Boo! Happy Halloween to one and all!

Happy hauntings everyone. Stay safe and, for your amusment, here's a special jack o' lantern I've knocked up just for the occasion. Can you guess who it is, yet?

RIP Vincent Price | 20 years ago today we lost a legend!

It was on October 23 1993, 20 years ago today, that we lost a legend - Vincent Price, and what better way to celebrate his life and career than in the timely release of The Vincent Price Collection on Bu-ray. While us in the UK will be waiting for the eventual release this side of the pond, US fans and those lucky enough to own multi-player systems can savour four Corman/Poe films as well two ultimate classics, Witchfinder General and The Abominable Dr Phibes from October 22 2013. Available from Amazon or direct from Shout! Factory. Here's what's also included alongside the pristine HD prints of the films.

THE VINCENT PRICE COLLECTION

THE HOUSE OF USHER
• Vintage and rare Introduction and final words from Vincent Price
• Audio Commentary with Roger Corman
• Vincent Price Retrospective Commentary with author Lucy Chase Williams featuring Pitor Michael as the voice of Vincent Price
• Audio interview with Vincent Price by historian David Del Valle
• Theatrical Trailer
•Still Gallery
 
THE HAUNTED PALACE

• Vintage and rare Introduction and final words from Vincent Price
• Audio Commentary by author Lucy Chase Williams and Richard Heft
• Audio Commentary by author Tom Weaver
• A Change of Poe- an interview with director Roger Corman
• Theatrical Trailer
• Still Gallery
 
THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH

• Vintage and rare Introduction and final words from Vincent Price
• Audio Commentary by author Steve Haberman
• Interview with Roger Corman
• Theatrical Trailer
• Still Gallery
 
THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM

• Vintage and rare Introduction and final words from Vincent Price
• Rare Prologue
• Audio Commentary with Roger Corman
• Theatrical Trailer
• Still Gallery
 
WITCHFINDER GENERAL

• Vintage and rare Introduction and final words from Vincent Price
• Audio Commentary with producer Philip Waddilove and actor Ian Ogilvy
• Witchfinder General: Michael Reeves’ Horror Classic
• Vintage Interview with Vincent Price conducted by David Del Valle (1987)
• Vincent and Victoria: an Interview with Victoria Price
• Theatrical Trailer
• Additional Vincent Price Theatrical Trailers
• Still Gallery
 
THE ABOMINABLE DR. PHIBES

• Audio Commentary with director Robert Fuest
• Audio Commentary with author Justin Humphreys
• Introductory Price: Undertaking “The Vincent Price Gothic Horrors”
• Theatrical Trailer
• Still Gallery

Roger Corman in Conversation at BFI Gothic this October

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The legend that is Roger Corman will discuss his body of work, focusing on his Edgar Allen Poe adaptations starring Vincent Price as part of the BFI's Gothic: The Dark Heart of Film season on 25 October 2013, starting at 6.30pm.

Tickets £15, concession £11.50 (Members pay £1.50 less). A joint ticket is also available with the 25 October screening of The Pit and the Pendulum (£22.50, concs £15).

Tickets go on sale tomorrow, 8 October at 11.30am.

Also showing is The Masque of the Red Death on Saturday 26 October (6.30pm) and Wednesday 27 November (6.10pm).

Blu-ray release | The Monster Club (1980) | Catch the ghouls, vampires, shadmocks and Vincent Price in HD

Out today (30 September) from Scorpion Releasing comes the 1980 horror anthology, The Monster Club, on Blu-ray for the very first time.

WELCOME TO THE MONSTER CLUB
This attempt by Milton Subotsky at resuscitating the horror anthology formula that he started back in 1965 with Dr Terrors House of Horrors, but in a semi-comic vein, proved a disappointment on its release and was the final film from his Amicus outfit. But the film has since attracted a cult following.

The first story deals with a shadmock, the professor of a lethal whistle (James Laurenson), and the woman (Barbara Kellerman) who tries to steal from him. The second story is a comical autobiographical film by producer Lintom Bustosky (Anthony Steel) involving his father vampire (Richard Johnson) and the cop (Donald Pleasance) on whom he turns the tables. The final episode, which is the most effective of the three, concerns a film producer (Stuart Whitman) whose ideal horror movie location proves to be populated by real ghouls.

Vincent Price appears in the framing device as a vampire who inducts John Carradine’s horror writer into a club for monsters, and it’s these scenes where the film is at its weakest - mainly due to the cheap make-up effects used for the club’s denizens and an embarrassing final dance scene (check out my monster mash-up on YouTube here). But there are some stand-out moments, namely Kellerman’s grisly demise, the fog-shrouded town that Whitman tries to escape from, and Price’s big speech in which he declares that man is the biggest monster of them all.

The stories are all based on the work of Ronald Chetwynd-Hayes and is directed by Hammer/Amicus veteran Roy Ward Baker. The music, which ranges from the dub sounds of UB40 and the rock of The Pretty Things (who celebrated 50 years on the road this year), was also released on record - now quite collectable, fetching up to US$400 on e-Bay. The film also appeared in comic form (pictured below) in Issue 25 of Dez Skinn's legendary UK Hammer horror fanzine Halls of Horror, which was drawn by John Bolton and David Lloyd (thanks Baron F from correcting me on that).

THE RELEASE
The Scorpion Releasing Blu-ray features a brand new HD transfer, a 62-minute interview with Vincent Price conducted in 1987 by film historian David Del Valle, a 40-minute audio interview between Del Valle and Price, on camera interview with Del Valle, Original Trailer, and isolated ME track.

THE VERDICT
I haven't had the chance to see this Blu-ray version - I have to wait until the UK version becomes available from Networking Distributing on 18 August (2014). But if you have, then do let me know what you think.

Help me! Please, help me! The Fly is out to Blu-ray on Monday 16 September

Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment is releasing the iconic 1958 sci-fi on Blu-ray in the UK on Monday 16 September. To check out my full review, why not head over to my new film review blog, Kultguy's Keep. Just click here to find out more.

Fab at 50 | 1963's The Haunted Palace - just one of seven Vincent Price films celebrating their 50th anniversary

1963 was certainly a very good year for the merchant of menace Vincent Price as he had seven films hitting US cinemas throughout the year. The Raven, which also starred Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre, was released on 25 January, while the underrated Diary of a Madman came out on 6 March.

In July, he had a cameo as Big Daddy in July's Beach Party musical, while August saw the Italian-made swashbuckler Rage of the Buccaneers (which was actually made in 1961) and the HP Lovecraft-inspired chiller The Haunted Palace heading into cinemas and drive-ins (with Palace being today). Capping off the summer, Twice-Told Tales, featuring Vinnie in three different roles, would be released in September, while The Comedy of Terrors, which again teamed him up with Karloff and Lorre, as well as Basil Rathbone, would close the year, coming out on Christmas day.

Happy 50th anniversary one and all...

THE TRAILERS

Vincent Price 1928 European Travel Journal | Goodbye Europe! | 26 August

In the final entry of the Vincent Price 1928 European Travel Journal, Vincent left Europe aboard the Tuscania for New York.  Check out this and all the previous entries by clicking on the photo above.

Vincent Price 1928 European Travel Journal | From the Casino de Paris to Pigalle | 24 August

The Vincent Price 1928 European Travel Journal is coming to an end. Check out yesterday's post now by clicking on the photo above.

Blu-ray review | The Fall of the House of Usher (1960) | Roger Corman’s American gothic classic rises again in lush HD

 
THE STORY
In this striking 1960 elaboration on Edgar Allan Poe’s 1839 short story, Philip Winthrop (Mark Damon) arrives at the crumbling New England mansion of the Usher family to seek out his fiancée Madeleine (Myrna Fahey) and is promptly warned by her brother Roderick (Vincent Price) against marriage because the family is cursed with 'a history of savage degradations' which sends them mad. When Madeleine suddenly dies, Philip goes into mourning and his intended bride is quickly interred in the family crypt. But he is unaware that Roderick has buried his catatonic sister alive…



THE LOWDOWN
At the end of the 1950s, rubber suit monsters were the mainstay of American horror films, while over the pond Hammer was packing cinemas with their full-blooded restaging of the Frankenstein and Dracula characters. Indie maverick Roger Corman quickly followed suit, combining America’s answer to the gothic, Edgar Allen Poe, CinemaScope and his trump card, Vincent Price.

The result was this minor masterpiece, which stays faithful to Poe as it tells the story of Roderick Usher (played by Price as a white haired, ashen faced aesthete, decked in a blood red robe) who longs for an end to his family’s curse which has impregnated the very walls of his crumbling mansion and has distorted his psyche and that of his sister - which is chillingly echoed in the line: 'The slightest touch and we may shatter'.

Price gives an intentionally concentrated, eerie and sad turn here and lends the film a mellifluous quality that brings to life Corman's Freudian take on Poes themes of inner corruption. It was a performance that would solidify Price’s new status as the crown prince of horror - that had kicked in while he was working on William Castle’s House on Haunted Hill and The Tingler - and which makes this film so chillingly memorable over half a century on.

Richard Matheson's intelligent script is enhanced by Floyd Crosby's atmospheric widescreen cinematography, whose psychedelic scenes tapped into the counter-culture movement of the day, while Daniel Haller makes the hired-in Universal sets look even more sumptuous. Coupled with Corman’s whip-smart direction and quick turnaround (the film was shot in 15 days), a rousing Les Baxter score and Price’s star quality, the style established here would be carried over in seven more Poe films, ending with The Tomb of Ligeia in 1964. But they would never have been made had Usher not set the box-office alight, which it did - earning in excess of $1 million back from its $250,000 budget ($50,000 of which was Price’s fee) when it premiered in the US on 18 June 1960.



THE ARROW VIDEO RELEASE
In a world first, Arrow presents a Region B HD Blu-ray (1080p) presentation of the feature, transferred and restored using the original film elements by MGM and original uncompressed 2.0 Mono PCM Audio. Optional SDH subtitles.

THE EXTRAS
• The Roger Corman audio commentary is the same as on the previous MGM DVD release, but the maestro is still a joy to listen to. (79:19)
• Legend to Legend Director Joe Dante gives his thoughts on the film and on working with Corman. (26:47)
• Gothic horror expert Jonathan Rigby provides an informative insight into the history of the film, and on Corman and Price. (32:58)
• Fragments of the House of Usher This video essay by critic and filmmaker David Cairns is a super little film studies analysis. I never knew the original story had gay overtones or that the film was ‘the perfect marriage of the oneric to the economic?’ (10:47)
• This French interview with Vincent Price has popped up on other DVD releases, but the transfer here is the best yet. It was shot at Price’s Malibu cottage in July 1986, the same year that he was doing The Great Mouse Detective for Disney, which was one of his last best performances. Ever the consummate raconteur, he provides the interviewer with some wonderful quotes, like the following, about why his horror films have stood the test of time. (11:26)

‘The secret of those films and why they have lasted so well is that you scream at the terror of them, but then you find yourself ridiculous for having screamed and you laugh at yourself, maybe that’s the clue to life.’

• Unrestored US trailer with the most hilarious copy writing ever: 'The screen's foremost delineator of the Draculean!' (2:30)
• Reversible sleeve on the standard release, featuring artwork by Graham
Humphreys.
• Booklet featuring Tim Lucas essay, Vincent Price autobiography extract, archive stills and posters.

BLU-RAY GRABS


DID YOU KNOW?
The opening shot of Mark Damon riding towards the Usher mansion through a bleak, blackened wilderness of charred trees, ash and fog was achieved by Corman filming the sequence in the aftermath of a forest fire that had torched part of the Hollywood Hills just prior to filming.

New Vincent Price Action Figure | House on Haunted Hill's Frederick Loren

From the same company that launched the Edward Lionheart action figure last year, comes a 12inch custom figure of Vincent Price as eccentric millionaire Frederick Loren in William Castle’s 1959 spookfest House on Haunted Hill in both a colour and black and white version. I’ve only ordered the colour one from Monsters in Motion because the UK’s VAT import tax is a real stinger, but Fred is going to feel right at home next to Lionel, Anton and Vinnie (from Executive Replicas).