SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Brilliant and touching

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

This is not on par with "The House of Usher" with Vincent Price two years earlier but in the same style and category. The main character is as sickly and haunted as Vincent Price but tougher and more self-determined, as he actually tries to deal with his own fate but fails in a satisfactory revenge. This is as far from Edgar Allan Poe as the Usher film, but the atmosphere, mood and creepy settings are the more Poean for their very illustrative sustaining character. Ray Milland is or was a great actor, and although not as creepy as Vincent Price could be when he mobilized his resources and forces to the full, he is more intelligent and does not fumble or commit mistakes in unnecessary exaggerations. Ray Milland is thinking while he is lying dead and actually succeeds in understanding what is going on, although the ladies outwit him.It's more an entertaining film than a horror movie, and although there are some startling effects, the main satisfaction of the film is that of an entertainment, since it's impossible to take any of the absurd goings-on for serious. .

I have always found it difficult to enjoy Roger Corman films, which surprises me. I like low-budget productions, and Corman always assembles very impressive casts. And yet, his projects appear to strive to create a staginess, a campy theatricality that I find difficult to become immersed inVincent Price was originally slated to play Guy Carrell, but the part went to Ray Milland. Milland has always been a very impressive actor in my view, able to transcend even average productions and emerge with dignity intact. Ten years later, he would exert his excellence on the notorious 'The Thing with Two Heads', where he somehow managed even there to inject his role as the titular creature with humour and above all, gravitas. He does the same here, as does Hazel Court, who plays Emily, his wife. Richard Ney plays family friend Miles and all characters are fairly staid and unengaging, lifted hugely by the playing.Perhaps Price would have injected Carrell with a bit of a twinkle, which would at least have lightened this humourless piece. What we have here is a very earnest reimagining of Edgar Allen Poe's short story. There's a certain inevitability to Carrell's fate once we learn of his dread of being buried alive, and certainly the atmosphere reaches impressive levels as a result of this, and what happens beyond.I would have liked to enjoy this more, but often couldn't get past the style of the piece, which for the most part, looks like it has the production values of a television continuing serial, or soap. This is no slight on the budget or production team, it just fails to convince me, or to inject proceedings with any kind of eccentricity or outlandishness that offsets the limitations.

This is a fun story if one doesn't think too much. Ray Milland stands in for Corman's usual suffering protagonist, Vincent Price. Milland lives with catalepsy, which makes a person appear dead, even if he is not. He lives in abject fear of being buried alive. He then builds a state of the art crypt with numerous fail-safe devices that can be employed if he finds himself in his suspended state. It seems if he could just get someone to leave him on a shelf if they think he is dead, it would work out better. Hazel Court plays his suffering wife. He is a true nut who believes his father had been buried alive, even though his sister tells him that is not so. The thing is that there are so many things that happen, as we reach a conclusion, that require some big time suspension of disbelief. Still, it's quite entertaining watching Milland being dragged down by his fears.

Solid, well crafted entry in producer / director Roger Corman's cycle of Edgar Allan Poe adaptations that's an effective exercise in psychological horror as well as more traditional kinds of horror (such as we see in the nightmare sequence, for example). It shows just how badly one's life can be affected by an unhealthy obsession.Corman initially tried to get Vincent Price for the lead, needing to switch to Ray Milland instead. While the casting of Milland may have seemed odd at the time, the esteemed, Oscar winning actor would go on to make appearances in other genre and schlock movies in the future. Milland offers a mostly understated performance as the tormented Guy Carrell, medical student and painter who can't get his supposed legacy and phobia of being entombed alive out of his mind. Meanwhile, good friend Miles (Richard Ney), new wife Emily (beautiful genre vixen Hazel Court), and sister Kate (Heather Angel) grow increasingly concerned over his behaviour.Working with his consistently reliable production design / cinematography team of Daniel Haller and Floyd Crosby, Corman is able to create very effective atmosphere for the production, and the 2.35:1 aspect ratio allows him to pack the frame with detail, and he also continues the practise of creating depth to the images. The music by the great Ronald Stein would be enjoyable enough on its own, but it's supplemented by the repeated refrain of the "Molly Malone" melody, whether it's whistled or played on the piano.Milland does some delicious work here, particularly in the sequence where Guy is showing Emily and Miles all the safeguards he's put in place in case of his being "buried alive". The excellent cast also includes Alan Napier as Emily's doctor father (who utters one of the best lines, "I never enjoy myself, I merely experience greater and lesser amounts of tedium."), and John Dierkes & Corman regular Dick Miller as the unsavoury grave diggers.The script by Charles Beaumont and Ray Russell has a very literate quality, and Milland gives his dialogue all of the gravitas that he can muster.While this wouldn't rank among the best of Corman's Poe series (that honour would have to go to "House of Usher" and "The Masque of the Red Death"), it's still very respectable and fun viewing for classic horror fans.Seven out of 10.