Customer Reviews
I just love Vincent Price - By: Ms. J. Walker, 26 Jan 2008 
I keep forgetting the title to this film,and so have never been able to buy it,but have at last found it.If you like Price you will love this,its one of his classic films.It has me laughing every time I watch it.Good old fashioned horror as I love it!
Fair portrayal of Poe's tales of mystery and imagination - By: Lou Knee, 10 Dec 2007 
Not the best Poe adaption by any means, but full of atmosphere with that slightly twisted angle of looking at things, you expect of Poe. Lots of cobwebs & mist, & pregnant pauses so the viewer knows they are to expect a twist of the unusual at least, if not the outright macabre. They are dark & lingering tales here, rather than terrifying, but they are tales of growing terror, not horror stories, as there is a great distinction between the two concepts. Poe was an undisputed master of psychological terror, & said himself in his enlightening essays that it was the terror of the soul he was interested in exploring. So it is that the utter strangeness & creepiness of his Gothic tales could often be more effective in frightening people than the more direct visual effects you will find in modern day horror fiction. With Poe tales, you tend to remember the stories far more than you do with other horror & Gothic horror writers, because they are so damned strange & different. They have a depth to them, which reallly must equate to the darkness of the soul, or even of the twisted, psychotic mind. The three tales here are suitably drawn-out amalgams of several Poe tales, & have a good literary feel to them, respecting Poe's gift for storytelling, & his immense erudition. I would have liked a little more terror in them though, but Corman seemed to be focusing on the dark humour & the atmospheric tone in this offering, rather than the scare factor. It's fair enough, there is plenty of dark humour in Poe, & plenty of other wordly atmosphere.
Tripe. - By: Secret Monkey, 28 Sep 2005 
Utter utter tripe.
But enjoyable tripe.
Price, Lorre and Rathbone in a Poe Anthology Film - By: , 13 Apr 2005 Mention Roger Corman's 1962 "Tales of Terror" & you immediately think of Vincent Price teaming up with Peter Lorre & Basil Rathbone. But for me this film owes as much to writer Richard Matheson, who adapted four Poe stories into three film vignettes. "Morella" is another one of those dark family secret stories. The title character (Leona Gage) had died in childbirth 26 years before, cursing her baby daughter. When Leonora (Maggie Pierce) comes home suffering from a fatal disease, she discovers her father Locke (Price) has been keeping mom's mummified corpse in his bedroom. "The Black Cat" also works in elements of Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado." Montressor Herringbone (Lorre) finds out his wfie Annabel (Joyce Jameson) is having an affair with Fortunato Lucresi (Price), a rather foppish wine connoisseur. Unexpectedly funny because of the comic performances of the two stars, the story is this sequence inspired Corman to make "The Raven." Finallly, "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar," an elderly man (Vindent) whose dying days have been eased in part because of a hypnotist, Carmichael (Rathbone), whos wants to hypnotize Valdemar at the moment of death. The experiemnt succeeds, after a fashion, but Carmichael refuses to release Valdemar until his wife Helene (Debra Paget) agrees to marry him.
"Tales of Terror" is noteworthy for two particular impacts it had on horror films. The first was the emergence of anthology films that followed in its wake, such as "Dr. Terror's House of Horrors" & "Black Sabbath." The second was the revival of interest in former movie stars at American International, which would soon add Boris Karloff to their roster. The stand out segment of this film is certainly "The Black Cat," with Lorre & Price showing marvelous comic timing. Lorre takes such perverse glee in wallling up his wife & Price, plus there is nothing like the macabre politeness of movie villains . There is something transcendent about watching these old Hollywood pros have fun with taking these roles so seriously, so to speak.
