Director: Roger Corman
Year: 1962
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Anthology
Plot:
Three short stories, all based on the collection of Edgar Allen Poe, are told in an anthology setting.
Review:
Morella-Arriving from Boston, a young woman arrives at the castle home of her father to meet him after a lifetime of being away. Initially hostile to her and the idea, he agrees to let her stay. Still angry about his belief that she had killed his wife when she was a baby, she discovers the awful truth about what happened. Appearing one, she becomes possessed and goes after him through the castle. This is a pretty nice Gothic tale that really manages to entertain. There's a lot of normal undertones, where the opening voyage through the fog-covered countryside, the castle itself, which is just simply marvelous, and features a lot of really nice scenery as well. The discovery of the shriveled corpse is pretty chilling, and it even looks quite spooky as well. The final confrontation is another fire-filled, action-packed house destruction that is so common that it again comes into play. The only problem is that it feels really crammed. This easily could've been dragged out a little more and put into a feature-length film rather than being in an anthology, but otherwise, this one's quite entertaining.
The Black Cat-Arriving home, a man complains to his wife about his hatred for her black cat and how it interferes with his drinking. Meeting up with a wine aficionado during a drinking game, and while drunk, the two begin to start an affair. Discovering the dirty deeds, he conspires to put both of them out of his life, only for the cat to ruin it all and force him to take drastic action to prevent it. This is an incredibly flawed entry. The fact that this here isn't all that frightening is its biggest problem. Most of it deals with the drinking problem rather than focusing on the cat and the drinking situations, which are nowhere near being all that scary. The fact that they occupy so much time is a complete mystery, since there's nothing in it that really inspires fear. That there's almost nothing of interest is another one, where a dream sequence that starts off promising but soon becomes too silly to be frightening. This one is easily skippable.
The Facts in the Case of Mr. Valdemar-Trying to cure his crippling pain, a man successfully concludes that hypnosis works. Knowingly dying, he asks a mesmerist to hypnotize him at the moment he dies, much to the chagrin of his wife and doctor, who hope to get him to change his mind. As he approaches his deathbed, the procedure begins, and it's a success, only for the event to continue on after he has died. After several months, it continues on due to his insistent to discontinue the experiment. Fearing that control of his condition is being exploited, they soon learn what has really happened and try to stop the torment. This one's not all that bad, and is mostly all that for the ending. The constant voices of doom surrounding the entire thing, the spectacular make-up used on the participants, and the pretty great resolving of it all lead to some really shocking conclusions. This one here wasn't that bad at all.
Overview: ****/5
A surprisingly good anthology in the series, there's a lot of fun with this one that manages to offset the few slight drawbacks present in several of the segments, keeping it down. Those with an appreciation for this era of genre fare, who enjoy anthology films in general, or who are fans of the creative crew, will have a lot to like here, while most others out there should heed caution.
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