DVD Review: The Edgar Allen Poe Collection

Edgar Allan Poe Collection (Shock, M: Contains Violence)

3/5

Reviewed by Richard Swainson

The career of legendary B-grade filmmaker Roger Corman peaked in the early to mid 1960s with a series of Edgar Allan Poe adaptations.  Three of the eight films feature in this box set: The Pit and the Pendulum, The Premature Burial and The Tomb of Ligeia.  A fourth movie, Murders in the Rue Morgue, was directed by Gordon Hessler slightly later but for the same production company.

Pendulum and Legia are easily stand-outs and not just because Vincent Price was born to play Poe’s haunted protagonists.  Price’s twitchy mannerisms and portentous line readings capture the nightmarish reality of those bedevilled by the memory of  dead lovers.  Corman’s skillful atmospherics give the horror star a perfect context. Price’s excesses are at one with bizarre camera angles, filtered lighting and optical effects.

While Pendulum has a splendid torture chamber climax Legia is the more complete film, benefiting from location shooting in England and a superior supporting cast.  Its dream sequences have a surreal quality to match anything in the cinema of Argento or Bunuel.

Rue Morgue suffers from a surplus of such scenes though done nowhere near as well.  Perhaps if Corman were at the helm and Price in the lead something might have been salvaged from a project that’s also burdened by an inappropriate, sub-Morricone score, flaccid screenplay and a woefully miscast Jason Robards.

Price is also sorely missed in The Premature Burial.  Whilst it has many of the same elements of the other Corman features Ray Milland lacks Price’s intensity.  A twist ending that incorporates everything from body stealing to an unfaithful spouse fails to satisfy.  However, there’s unintended amusement value in having the main villain played by Alan Napier, the actor who was Alfred the Butler to Adam West’s Batman.