard Matheson who also wrote I Am Legend, The Shrinking Man, and Stir Of Echos just to name a few.  The film contains three stories all loosely based on stories by Edgar Allen Poe.  The film stars Vincent Price (who plays a character in each story) along with Debra Pagent who starred with Elvis Presley in his first film Love Me Tender as well as doing the risque (for the time) snake dance in The Indian Tomb.  Peter Lorre and Basil Rathbone round out the cast.

 First up is "Morella" where a woman returns home to see her father who lives alone in his creepy castle.  They have unfinished business as the woman's father still blames her for her mothers death who died shortly after giving birth to her.  Story be damned what wins in this story is the set design which is absolutely gorgeous and loaded with lots of cobwebby goodness.

     "The Black Cat" is next and is the comedy part of this horror comedy.  Lorre plays a drunk man named Herringbone whose wife loves her black cat more than him.  A lighter version of Poe's story especially, at first, but by the end of the story it is nearly as unsettling as Poe's original.  This version is actually a cross between The Black Cat and The Cask of Amontillado as Vincent Price plays Fortunato, who is walled up in "The Cask of Amontillado".  Poe had an affection for having people getting walled up as he wrote about it in three stories; the two already mentioned as well as The Tell Tale Heart.  Lorre is the stand out in this one.

 In the final story "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" Price plays Mr. Valdemar a man who is dying from a painful disease.  Basil Rathbone plays a hypnotist hired by Valdemar to mesmerize him to take away the pain and attempt to put him in a trance at the moment of death.  In essence Rathbone turns Price into a zombie as he straddles both life and death.  This one was interesting as it is one of the only chances to see Rathbone play a truly despicable character.  The set design here is nearly as good as we saw in "Morella" but with less cobwebs but more color.  The ending of this one has the best use of special effect for sure.  

Poe stories are probably the hardest stories to adapt to the screen than any other with perhaps the exception of Lovecraft.  This one is fairly well done except for the fact that it is loosely based on those stories in fact the second story while it does have a black cat in it could have been titled "The Cask of Amontillado" as it resembles that story more so.  This is a must see for anyone who may be a Price fan or a Poe fan or even a Roger Corman fan.  While all three are above average it is the third story that is my favorite of the anthology.  I give it 3 and a half Edgar Allens out of 5.