Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 3rd, 2003
Synopsis
Made at the height of Roger Corman’s successful Edgar Allan Poe series (with his perennialstar Vincent Price), these two pictures, while similar in tone to the Poe films, adapt two differentwriters. Tower of London, a remake of the Basil Rathbone/Boris Karloff film from 1935,is a version of Shakespeare’s Richard III, with Price taking on the role of the villainoushunchback, plotting and killing his way to the throne of England. The Haunted Palace,...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 27th, 2003
Synopsis
Richard Matheson, one of the most important talents in the horror field (his filmed novelsinclude Hell House, The Shrinking Man and I Am Legend -- the latterdone twice, as The Last Man On Earth and The Omega Man), scripts this twoblack comedies. In The Comedy of Terrors, Vincent Price is the scheming owner of afuneral home. He has taken over the business from doddering and deaf Boris Karloff, and,desperate for money, forces t...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 8th, 2003
Synopsis
Countess Dracula features Ingrid Pitt as a fictionalized version of Countess ElizabethBathory, who slaughtered hundreds of women to bathe in their blood. Here the body count is notthat high, but the bloodbaths actually work: the aged countess becomes young again, andromances a young soldier while pretending to be her own daughter. Unfortunately, old age keepspouncing back on her without notice. The Vampire Lovers (which also stars PeterCushing) is based on J. ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 21st, 2003
Synopsis
Two classics from American International are what we have here, with lots of familiar namesinvovled. Psych-Out stars Susan Strasberg, Jack Nicholson, Dean Stockwell and Bruce Dern.The Trip, scripted by Nicholson, stars Strasberg, Dern, Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda, and isdirected by Roger Corman. You can’t do much better for pedigree. The plots of both arerudimentary (at best). In Psych-Out, Strasberg (whose character is deaf for some reason),searches for her brother (Dern...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 13th, 2002
Synopsis
The Masque of the Red Death is one of Corman's most sumptuous Poe pictures. Vincent Price plays the decadent Prince Pospero, presiding over sadistic revels while the plague rages outside his castle walls. The plague, however, is personified here, and has plans for Prospero. In The Premature Burial, Ray Milland is obsessed with the fear that he will be buried alive. Guess what happens? Though not as good as Masque, this film has long been absent from home video, and its appearance here is ver...
