This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

When talking about horror anthologies it seems the longer ones don't do it for me. Even though the stories differ a lot from those of Black Sabbath I see the same pattern here in my appreciation of the 3 segments. In Black Sabbath I found the first story enjoyable, the second and longest the least interesting and the last one the best. Exactly the same goes for Tales of Terror. The first segment is called "Morella" and clearly all about atmosphere as the story is as simple as it can get and character development kept to a bare minimum. The middle segment "The Black Cat" does have icons Vincent Price and Peter Lorre in a wine contest up against each other which was the best part of that segment. Again a pretty simple story where unfortunately the comedy factor was too high for me to appreciate it much. Thank God the last segment "The Case of M. Valdemar" was kept for the last. This one was the darkest and the most interesting for me. Hypnosis is indeed something spooky certainly when used for dark purposes and even more when applied to a person whose body is dead but spirit still kept alive. The treacherous character played by Basil Rathbone and eerie voice from the spirit of Valdemar (Vincent Price) make this a great horror experience. Too bad the other 2 segments are largely forgettable.

Fine Roger Corman horror anthology with a trio of Edgar Allan Poe tales adapted to screen by Richard Matheson, each starring Vincent Price."Morella" - Lenora (Maggie Pierce) returns home after years abroad to live with her father (Vincent Price) in his decrepit mansion. Price blames Lenora for killing her mother Morella. He keeps Morella's mummified body on a bed in the house. One night, Morella's spirit returns looking for revenge. Probably the weakest of the three stories. It's got familiar elements from many of the Corman/Price Poe films. A dilapidated old house, an obsessively grieving Price, possession, fiery climax. It also has several plot holes and a lack of clear focus. Still, the elements mentioned, though familiar, do entertain."The Black Cat" - Drunkard Montressor Herringbone (Peter Lorre) befriends Fortunato Lucrezi (Vincent Price) over their love of wine and soon discovers Fortunato is having an affair with Herringbone's wife (Joyce Jameson). He takes his revenge on the two with unintended consequences. This is a lighter story with a fun performance from Lorre. Always nice to see blonde beauty Joyce Jameson as well."The Case of M. Valdemar" - Dying M. Valdemar (Vincent Price) uses the treatment of a hypnotist named Carmichael (Basil Rathbone) to alleviate his pain and suffering. Against the wishes of his doctor (David Frankham) and his wife (Debra Paget), Valdemar agrees to a last request from Carmichael. Carmichael wishes to put Valdemar in a trance on his deathbed. He is successful in this but holds Price's soul in a state between living and dead, hoping to force Valdemar's beautiful wife to marry him. This was my favorite of the stories. Creepy sound effects, nice makeup effects, and memorable ending. Rathbone is terrifically evil and anything with Debra Paget in it is automatically worth seeing.This is fun movie with some nice horror stories. If you're a fan of Price or Corman or anyone else involved, you'll love it I'm sure.

There are three tales of terror, each based on a story by Poe. In the first, a gloomy adaptation of "Morella", which has always sounded as much to me like an Italian cheese as a Poe title, Vincent Price lives in a cobweb-ridden castle, alone except for one servant with whom he exchanges few words, except, "Get out." He receives an unannounced visit from the beautiful daughter he sent away as a child, blaming her for the death of her mother in childbirth. Price sulks and his tall figure flaps around in an open dressing gown until finally he is provoked into strangling his own daughter, at which point the dead body of his wife, which he has carefully preserved, insinuates itself to a dusty gray life and -- and then I don't know what happened next, officer. I think Morella -- that is, the once-dead wife, strangles Price, but I'm not sure because, by this time, my usually normal head had an overheated merry-go-round inside it.Tale Number Two, "The Black Cat," is obviously meant as a traditional comic interlude because the central figure is the aging, blubbery, drunken, pop-eyed Peter Lorre. Now, I can't remember the original stories too well because it's been years since I've read them. But I think this one is what they call a "pastiche." Because I think I remember "The Black Cat," and in that one the dead body is buried under the floorboards, isn't it? The dead body gets walled up in the basement in "The Cask of the Amontillado." Peter Lorre doesn't do a drunk very well. It requires a certain finesse to undertake the role, which my Uncle Mort demonstrated to perfection. Lorre is obnoxious and mean, but Vincent Price is quite good as the dead body.The last tale is a souped-up version of "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar," in which a "mesmerist" (Basil Rathbone) hypnotizes his patient, Price, at the moment of death and keeps him in a state of suspended trance. Price closes his eyes and reports that he is now dead. In the original, Valdemar is kept in this liminal state for seven months until, finally released, he crumbles into "a seething putrid mass" all at once. In the movie, Rathbone is evil and begins to make the dead Valdemar issue orders to Rathbone's advantage. Ultimately, the dead Price, all gray and red-eyed, as who wouldn't be, climbs out of bed and strangles the terrified Rathbone before crumbling into the seething, putrid, etc.I know Roger Corman operated with a tiny budget and all that, but his work was lurid and commercial too. Twenty years earlier, Val Lewton was working within similar financial strictures over at RKO and producing imaginative and respectable psychological horror stuff. Poe would have been an apt source for dark and carefully-crafted movies. Instead, Corman, like water, like a putrid seething fluid, always seemed to seek the lowest elevation.They didn't entertain me much but these tales must have worked with a lot of people at the time because there were a whole string of them. Boris Karloff was dragged into the stock company. If Corman could have done it, he'd have hypnotize Bela Lugosi's corpse and brought it back to life to play a few more parts. The end product was deliberate self parody which was no funnier than the first, serious productions.

I saw Tales of Terror because I'm a fan of Edgar Allan Poe, Vincent Price and Basil Rathbone and I like Peter Lorre too. I found the film very enjoyable if not a masterpiece. As a matter of fact two thirds of the movie is great, but I did find one segment lacking. That segment was Morella. It is not terrible by all means, it does have the best costume and set design of the film- though the whole of Tales of Terror is very handsomely mounted- and Vincent Price is great as ever in a role that suits him to the bone. But the story is all over the place and doesn't make that much sense, Leona Gage is bland in the title role and the segment is much too rushed so we don't feel much of the atmosphere. The Black Cat fares much better though, again it looks spookily sumptuous, and the writing is broadly droll, while the story still evokes a chilling atmosphere. Price is excellent once again, and Peter Lorre- these two are very memorable together- is in excellent scene-stealing form. The best of the three is The Case of Mr Valdemar, the closest in spirit to Poe's stories(with Morella being the loosest) and the most chillingly atmospheric, especially at the end. The story and writing convey the wittiness, intelligence and horror of Poe's writing very well, while Price gives his best performance of the three segments again in a role that really plays to his strengths and very rarely will you see Basil Rathbone as evil as he is here. Overall, a spooky, handsomely mounted and fun movie that just falls short of being a masterpiece. 8/10 Bethany Cox