Films of the 60s, Part 20: Not Exactly the Boy Next Door

“These are the stories of Edgar Allan Poe
Not exactly the boy next door
He’ll tell you tales of horror
Then he’ll play with your mind
If you haven’t heard of him
You must be deaf or blind.”
- Lou Reed, “Edgar Allan Poe”



I would say there is no better time than now to review these films from the minds of Poe and Roger Corman, but there really is no bad time to revisit them. I say no better time because of a recent batch of films due to be released featuring Poe as a character. Of course, at any given time (just look at IMDB), there is a film in production somewhere around the world based on a Poe story, but this new seemingly coincidental happenstance is noteworthy. Francis Ford Coppola has Twixt, a murder thriller featuring Ben Chaplin as Poe in a secondary role, while James McTeigue, the director of V for Vendetta, has The Raven, another murder thriller, featuring John Cusack as Poe in a starring role. Corman’s adaptations of Poe’s works are perhaps the most famous, all being released in the 1960s. As opposed to past posts, in which I look at the films one after another, I am going to try something different and discuss these films in a continuous, amalgamated fashion.

The Pit and the Pendulum (1961)
Tales of Terror (1962)
Premature Burial (1962)
Masque of the Red Death (1964)
The Tomb of Ligeia (1964)
all directed by Roger Corman

Depending on your view of literature as popular entertainment, you most likely either enjoy or dismiss Poe. The same can be said of Corman. He is often seen today as a b-movie maven at best, but like Poe, was an innovator, inspiring many who came after, including launching the careers of several talented directors, writers, and actors. His Poe adaptations are perhaps his most lauded films, despite their low budgets, showing reverence, creativity, and real chills.



I say reverence because of Corman’s tendency to try to remain faithful to time periods and the feel of each individual story, even going as far as to highlight each film with either an epigraph or a closing quotation from the Poe story being adapted, or perhaps a related quotation. One could argue, however, that Corman and his writers, including the great Richard Matheson and one Robert Towne, were a bit fast and loose with the stories, interweaving different plot points in order to make a feature length film. For instance, in the case of The Masque of the Red Death, elements of the story, “The Hop-Frog,” were used as a subplot. Even in Tales of Terror, which is essentially an anthology / portmanteau film, a series of three short films in one, “The Black Cat” incorporates elements of “The Cask of Amontillado.”



In a summary analysis, however, these mashups don’t really seem to matter as most Poe stories tend to be about the same thing, as are all horror stories, having something to do with a fear of mortality and unnatural death. All of these films capture that fear in an entertaining and creepy fashion, fully visualizing the eerie feelings I got when first reading these stories as a teen. The huge, slowly swinging pendulum axe, the terrifying concept of being buried alive, the now seemingly ever present notion of unholy resurrection and subsequent haunting, and even in one case, the idea of being kept alive in an unnatural fashion are all elements of stories that are based on real, common, and base fears.



There are some amazing actors in these Corman / Poe films. Peter Lorre is amazing, as always, in “The Black Cat” portion of Tales of Terror. Ray Milland is absolutely spectacular in Premature Burial, doing some of the best face acting he’s ever done, and Barbara Steele, the gorgeous horror movie vixen queen, is eminently watchable. But, one can’t get through a survey of these films without talking about Vincent Price. Hammy and affected as he may be, he is perfect for these roles. Playing in all three Tales of Terror, Masque, Ligeia, and The Pit and the Pendulum, Price is Corman’s go-to actor for making the “scared-face.” He could also traverse from tortured and betrayed recluse to maniacal elitist from film to film.



Corman does a whole lot with very little in these films, with very Disney-esque décor, including strategically placed cobwebs, matte painting backgrounds, obvious studio sets, and stock audio of rain and thunderstorms throughout these films. However, the original stories are so great, and Corman’s handling of them so deft, that it hardly seems to make a difference in our enjoyment. Corman uses incredibly interesting camera techniques, including dutch angles and overhead shots, that help inform the films’ atmospheric tension. He also created his own signature segment for each movie, being a hazy, color saturated dream sequence, each one adding yet another layer of terror beyond the realm of the “real.” In Corman's hands, even the image of a cat simply sitting on a stair, in The Tomb of Ligeia, evokes both fright and humor, which is not easily done. In most cases, it is either one or the other.



For me, the most terrifying thing is the aspect of being buried alive. Poe, and subsequently Corman, revisited this trope a number of times (“The Cask of Amontillado” portion of “The Black Cat” within Tales of Terror, Premature Burial, and a portion of The Pit and the Pendulum), and all to horrifying effect. Yes, the thought of waking up in a coffin, knowing that you are going to slowly suffer and die is scary enough, but for me, even being an observer on the outside was a creepy enough notion. The first time I saw a bell hanging on a gravestone, with the string going down into the coffin (I’m sure I saw it in a film and not in real life) chilled me to the bone. The idea of that bell suddenly ringing kept me up at night. Then there is the further conflict of whether the buried person is alive or (gasp!) undead! Then again, I am also creeped out by those electric candles in the windows of east coast Victorian homes, mostly because of the folk tales of sailors’ widows who would leave the candles there to guide their ghostly husbands home. More than monsters, serial killers, and demons, these are the things that truly give me nightmares. Roger Corman does a great job of putting these kinds of scares up on the big screen, faithfully representing the things that so scared me within Poe’s stories. The only thing that would have made it even scarier are creepy children popping up out of nowhere.