Tales of Terror (1962)

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Three short stories from Edgar Allan Poe that has a comedy treatment and black humor,in first segment "Morella" a daughter visiting the dying father (Price) after long time was haunting by mother's ghost,the second segment "The Black Cat" is more interesting,Peter Lorre playing a Jealous husband when your wife falling in love to high class wine-taste (Price) and third and final segment "The Case of Mr. Valdemar played by Price who is dying has a help of a hypnotist (Rathbone) before the death comes....directed by Corman this tales are really amazing!!!

This is one of a series of films very loosely adapted from the works of Edgar Allen Poe and produced by Roger Corman. There will be spoilers ahead: When you're watching any of the films Roger Corman produced based on the works of Edgar Allen Poe, it pays to remember that the connection between story and film is very loose, sometimes the title is almost the only similarity (as with The Raven). Here there are three tales, one rather more comedic in nature than the others, using four Poe stories as a starting point.The three pieces each have Vincent Price in common. The supporting cast differs between them. The first segment, "Morella", is also the most loosely adapted of the three. It doesn't really match the plot of the story, taking only the title and a basic element and grafting a different plot on. It's the weakest segment of the three. Price has been in mourning over the death of his wife shortly after childbirth. The daughter he sent away returns and forces a reconciliation. The ending is horrific in nature. I won't spoil it here.The second segment, "The Black Cat", is a hybrid of Poe's "The Black Cat" and "The Cask of Amontillado", taking the title and some basic plot points from the first and some character names and a plot point and dialog from the second. It's the funniest of the three segments and I suspect the film was arranged so that this would lighten the mood slightly. Peter Lorre appears here as Montresor, with Price's character name actually combining the names of two characters in a rather funny way. Though significant liberties are taken, if you've read the two stories, you'll probably figure this one out early. The wine-tasting contest between Price and Lorre is comedy gold! Lorre is very good here, as is Price.The third segment is "The Facts In the Case of M. Valdemar" and is the most straightforward of the three. Excellent performances by Price and Basil Rathbone as the two principles pretty much make this the strongest segment. It's also the most disturbing one. The plotting is the tightest and it has the best pacing, though the outcome can be spotted a mile off. Excellent close to the feature.This film is available on DVD and Blu Ray. The Blu Ray looks great and the film is worth seeing. Recommended.

There have been plenty of movies based on Edgar Allan Poe stories. I mean, plenty. Countless versions of Buried Alive or The Masque of the Red Death, with some Pit and the Pendulum thrown in for good measure. 1962's Tales of Terror is another entry in the subgenre, only there are three stories, and one combines aspects of two Poe stories.The first one, Morella, is about an aged widower (Vincent Price, who appears in all three stories) who lives alone in an isolated family castle, grieving over his dead wife and blaming the daughter who killed her during childbirth. The now grown child Lenora (Maggie Pierce) shows up to visit her long-estranged dad. Unresolved death! But the deceased Morella has plans for her living husband and daughter.Next up is The Black Cat, which also includes elements from The Cask of Amontillado. Peter Lorre plays a loutish drunk named Montresor, married to the lovely and buxom Annabel (Joyce Jameson). Montresor wanders into a meeting of expert wine tasters, led by the gregarious Fortunato Luchresi (Price). Despite Montresor's slovenly, uncultured appearance, he's able to match Luchresi's knowledge of and capacity for wine, and the two become friends. Until Montresor discovers his new friend has been having an affair with Annabel, thus leading to our connection with The Cask of Amontillado. This segment is often pretty funny, particularly when Montresor hallucinates that his head has been lopped off and is being tossed around like a toy. Lorre was reportedly so scared of the head prop that he refused to even touch it.Finally, it's The Curious Case of M. Valdemar, in which Price plays a dying man who's beholden to an evil hypnotist played by Basil Rathbone. Rathbone's Carmichael is able to alleviate the constant pain endured by Price's Valdemar, but at a price - as Valdemar passes on, Carmichael will hypnotize him, the better to gain understanding as to what happens in the afterlife. Naturally, he uses this opportunity to take over Valdemar's body, marry his wife, and assume his fortune. Poor Carmichael.Director Roger Corman and Vincent Price, as usual, are a great team, and Tales of Terror is alternately spooky and funny. Great atmosphere, too; part of the Price/Corman cycle of Poe-related movies in the 1960s, some of the sets here were reused later in Comedy of Terrors.

Three short stories, all based on the collection of Edgar Allen Poe, are told in an anthology setting.The Good Stor(ies): Morella-Arriving from Boston, a young woman arrives at the castle home of her father to meet him after a lifetime of being away. Initially hostile to her and the idea, he agrees to let her stay. Still angry about his belief that she had killed his wife when she was a baby, she discovers the awful truth about what happened. Appearing one, she becomes possessed and goes after him through the castle. This is a pretty nice Gothic tale that really manages to entertain. There's a lot of the normal undertones, where the opening voyage through the fog-covered countryside, the castle itself which is just simply marvelous and features a lot of really nice scenery as well. The discovery of the shriveled corpse is pretty chilling, and it even looks quite spooky as well. The final confrontation is another fire-filled, action-packed house destruction that is so common that again comes into play. The only problem is that it feels really crammed. This easily could've been dragged out a little more and put into a feature-length rather than being in an anthology, but otherwise, this one's quite entertaining.The Facts in the Case of Mr. Valdemar-Trying to cure his crippling pain, a man successfully concludes that hypnosis works. Knowingly dying, he asks a mesmerist to hypnotize him at the moment he dies, much to the chagrin of his wife and doctor who hope to get him to change his mind. As he approaches his deathbed, the procedure begins and it's a success, only for the event to continue on after he has died. After several months, it continues on due to his insistent to discontinue the experiment. Fearing that control of his condition is being exploited, they soon learn what has really happened and try to stop the torment. This one's not all that bad, and is mostly all that for the ending. The constant voices of doom surrounding the entire thing, the spectacular make-up used on the participants and the pretty great resolving of it all leads to some really shocking conclusion. This one here wasn't that bad at all.The Bad Stor(ies): The Black Cat-Arriving home, a man complains to his wife about his hatred for her black cat and how it interferes with his drinking. Meeting up with a wine aficionado during a drinking game, and while drunk, the two begin to start an affair. Discovering the dirty deeds, he conspires to put the both of them out of his life, only for the cat to ruin it all and forcing him to take drastic action to prevent it. This is an incredibly flawed entry. The fact that this here isn't all that frightening is its biggest problem. Most of it deals with the drinking problem rather than focusing on the cat and the drinking situations, which are nowhere near being all that scary. The fact that they occupy so much time is a complete mystery, since there's nothing in it that really inspires fear. That there's almost nothing of interest is another one, where a dream sequence that starts off promising but soon becomes too silly to be frightening. This one is easily skip-able.Today's Rating/PG: Violence.