Year:  1970
Rating: 7.5

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This makes three AIP/Edgar Allan Poe films in a row for me with Vincent Price starring in it. This one was directed by Gordon Hessler who had directed Price in the Oblong Box two years previously and Scream and Scream Again (next up for me) in this same year. It is interesting to see how much further AIP was going by 1970 in comparison to their earlier Poe adaptations of the early 60's with Corman directing in terms of violence and nudity. Pretty much every woman who shows up on screen in this film gets her breasts bared at some point - usually with a man ripping off her blouse and there are lots of murders - though nowhere as graphically done as today.



Price is a town magistrate and he played a similar type role a few years previously in the 1968 AIP Witchfinder General where he hunted down witches. Here he is a cruel bugger who kills at will and happily throws women into the stocks after a little torture. There is a coven of witches about causing trouble like witches tend to do such as sticking needles into dolls and such. As the Chief Magistrate and Lord of the Manor of a wealthy family he goes after them with relish - a mistake as it turns out.

The opening credits are worth a look - if they seem very familiar in style that is because they were done by Terry Gilliam who had just started up in Monty Python. Another name of note is the musical composer Les Baxter who did the scores for many of the AIP/Poe films and was a well known composer of jazz - easy listening - exotica of the time. Though again associated with Poe, there is in fact to connection at all. Poor Poe. He could have made a fortune if he had only lived another 100 years.