Joshua Reviews Scream Factory’s The Vincent Price Collection (Part 1) [Blu-ray Review]

Best known for his work as both director and producer of various legendary cult classics throughout the last half century-plus, Roger Corman is as synonymous with B-movie schlock as he is anything resembling actually beloved classic cinema. With only the occasional masterwork adorning his name (films like Death Race 2000 are among his most beloved pictures, a rightly beloved sci-fi masterpiece), very little of the public, outside of genre aficionados, consider him to rightly be a touchstone of his generation.

However, if any two films could prove just how deft a cinematic voice Corman truly was, it happens to be two films that have no finally hit Blu-ray as part of the monstrous new Blu-ray set, Scream Factory’s “The Vincent Price Collection.”

Two of six films found within this four disc set, these two films find Corman mining from the oeuvre of none other than Edgar Allan Poe, and with collaborators ranging from Nicolas Roeg to Richard Matheson, these are easily two of Corman’s most interesting and still vital pieces of pure Gothic horror you’ll find in his canon.

First up is the 1961 near masterpiece, The Pit And The Pendulum. Starring Vincent Price as Nicholas Medina, son of a Spanish Inquisition torturer, and husband to the late Elizabeth, Francis Banard’s sister. With Francis goes to Spain to discover what happened to his sister, things turn disastrous as it becomes fear that appears to have played the murderer. Set almost entirely inside of the castle Medina, the film carries with it a stunningly mod-Gothic aesthetic that can also be seen in the second Price-picture here, The Masque Of The Red Death.

Yet another Poe adaptation, the film is penned by Charles Beaumont  and R. Wright Campbell, and tells the tale of a European prince hell bent on bringing to life Satan himself. Using his castle to hold himself out from an ever growing “Red Death” plague destroying the surrounding land, he holds a series of twisted balls, turning the peasantry into play things all while awaiting the evil devil he believes to be the one true God. A deeply troubling Poe adaptation, this, and Pit And The Pendulum, not only prove Vincent Price to be an oddly magnetic leading man but also their director, Corman, to be at the very top of his aesthetic powers.

With Pit And The Pendulum, the film stands as one of Corman’s most experimental. Featuring a cavalcade of deeply effective flashback sequences shot in heightened hues and with an expressive camera and some of the most lavish set decoration and cinematography Corman would feature until his next Poe picture, this is inarguably one of his most forward thinking pictures visually. The Matheson script is an absolutely superb take on Poe’s charged thriller that is oddly enough as focused on the sexual nature of Poe’s original piece as it is any of the tension built by the undulating torture device that its title is drawn from. With Corman using glorious and awe-inspiring matte shots, and some cinematography from a rarely better Floyd Crosby (oddly enough, the same man who shot the ever stunning Murnau picture, Tabu), the director gets a performance as beautifully brooding as any Price had or would ultimately give, making for a film so wonderfully atmospheric that it proves Corman as a filmmaker with passion for more than just breasts and gore.

However, not to be outdone by this Poe adaptation, Corman would come back, three years later, with an adaptation of Poe’s The Masque Of The Red Death. Possibly the greatest film Corman would ever go on to direct, the film is exactly the type of perverse Gothic chiller that one would expect from the pair of Corman and Price, particularly when the biggest star here is one Nicolas Roeg. Cinematographer for this film, Roeg would give one of the most entrancing color palettes Corman would ever use here, blending Hammer-esque fogginess and acid-fueled pop art hues into a purely surreal, bleak meditation on faith. Price is at his most deliciously dark here, becoming as despicable as he is incomprehensibly watchable, and Corman’s camera is ever moving, as perfectly interested in taking in the lavish sets as it is in engrossing the viewer into this heightened Gothic universe. With outdoor sequences that prove Roeg as an incomparable talent, there is such a threatening sense of dread and terror here that it truly becomes an unforgettable thriller that is unlike anything Corman’s canon features.

And both of these films look utterly breathtaking in HD. The transfers here, for both films being on one disc, are kind of stunning, giving the cinematography and these scores a second lease on life. Both come packed with supplements, namely two commentaries, one with Corman for Pit and one with writer Steven Haberman for Red Death. Both are really interesting listens, particularly Corman’s who is actually on a second commentary, which will be discussed later in this series. Both feature an intro from Price (a thrilling look into just how magnetic a presence this man was), and a trailer. Truly a breathless start to a top notch box set, come back later this week for a deeper look into Scream Factory’s must-own Vincent Price Collection Blu-ray box set.