I don't consider The Haunted Palace one of Vincent Price's or Roger Corman's best. I do put Pit and the Pendulum, The Raven, The Fall of the House of Usher and especially Masque of the Red Death above it, but it is a very good film and worth checking out. It does get a little ponderous at times in the middle and while eerie in tone the music score is over-the-top. However it is well photographed and has beautiful sets. The writing has some fun and macabre moments and the story delivers its suspenseful atmosphere and creepy scares wonderfully even if the enacting terrible revenge angle is familiar territory. Corman's direction is secure also. The acting is very good. Debra Paget before she retired is beautiful and not too bland. Lon Chaney is wonderful, and his entrance is one of The Haunted Palace's creepiest moments. Even better is Price, he is in a double role here and he is deliciously evil. All in all, very good and very enjoyable, I just wish that it had more attention. 8/10 Bethany Cox

This is the first film supposedly based on a Poe story that Roger Corman directed, though most of these films have little similarity to the Poe tales. In this case, the story owes a bit more to a story by H.P. Lovecraft.

This one is about a warlock and his curse upon the town that burned him for his unholy deeds. Over a hundred years later, his great-great-great grandson returns to take possession of the castle. Oddly, both the warlock and his progeny are exact duplicates--something that would only happen in films. Now perhaps this could be explained away due to the forces of darkness and all, but having all the people in the town be played by the same actors who played those in the beginning of the film (110 years earlier) made no sense at all. What also made no sense was that if the town was cursed, why didn't anyone leave?!? After all, people were having freaky babies right and left but no one thought to relocate?! Maybe it wasn't the curse--maybe there was just something in the drinking water or in the ground!

Now despite these HUGE plot problems, the movie is still very entertaining and is better than most of Corman's later Poe tales. Vincent Price's exceptional performance, a great mood and atmosphere and a chilling story made this a great film for viewing on Halloween--which is exactly when I saw it.

You might be forgiven for thinking this is another Corman/Poe film, but the funny thing is that it's not. The film is instead based on a story by the master of weird monsters, H. P. Lovecraft, called THE CASE OF CHARLES DEXTER WARD. The film is a cracking one too, if you've seen any of the other Poe films that Corman churned out then you'll know what to expect. Ruined and crumbling mansions, cobwebs and spiders, fog-enshrouded graveyards and characters who are unable to tear themselves away from the past, and so remain trapped there forever.

Vincent Price stars, as per usual, and gets to grips with not just one personality but two in this film. Yep, there's one body and two personalities struggling to gain dominance over the other. This leads to plenty of mental battles for supremacy between the two, giving Price ample opportunity to be pleasant and friendly and sinister and evil too. It's a great role and Price gives it his best, although he is more subdued here than in his other films, more the victim than the perpetrator. Debra Paget appears in her last film before retirement and is a good damsel in distress. And lo and behold, lurking around in the shadows is none other than Lon Chaney Jr. playing the loyal manservant. Chaney has only a small role with little dialogue but his presence is felt in the nostalgic horror fan's heart.

I'm probably biased in liking this film, because I love Lovecraft's stories. Although the film is only loosely based on its sources there are still things cropping up familiar to Lovecraft fans, such as the Necronomicon and also a slimy monster living in a pit. When this monster appears at the end of the film the camera is distorted so that we don't see it clearly, this was probably to hide the budget but it just makes things eerier. The mutants too are scarily effective, especially when they appear out of the mist like ghosts to encircle our heroes. Corman relishes the opportunity to burn down his setting once again, and also includes a twist ending which suggests that the survivors might not live happily ever after. And it's been a while since I've seen any torch-wielding villagers running about and burning things down. On top of all this, there are also a few references to other films like THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY and CITY OF THE DEAD. THE HAUNTED PALACE is an enjoyable and brooding horror with the cast and director on top form, and so makes for rewarding viewing.