(1962)
Dir - Roger Corman
Overall: GREAT
Installment number four in Roger Corman's Edgar Allan Poe series of adaptations for American International Pictures, (seven of which featured Vincent Price), Tales of Terror is as very good as the best of them. It is the only chapter in the series to be an anthology piece and the first to enter into a comedic contour with the middle "The Black Cat" segment which in turn forges the "The Cask of Amontillado" story into it as well. Said section could very well be the highlight, with Peter Lorre stumbling around drunk and screaming profanities at felines and Price being just delightful as a pretentious sommelier ponce. The opening "Morella" is basically a mini-version of House of Usher or Pit and the Pendulum and the final "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" features Price in some gruesome, squishy monster makeup. Aside from the middle portion of Tales which clearly goes for and achieves morbid laughs, the rest of the film has the same straightforward, spooky vibe that every Corman/Price/Poe movie does and Price logically impresses in three thoroughly different roles.
(1963)
Dir - Reginald Le Borg
Overall: GOOD
Based off the fabulously mustached Guy de Maupassant's short story Le Horla, Diary of a Madman is a prime example of the quintessential Vincent Price role; that of an upper-class nobleman who grudgingly submits to malevolent forces of the mind. There are some ghastly turn of events here, (including one involving a clay head statue that ranks as the most memorable), that rigidly merit its inclusion in the horror genre. As does the premise of a peculiar type of supernatural haunting that drives Price's French magistrate Simon Cordier to act as a man possessed, leaving the audience with little doubt that the strangeness is "real" and not exclusive to his subconscious. There is plenty to make this a strange standout for its era, though to nitpick if we must, a few of the performances outside of Price's of course are a bit stiff. There is also some forced religious subtext that is too incidental to appear plausible, but these really are petty points to even bring to light. It is Price in very respectable form during feasibly his best decade as an actor.
(1969)
Dir - Gordon Hessler
Overall: MEH
Two real life deaths unfortunately cast a shadow on the 1969 Edgar Allan Poe adaptation The Oblong Box. The first was filmmaker Michael Reeves', who had previously worked with Vincent Price, Rupert Davies, and Hilary Dwyer and was developing the script for Box at the time of his accidental overdose. Lawrence Huntington was then another writer who died suddenly in the pre-production phase. The completed work does see Price and Christopher Lee together for the very first time, (though they only share a single, quite brief scene), and has a rather macabre, grisly premise, but it is a bit cluttered and periodically sluggish. The script was heavily re-worked to the point of barely if at all resembling Poe's original story, not that that is a bad or even uncommon thing. Its twists though come off as a little flat and Price and Lee, (both of whom had the ability to carry a film in spades), have minimal screen time. Plot elements kind of pile up on top of each other and it is not a good thing when that makes the reasonable running time still seem like it is too long. Though not as essential as much of Price's other work or the Roger Corman helmed Poe vehicles, its mediocrity is still somewhat enjoyable.
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