Tales of Terror (1962)
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Tales of Terror Movie Review
Tales of Terror is a 1962 horror film directed by Roger Corman and starring Vincent Price. It’s a tonally messy, but fun anthology flick.
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“Pardon me, ladies, but could you spare a coin for a moral cripple?“
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Three tales of terror involve a grieving widower and the daughter he abandoned, a drunkard and his wife’s black cat, and a hypnotist who prolongs the moment of a man’s death. This was the only movie from the Poe/Corman cycle to not just adapt one Poe short story, but three of them, thus constituting an anthology. The basic idea here was a sound one as these are short stories after all, so they are not fit for the feature film format. The resulting movie is much brisker and more entertaining than the other films.
But another huge issue surfaced here and that was the tone. There is so much campy humor infused into all three stories that the end result is a film that is more a comedy than a horror flick, which was problematic as Poe adaptations should be scary first and foremost. Add to that unfaithfulness to the source material and you’ve got one very competently made, but uneven effort.
Morella is the most classical of the three stories and it’s both very well acted and beautiful in costumes, production design and score. It’s a solid segment, but I did not care all that much about this original story itself, so the movie version was also just fine.
The Black Cat was disappointing as here they really didn’t adapt the eponymous tale, but only included some elements of it, such as alcoholism and the presence of the cat. They added elements from other stories in the wall burial sequence and the police coming in. This was the case of changing the story for better and for worse. While the horror behind it all was lacking, an emphasis on alcoholism led to a stronger character study.
Peter Lorre was wonderfully cast in the main role for this segment and he was so believable as this drunkard that he stole the show even from Price himself. The two competing each other in a wine tasting contest was silly, but undeniably funny and hugely entertaining. It made for the most memorable moment in the entire movie.
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As for the last segment, The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar is one of the most gruesome and shocking Poe stories, but this adaptation is only okay. The make-up effects are phenomenal for the time and the ending is suitably creepy, but not nearly as disturbing as the one in the story as it was somewhat rushed here. Tales of Terror as a whole was problematically paced, and although quite engaging throughout and technically stupendous, it failed to deliver the thrills that the original source material did.
Tales of Terror is the only anthology movie in the Roger Corman cycle of Edgar Allan Poe adaptations. Focusing on more stories than just one led to a brisker pace and more entertaining narratives, but an overemphasis on humor instead of horror made the movie tonally uneven. The segments for the most part are too unfaithful to the source material, but the technical aspects were stupendous, Vincent Price was excellent throughout and Peter Lorre stole the show in the second tale. It’s a problematic, but very engaging and charming flick.
My Rating – 3.5
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