Hub - Issue 26 by Eugie Foster / Paul Kane

Author:Eugie Foster / Paul Kane
Format: epub

Reviews

Roger Corman Collection reviewed by Paul Kane

Roger Corman Collection:

House of Usher, The Pit and The Pendulum, Masque of Red Death.

MGM Entertainment DVD, £24.99.

I was over the moon when this one came in for review, because more so than any other horror movies these take me right back to my youth – to a time when I was about eight or nine and my folks would let me stay up at weekends to watch the Hammer Films, the Universals and, of course, Roger Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe ‘adaptations’. For me, it was all about a mood they created – a creepiness that had little or nothing to do with blood and gore, but was more about psychological states of minds. And it was all about Vincent Price, who went with Corman’s atmospheric pieces of celluloid like cheese goes with a fine wine. As with all things from your formative years, though, you tend to look back with rose tinted glasses. Was this still the case as I sat down to watch them twenty six years later? I was curious to find out myself…

Beginning with House of Usher, from 1960, we have the tale of a man seeking to find out what has happened to his missing fiancée. Philip Winthrop (Mark Damon) shows up at the House in the title, which is surrounded by an eerie fog, demanding to know what has happened to Madeline (Myrna Fahey). There he finds her brother Roderick Usher (Price), who has inherited the family curse of oversensitivity to light, sound, not being able to taste anything but plain food, and not being able to wear anything but the softest material. But that’s not the only curse this family suffers from, it would seem. Roderick has persuaded Madeline that she is dying, as is he – a consequence of the evil things some of their ancestors have done. Needless to say, Philip is having none of this, and makes plans to take his true love back to Boston with him. However, when it appears that Madeline has died and is promptly interred in the family crypt, it seems that Roderick was right all along – or was he?

In The Pit And The Pendulum from the following year, we’re given another dysfunctional family situation in another old mansion, this time by the sea. Here Price plays Nicholas Medina, who has married Elizabeth (another horror icon, Barbara Steele from Mario Bava’s Black Sunday). When her brother (John Kerr) receives news of her death, he arrives to find out what happened. Apparently, Elizabeth became obsessed with Nicholas’ father, who was one of the Inquisition’s most ruthless torturers, and she used to wander down to the dungeon where a variety of his work implements are still present – one of them being that famous pit and pendulum. With Nicholas thinking he’s going insane, backed up by the shifty Dr Leon (Antony Carbone), it begins to look like Elizabeth’s death wasn’t accidental at all. But I doubt whether anyone will guess the real twist at the end – nor who will end up on the wrong end of the pendulum’s blade.

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