Like so many Hollywood films supposedly based on a Poe story, this one's only similarity is the title! American-International and Roger Corman made a ton of "Poe inspired" films like this, but this time it'd Universal Pictures appropriating a title. It's also the first film to unite Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. They went on to make seven more films together and several of them are brilliant classics, such as THE RAVEN and THE BODY SNATCHER.
The film involves revenge. It seems that an insane and evil general (Karloff) is hated by a man (Lugosi) whose life was ruined by him. Together, they both plot and posture until a final bizarre showdown in Karloff's torture chamber. Interestingly enough, in THE RAVEN such a confrontation also occurs, but this time Lugosi is the evil guy.
This is a good film in many ways. The acting is great--Lugosi and Karloff are great (I particularly liked Karloff's cool hairdo). The atmosphere is chilling and weird and the ending is quite exciting and creepy. However, the middle portion and the section involving the satanic cult seemed like it wasn't fully hashed out--like the script still needed some work to make the film seem more credible. The worst part was that Karloff had a huge group of evil satanic minions and the next, they are gone and Lugosi seems to have won--sort of like a "scene missing here" card should have been inserted here! Plus, and it's a small complaint, I think the background music is a bit too ever-present and sometimes dominates the scenes a bit too much. Still, with an amazing creepy mood, it's not a bad film to watch provided you don't think too much about the convoluted plot.
The film involves revenge. It seems that an insane and evil general (Karloff) is hated by a man (Lugosi) whose life was ruined by him. Together, they both plot and posture until a final bizarre showdown in Karloff's torture chamber. Interestingly enough, in THE RAVEN such a confrontation also occurs, but this time Lugosi is the evil guy.
This is a good film in many ways. The acting is great--Lugosi and Karloff are great (I particularly liked Karloff's cool hairdo). The atmosphere is chilling and weird and the ending is quite exciting and creepy. However, the middle portion and the section involving the satanic cult seemed like it wasn't fully hashed out--like the script still needed some work to make the film seem more credible. The worst part was that Karloff had a huge group of evil satanic minions and the next, they are gone and Lugosi seems to have won--sort of like a "scene missing here" card should have been inserted here! Plus, and it's a small complaint, I think the background music is a bit too ever-present and sometimes dominates the scenes a bit too much. Still, with an amazing creepy mood, it's not a bad film to watch provided you don't think too much about the convoluted plot.