Director: Roger Corman
Screenplay: Charles Beaumont, based on the story The Case of Charles Dexter Ward by H. P. Lovecraft
Starring: Vincent Price, Debra Paget, Lon Chaney Jr.
Running Time: 87 minutes
Genre: Horror
In the 1700s, the small town of Arkham is in the grip of fear due to the evil warlock Joseph Curwen (Price) who lives in a large palace overlooking the town. The townspeople eventually grab Curwen and burn him to death, but not before he places a curse on the town. 110 years later Curwen's great-great-grandson Charles Dexter Ward (Price again) and his wife Anne (Paget) arrive in Arkham to move in to the palace which has passed down to him. However the Wards are disturbed by the hostile reception they receive from the townspeople, and by the horrific deformities that seem to afflict many of Arkham's inhabitants. Nevertheless, they move into the palace, but almost immediately Ward starts to display many strange personality changes, and Anne comes to realise that he is being slowly possessed by Curwen's evil spirit which still haunts the palace.
Despite the film being sold as based on Edgar Allan Poe's poem "The Haunted Palace", it is really an adaptation of the H. P. Lovecraft novella The Case of Charles Dexter Ward and really has no connection with Poe at all, aside from a couple of brief extracts, one of which is narrated by Price as the scene changes from the 18th to the 19th Century, and the other appears as text as the film ends. There are a lot of Lovecraft elements in the film: It's set in Lovecraft's fictional town of Arkham, the evil book Necronomicon appears, and Lovecraft's recurring dimension-spanning monsters Cthulhu and Yog-Sothoth are namechecked. Other than that it is a fun slice of old-school gothic with mist-shrouded graveyards, angry villager wielding burning torches, secret passages and very nasty things locked in attics and dungeons. Vincent Price hams it up for all he's worth in the dual role, and seems to be having enormous fun throughout. Debra Paget is affecting as Anne Ward, and the rest of the supporting cast are all solid. However the film is slow by modern standards, and it is quite creaky in places. It's not a perfect film but it is a good film, and if you're looking for a good old-fashioned spooky story then you can do a lot worse.
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