Brightlyme i know i wasted 90 mins of my life.

Tedfoldol everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Lancoor A very feeble attempt at affirmatie action

2freensel I saw this movie before reading any reviews, and I thought it was very funny. I was very surprised to see the overwhelmingly negative reviews this film received from critics.

Robert Reynolds 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.

Phil Hubbs Don't you just love these old kooky horror pictures, look at this cast! Vincent Price, Peter Lorre and Basil Rathbone, three ghoulish tales with three epic stars. As I'm sure you all know this is one of Roger Corman's Poe movie adaptations that made up his eight movie series (give or take). Most of which all starred Price and a selection of the greatest horror icons of the silver screen.The movie is narrated by Price and all three tales star Price...so its a Price vehicle then. After the admittedly pointless narration we kick off with 'Morella' with Price. A young woman travels home to see her father (Price) who dwells on his own within a dusty cobweb ridden mansion. The woman wants to reconcile with her father after many years of no contact, the reason being her mother died giving birth to her and her father has never forgiven her for it. In fact he kept the young girls dead mother in the bedroom where she died, a rotting corpse, as you do. As the pair slowly grow closer together over time events take a turn for the worst as the spirit of the dead mother comes back for revenge.This entire story seemed totally ludicrous to me frankly. A woman dies giving birth to her daughter and blames the baby on her deathbed for her demise. I mean yeah sure the baby did cause it but that's not the babies fault sheesh. Then that child's father (Price) hates her for most of her young life because of it?! The ending is even more weird because I have no clue why the dead mother comes back from the dead and does what she does (kill her daughter and husband), I also have no real clue why the mothers resurrected body swaps places with her recently murdered daughter, and why they then swap back again once the husband is dead (Price). So the dead mother comes back from the dead and kills her daughter for revenge and kills her husband whom she loved very much for...? I don't know.I loved the visuals in this short tale. I adored the old creaking mansion set on the edge of a cliff overlooking the sea, the haunted house look with lush period interior decorations (whatever period it was). The whole atmosphere in this tale was perfectly creepy and just what you'd expect from this type of old fashioned spooky story, its just a shame the plot made no sense.The second tale was 'The Black Cat' which also incorporated 'The Cask of Amontillado', this starred Peter Lorre alongside Price. Here we see the drunken loutish Herringbone (Lorre) who abuses his wife by taking all her hard earned money and spending every night at the local pub. After stumbling into a wine tasting event he meets up with and befriends Fortunato Luchresi (Price) a wine expert. Herringbone invites Luchresi back to his place for drinks but Luchresi falls for Herringbone's wife and the pair have an affair. Herringbone gets his own back by luring Luchresi once again to his place for drinks, drugs him and walls him up in the cellar with his wife.Its called The Black Cat because Herringbone's wife has a black cat which Herringbone dislikes. In the end the cat gives his murderous game away but to be honest the cat doesn't actually feature much in the tale so it seems rather moot. This is the one story that is presented in a light-hearted way with silly humour. Both Lorre and Price really have a good time hamming it up something chronic, the best example being the brilliant wine tasting competition between the pair. Again there are so many plot holes and conveniences like how on earth Herringbone manages to get anything done when he's so utterly drunk. This short tale isn't exactly scary but more of a parody or spoof really, its a fun one.Lastly its 'The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar' with Basil Rathbone. Price's character of Valdemar is dying from a disease, Mr Carmichael (Rathbone) alleviates his pain through hypnosis. Carmichael does this as Valdemar passes away which traps his soul between the world of the living and the dead, in limbo as it were. Valdemar begs Carmichael to release him so he can pass over completely but Carmichael will not...for some reason. In the end Carmichael tries to force Valdemar's wife into marriage but she is rescued by the rotting corpse of Valdemar...somehow.Again the plot makes little sense with no proper explanations, it all just happens. This is probably the eeriest tale with Rathbone on fine form as the dastardly villain although I'm not really sure what his goal is here. He keeps Valdemar's soul trapped in limbo but I dunno why, dunno what he's trying to achieve. I'm not entirely sure if the hypnosis was meant to ease Valdemar's death or prevent it because when he does die everyone acts as though something has gone wrong. No clue how Valdemar's soulless rotting shell of a corpse manages to spring to life and save his wife from Carmichael either but hey ho.All in all I enjoyed this little anthology of horror, it wasn't scary or overly eerie but it was a barrel of high spirits. Some fantastic period set visuals with costumes and set details, some lovely old hokey special effects and hands-on practical makeup work and of course the three legendary movie icons. Probably one of the better anthologies I've seen mainly for visuals, its let down by the weak stories which other anthologies (Amicus) easily trump.6.5/10

GL84 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.

AaronCapenBanner Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, and Basil Rathbone star in these Roger Corman directed adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe stories:"Morella" - Price plays a man mourning his late wife who welcomes his daughter back to his castle with unfortunate results: Though atmospheric, tale is too quickly told and lacks impact."The Black Cat" & "The Cask Of Amontillado" - Price and Lorre are amusing, but relies too much on visual trickery than terror, not to mention comedy."The Case Of M. Valdemar" - Price and Rathbone are good, and tale is by far the best in the film, with creepy atmosphere and premise, though isn't enough to lift the film above mediocrity.