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The Haunted Palace, 1963
In the Massachusetts town of Arkham, the wicked Joseph Curwen (Vincent Price) is using dark magic to enchant the young women of the town in order to use them in a strange ritual in the dungeon of his home. Curwen is burned to death by the furious townspeople, cursing the town with his dying breath and promising to return from the grave for revenge. Over 100 years later, Curwen’s descendent, Charles (also Price) comes to Arkham with his wife, Ann (Debra Paget). The longer the two stay in the palace, the more Charles is taken over by Joseph’s personality, and he begins assembling a crew to follow through with the wicked plan he started a century earlier.
This one’s full of lush photography and genuinely disturbing moments of suspense and horror.
I don’t think I’ve run across many folks recommending this one when horror movie recs are being tossed around, even in the context of Vincent Price films. And I really have to wonder why, because this one has a lot going for it in the form of performances, oodles of atmosphere, a great color palette, and a twisted and bleak storyline.
Horror movies have frequently gone to the well of the old double performance. Whether it’s someone who is possessed, an evil doppelganger, a nefarious long-lost twin, or a wicked ancestor, it’s a great way to get two performances out of a lead actor. In this case, it’s a strategy that really plays off, as the guileless Charles slowly comes under the influence of the dastardly Curwen, a process watched over by his disoriented wife. Price is great in both roles. As Curwen, he is cruel and manipulative. When Ann is finally able to get a doctor to come and look at Curwen, he easily spins the situation into one where Ann is hysterical. On the flip side, Price’s Charles is a fundamentally gentle person who can’t make sense of his lost time or the strange hold that the palace seems to have over him. You can see in Charles the man Ann fell in love with, and the tragedy it will be if his mind is lost.
There’s plenty of good old fashioned horror trappings in this film to add thrills and chills. Under Curwen’s supervision, his minions (who have also possessed other bodies through means unknown) reunite him with his beloved necronomicon and help him dig up the corpse of his evil lady-love, Hester (Cathie Merchant). The town is also littered with the descendents of the people who burned Curwen to death: many of them suffering from severe physical and mental disabilities. Curwen conducts his dark business in a dungeon below the palace, centered on an altar with a door that opens to . . . somewhere.
The whole thing also looks great. As you might expect there’s plenty of fog. I’m not an expert, but based on this film one might suspect that the main export from Arkham is a slow rolling mist. But the most striking overall visual element is the eerie blue light that colors everything. This is a story told in perpetual twilight, and it adds a sense of doom to the proceedings. I particularly enjoyed a sequence where Charles wakes up in the middle of the night and wanders outside to the tree where Curwen was burned. There’s a lovely pan over to a spooky landscape of twisted trees, all cast in that eerie blue light.
So there are possessions, and demons in the basement, and mummified lady corpses, and a generation of cursed children roaming the streets. But for me the ickiest and most intense part of the film is what befalls Ann as she tries to weather the inexplicable changes in the man she loves. This isn’t merely a case of a sudden and total change. Curwen slowly takes over Charles in mind and body, and Ann cannot make sense of the fact that Charles is kind one moment and cruel the next. Curwen, for his part, is in love with Hester. His pursuit of Ann isn’t even really a pursuit. He simply enjoys being cruel to her using the power he has as her husband. In some sequences this merely manifests as him ordering her to bed as if she were a child up past her bedtime. But in two different sequences, he waits until she is uncomfortable before demanding his “husbandly rights”. It’s her fear and discomfort that he enjoys, and a scene where he sexually assaults her in her bedroom is made worse by the knowledge that she has no right to defend herself or even report what has happened as a crime. Ann is trapped not only by the isolated setting of the palace, but by the limited rights that she has as Charles’ wife. Paget gives a sympathetic and convincing performance as a woman who knows something is amiss and wants to get help for her husband. But no matter where she turns she finds only suspicious locals or her husband’s (aka Curwen’s) minions. As the film goes on, we feel for both Charles and Ann, but a wedge is slowly driven between them so that it seems unlikely they will both survive their ordeal.
I would say that the only main downside is that there’s a bit of a cyclic feeling in what happens. The locals are suspicious, they confront Ann, she defends Charles, Charles does more weird stuff. Repeat. Repeat. I wish that there had been a bit more development in the relationship between Ann, Charles, and the townspeople. Ann does have something of an ally in Dr. Willet (Frank Maxwell), but I found myself wishing that she had more of a sounding board. Even in her isolation, there’s something of a disconnect between the plot at the palace and the rumblings in the town.
This is a moody, bleak thriller. As many have pointed out, the inspiration for this film is supposedly Poe’s poem of the same name, but the vibes are much more Lovecraft. A really pleasant surprise.
The Haunted Palace, 1963
In the Massachusetts town of Arkham, the wicked Joseph Curwen (Vincent Price) is using dark magic to enchant the young women of the town in order to use them in a strange ritual in the dungeon of his home. Curwen is burned to death by the furious townspeople, cursing the town with his dying breath and promising to return from the grave for revenge. Over 100 years later, Curwen’s descendent, Charles (also Price) comes to Arkham with his wife, Ann (Debra Paget). The longer the two stay in the palace, the more Charles is taken over by Joseph’s personality, and he begins assembling a crew to follow through with the wicked plan he started a century earlier.
This one’s full of lush photography and genuinely disturbing moments of suspense and horror.
I don’t think I’ve run across many folks recommending this one when horror movie recs are being tossed around, even in the context of Vincent Price films. And I really have to wonder why, because this one has a lot going for it in the form of performances, oodles of atmosphere, a great color palette, and a twisted and bleak storyline.
Horror movies have frequently gone to the well of the old double performance. Whether it’s someone who is possessed, an evil doppelganger, a nefarious long-lost twin, or a wicked ancestor, it’s a great way to get two performances out of a lead actor. In this case, it’s a strategy that really plays off, as the guileless Charles slowly comes under the influence of the dastardly Curwen, a process watched over by his disoriented wife. Price is great in both roles. As Curwen, he is cruel and manipulative. When Ann is finally able to get a doctor to come and look at Curwen, he easily spins the situation into one where Ann is hysterical. On the flip side, Price’s Charles is a fundamentally gentle person who can’t make sense of his lost time or the strange hold that the palace seems to have over him. You can see in Charles the man Ann fell in love with, and the tragedy it will be if his mind is lost.
There’s plenty of good old fashioned horror trappings in this film to add thrills and chills. Under Curwen’s supervision, his minions (who have also possessed other bodies through means unknown) reunite him with his beloved necronomicon and help him dig up the corpse of his evil lady-love, Hester (Cathie Merchant). The town is also littered with the descendents of the people who burned Curwen to death: many of them suffering from severe physical and mental disabilities. Curwen conducts his dark business in a dungeon below the palace, centered on an altar with a door that opens to . . . somewhere.
The whole thing also looks great. As you might expect there’s plenty of fog. I’m not an expert, but based on this film one might suspect that the main export from Arkham is a slow rolling mist. But the most striking overall visual element is the eerie blue light that colors everything. This is a story told in perpetual twilight, and it adds a sense of doom to the proceedings. I particularly enjoyed a sequence where Charles wakes up in the middle of the night and wanders outside to the tree where Curwen was burned. There’s a lovely pan over to a spooky landscape of twisted trees, all cast in that eerie blue light.
So there are possessions, and demons in the basement, and mummified lady corpses, and a generation of cursed children roaming the streets. But for me the ickiest and most intense part of the film is what befalls Ann as she tries to weather the inexplicable changes in the man she loves. This isn’t merely a case of a sudden and total change. Curwen slowly takes over Charles in mind and body, and Ann cannot make sense of the fact that Charles is kind one moment and cruel the next. Curwen, for his part, is in love with Hester. His pursuit of Ann isn’t even really a pursuit. He simply enjoys being cruel to her using the power he has as her husband. In some sequences this merely manifests as him ordering her to bed as if she were a child up past her bedtime. But in two different sequences, he waits until she is uncomfortable before demanding his “husbandly rights”. It’s her fear and discomfort that he enjoys, and a scene where he sexually assaults her in her bedroom is made worse by the knowledge that she has no right to defend herself or even report what has happened as a crime. Ann is trapped not only by the isolated setting of the palace, but by the limited rights that she has as Charles’ wife. Paget gives a sympathetic and convincing performance as a woman who knows something is amiss and wants to get help for her husband. But no matter where she turns she finds only suspicious locals or her husband’s (aka Curwen’s) minions. As the film goes on, we feel for both Charles and Ann, but a wedge is slowly driven between them so that it seems unlikely they will both survive their ordeal.
I would say that the only main downside is that there’s a bit of a cyclic feeling in what happens. The locals are suspicious, they confront Ann, she defends Charles, Charles does more weird stuff. Repeat. Repeat. I wish that there had been a bit more development in the relationship between Ann, Charles, and the townspeople. Ann does have something of an ally in Dr. Willet (Frank Maxwell), but I found myself wishing that she had more of a sounding board. Even in her isolation, there’s something of a disconnect between the plot at the palace and the rumblings in the town.
This is a moody, bleak thriller. As many have pointed out, the inspiration for this film is supposedly Poe’s poem of the same name, but the vibes are much more Lovecraft. A really pleasant surprise.