This past week I’ve become a huge fan of Vincent Price’s late 50’s early 60’s horror era and The Haunted Palace feels like the perfect climax of my new obsession, while The Masque of the Red Death may have it beat in the technical work and I’d still say House of Haunted Hill is the best script Price ever worked with The Haunted Palace has the perfect mixture of everything I love about these movies and the result is my favorite of them so far. The story is a fantastic blend of Poe’s gothic style with Lovecraft’s grandiose vision of horror, I had so much fun living in this world and following the storyline and that’s due to both the amazing work by screenwriter Charles Beaumont in seamlessly bringing those two amazing styles together (apparently with some uncredited dialogue polishing by Francis Ford Coppola as well) and also the phenomenal atmosphere created by the set design, cinematography, and score. Like I said in the beginning I think The Masque of the Red Death still has an edge in terms of production design and cinematography but I have to clarify that edge is quite small which only means great things for this, the visual style felt like a more fleshed out version of The Pit and the Pendulum which worked like a charm in establishing the perfect small town witch story atmosphere. This may just be my favorite Vincent Price performance too, the way he went back and forth between his two identities was so entertaining and the role is the best I’ve seen in allowing him to transcend the horror caricature (which he does nail better than anyone else to be fair) and show off the serious acting chops he had. Next to him I quite enjoyed Debra Paget, Frank Maxwell, and Lon Chaney, like a lot of the other Prices I’ve seen the supporting cast takes a slight backseat but every time any one of them gets the spotlight they run with it. The Haunted Palace is one of the greatest accomplishments I’ve ever seen in atmosphere building, horror-comedy, and gothic storytelling, my MGM+ free trial runs out today so this is the last Price I’ll be watching for at least a while but I simply couldn’t have chosen a better one to end it off on.
This past week I’ve become a huge fan of Vincent Price’s late 50’s early 60’s horror era and The Haunted Palace feels like the perfect climax of my new obsession, while The Masque of the Red Death may have it beat in the technical work and I’d still say House of Haunted Hill is the best script Price ever worked with The Haunted Palace has the perfect mixture of everything I love about these movies and the result is my favorite of them so far. The story is a fantastic blend of Poe’s gothic style with Lovecraft’s grandiose vision of horror, I had so much fun living in this world and following the storyline and that’s due to both the amazing work by screenwriter Charles Beaumont in seamlessly bringing those two amazing styles together (apparently with some uncredited dialogue polishing by Francis Ford Coppola as well) and also the phenomenal atmosphere created by the set design, cinematography, and score. Like I said in the beginning I think The Masque of the Red Death still has an edge in terms of production design and cinematography but I have to clarify that edge is quite small which only means great things for this, the visual style felt like a more fleshed out version of The Pit and the Pendulum which worked like a charm in establishing the perfect small town witch story atmosphere. This may just be my favorite Vincent Price performance too, the way he went back and forth between his two identities was so entertaining and the role is the best I’ve seen in allowing him to transcend the horror caricature (which he does nail better than anyone else to be fair) and show off the serious acting chops he had. Next to him I quite enjoyed Debra Paget, Frank Maxwell, and Lon Chaney, like a lot of the other Prices I’ve seen the supporting cast takes a slight backseat but every time any one of them gets the spotlight they run with it. The Haunted Palace is one of the greatest accomplishments I’ve ever seen in atmosphere building, horror-comedy, and gothic storytelling, my MGM+ free trial runs out today so this is the last Price I’ll be watching for at least a while but I simply couldn’t have chosen a better one to end it off on.
