Joshua Reviews Scream Factory’s The Vincent Price Collection (Part 2) [Blu-ray Review]

As far as legendary authors go, very few have become as universally looked at with regards to actual genre literature as the master of suspense himself, Edgar Allen Poe. Synonymous with the thrills and chills brought to readers throughout the world by the best novellas, novels or even poems the author penned, Poe has become a staple of genre literature and the reading lists of high school students everywhere.

However, the conversion of his work from written word to the big screen has been almost just as interesting. With the greatest films coming out the collection of eight Poe pictures from legendary genre icon Roger Corman, a handful of them are now available as part of Scream Factory’s newest box set release, “The Vincent Price Collection.” Wednesday we discussed the oddly stunning works known as The Pit And The Pendulum and The Masque Of The Red Death, but it’s about time we take a step back from both those pictures, and see just what Corman and Price, and the rest of the crew, were up to with The Fall Of The House Of Usher and the H.P. Lovecraft inspired The Haunted Palace.

The latter, despite being the later film of the two, is actually first up, and it’s oddly fitting. Based on Lovecraft’s novella The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward, the title is derived from Poe’s 1839 poem, and that poem is actually the basis for what Poe would go on to later scare audiences with in, that’s right, The Fall of The House Of Usher.

Palace tells the story of Charles Dexter Ward and his wife Anna who arrive in the wonderfully named New England town of Arkham after inheriting a palace from his great grandfather one Joseph Curwen. However, as we are introduced to in the opening prologue, Curwen was just no normal wealthy man. 110 years prior to their arrival in Arkham, Arkham was in the midst of a series of strange events, culminating in the proclamation of Joseph Curwen as a warlock. In front of an angry mob wanting his head, Curwen curses the village and its inhabitants saying that one day he’ll be back for his revenge, with the families of the five men who burned him on his hit list.

Yet another stunning piece of work from cinematographer Floyd Crosby (who would go on to blow minds with his work in Pit And The Pendulum), this film is oddly entrancing. Corman’s use of matte shots is really breathtaking, and there are a handful of shots within the film that hint at Corman’s (and the horror genre in general) appreciation for Gothic architecture and ultimately silent horror pictures from German. These expressionist classics play heavily here, as seen in shots particularly during a specific burial sequence. Set in a damp and foggy graveyard, our lead crops up in the top right corner of the frame, with enough a-symmetrical framing and set design to make Robert Weine blush. Entirely built on atmospherics and the overall sense of impending doom brought both by Corman and Crosby’s camera as well as the magnetic performance from Vincent Price, Palace becomes something of a pure, distilled horror/thriller wonder. Ostensibly more of a Lovecraft picture than a Poe picture, the difference is somewhat palpabe here, particularly in the fantastical side that crops up throughout the picture. However, one real connective tissue can be found throughout all of these films, and that is their admiration for everything Gothic.

And that really comes through in a film like The Fall Of The House Of Usher. Also from director Roger Corman (shot right before he’d take on The Pit And The Pendulum) these four films (including Pit and Masque Of The Red Death), all seem to be as influenced by Poe’s actual writings as they are by things happening with companies like Hammer Films. Ostensibly off shoots of the Hammer aesthetic, these films are so deeply entrenched in the Gothic aesthetic that they have become both oddly dated and yet completely timeless. Usher finds Richard Matheson behind the script, and the incomparable Vincent Price starring as Roderick, the brother to Madeline, a woman being sought after by one Philip Winthrop. When Winthrop arrives at the House of Usher, things turn dark as Roderick takes opposition to Winthrop’s request to marry Madeline.

A tale of familial sins being passed throughout the generations, this film is the earliest example of Corman as someone more than a genre sleeze hound (he’d release The Little Shop Of Horrors in 1960 as well). Atmospheric almost to a fault (the narrative itself is a tad slight, as are all of these pieces to be perfectly honest), the film oozes the dread and Gothic tension that is found within the very best of Poe’s work, while bringing out the best in a man like Vincent Price. A much more subdued performance (or at least in relation to other Price turns), this is one of his more layered turns, and one of his more entrancing. Co-starring Mark Damon and Myrna Fahey, the film doesn’t hold up as a brazen piece of work like Masque or the utterly bewildering aesthetic experience that comes in Pit and the Pendulum, the film is a serviceable adaptation of one of Poe’s most well known masterpiece. However, you see hints of things to come, particularly in a sequence near the end of our hero trying to recover the lost soul of his loved one, that is both surreal, completely Lynchian in every way, and something still seemingly inspiring directors, as you’ll find a similar sequence in films like the breathtaking Insidious double bill. It’s truly a superb piece of work.

And with this packed single disc, Scream Factory oddly enough proves that while most single discs with multiple films take a hit in quality, that’s not always true.  Both films have thrilling transfers (there is a series of shots in Usher of a casket being brought to a cellar that is one of the most exciting and awe-inspiring moments Corman has ever shot) and Corman is featured on a commentary for Usher while writers Lucy Chase Williams and Tom Weaver are found on a track for Palace, both of which are really quite interesting. Palace includes an interview with Corman, with Price featured on Usher in the form of an audio interview. Both discs share introductions by Vincent Price. Just the second collection of films in this four disc, six film set, the final two films leave the realm of Poe and Roger Corman, and dig us even deeper into the oeuvre of the ever terrifying Vincent Price.