Just perfect...

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Breasts. That is kinda what this movie was about. It was tailor made for a latch-key kid in the 90s to stay up late watching HBO to eventually see breasts.Breasts.It delivered that.There was some plot about an evil witch and breasts. Something about a love affair and breasts. There were a few deaths and breasts and......yes, there was a thong despite the fact it takes place a long time ago before there were thongs and...yes, breasts.What you have here is really a movie about breasts, but, it is a period piece Lovecraftian movie about breasts.So if you want breasts, this is the movie for you, especially since it really makes no effort whatsoever to pass itself off as anything but a movie about breasts.Breasts. You really have to appreciate that honesty.

Morella (Nicole Eggert) is killed in the opening minutes for murder and witchcraft as her husband Gideon (David McCallum) looks on with their infant child. 17 years later, the child Lenora (Eggert again) is all grown up and soon to receive an sizable trust fund on her 18th birthday. But she is also the target of her teacher Coel (Lana Clarkson), who was Morella's accomplice back in the day, and hopes to put her old friend's soul in this new body. Loosely based on Poe's "Morella" short story, this feature runs only 82-minutes (the film ends at 78 minutes) but seems to go on a lot longer than that. Director Jim Wynorski gives the story what every critic of Poe thought it was missing - lots of topless women running around. To be fair, it succeeds on an exploitation level, but you'll never confuse this with a 1960s Corman Poe adaptation. And it is a nice looking production because this is back when Wynorski gave a damn. Eggert was "hot" off CHARLES IN CHARGE at the time so this must have seemed edgy for her. Regardless, she uses an obvious body double during her nude scenes. It is hilarious seeing her and Clarkson on screen as there is over a foot height differential, which leaves Eggert level with Clarkson's chest. Concorde staple Maria Ford has a smaller role as a servant. The film ends with the ridiculous on screen words "I still live!"

Absolutely atrocious "horror" movie. A witch is put to death in colonial America leaving behind an infant daughter. 17 years later she tries to return through the body of her now grown up kid.As you can see this has nothing to do with Poe's classic short story. This is a very obvious story full of bad acting and unintentionally hilarious dialogue. The only reason this was made was to show as much female nudity as possible in a R rated film. The women are truly beautiful here but have zero acting ability. When see a horror movie I expect to see just that--not a skin flick. Lousy sets too. The crypt at the end looks like it was made out of cardboard! It's really sad to see a talented actor like David McCallum reduced to making dreck like this. I guess he was desperate for work. Boring and stupid and an insult to Poe. Even the VERY frequent nude scenes can't save this. A 1 all the way.

The Haunting of Morella starts 100's of years ago as Morella (Nicole Eggert) is crucified to a wooden cross, denounced as a witch guilty of witchcraft, blasphemy & murder. Morella's husband Gideon (David McCallum) pleads for mercy but it falls on deaf ears, he holds his & Morella's young daughter Lenora as Morella then has her eyes burnt out & is then left there for a week as she presumably dies. Jump 'Seventeen Years Later' & it's coming up to Lenora's (Nicole Eggert) 18th birthday & a lawyer from a nearby village named Guy Chapman (Christopher Halsted) delivers the news that Lenora will inherit Morella's fortune on her 18th. However being a witch & all that Morella had planned for such small inconveniences as being murdered, Lenora's governess Miss Deveraux (Maria Ford) is in fact a servant of Morella who sacrifices the female servant Ilsa (Gail Harris) & her boyfriend Miles (Brewster Gould) in a blood draining ritual to reincarnate Morella so they can have lesbian sex together & do lots of evil things that witches do I suppose. However, Gideon isn't having any of it & sets out to send his ex-missus to the grave for good...Directed by Jim Wynorski The Haunting of Morella didn't do much for me, I thought it was the below average low budget straight to video Roger Corman produced cheapie that it so obviously is. The script by R.J. Robertson is supposedly based on a story by Edgar Allan Poe which might be true but if it is I doubt if much of Poe's literary work is prevalent here. To it's credit The Haunting of Morella at least isn't boring, it moves along at a fair pace & has the requisite amount of babes, blood & breasts to stop most genre fans going into comatose state like a lot of low budget crap can seem to do. The character's are basic, the plot & narrative is simplistic & caters for the lowest common denominator, the exploitation elements are average & as a whole the film isn't particularly satisfying although I thought it was an OK watch if your not too demanding (& to be honest you'd better not be!). There really isn't much else I can say about The Haunting of Morella except if you like these cheap blood 'n' breast horror films then you may like this one otherwise there's very little here to recommend.Director Wynorski doesn't give the film any sort of distinctiveness or style, he's a point & shoot sort of guy isn't he? There is a fair amount of nudity but I was disappointed with the gore content, but then if you think about it it's cheaper & easier to film a naked woman than set up a complex special effect isn't it? A fact that I'm sure the economy conscious Wynorski never overlooks...Technically the film is average, I must give the filmmakers some credit for trying to make a period piece although at times it looks like a school play with limited sets, bad lighting & cheap costumes. The Haunting of Morella contains one of the cheapest & fake looking slit throats I've seen in a long time & the rest of the so-called special effects aren't much better. The acting is of, shall we say a low standard.The Haunting of Morella is average at best & low budget rubbish at worst. A must for Wynorski fans, if such an animal exists but for everyone else there are much better horror films out there.