Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.5

Tales of Terror Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 16, 2020

When House of Usher (available as part of The Vincent Price Collection) first appeared in 1960, its success paved the way for a whole new career niche for Roger Corman, a niche that ended up linking Corman pretty significantly to Edgar Allan Poe for the next several years. 1961 offered only one film culled from Poe as a follow up, the well remembered The Pit and the Pendulum, but by 1962 Corman seems to have kicked into high gear in terms of adapting Poe to the screen, with both The Premature Burial and the film currently under review premiering. In that regard, it might be argued that four and maybe arguably even five Poe stories were adapted with Corman’s aid in 1962, since Tales of Terror takes a page from the Amicus book and is a so-called portmanteau, a “mash up” of stories ostensibly culled from the writings of Poe, with the second tale combining two iconic Poe sagas into one (hence the waffling between four and five). Tales of Terror is another rather nicely mounted Corman production (at least considering his often less than fulsome budgets), and it has its own distinctive pleasures, but it’s not really a fright fest in any major way, and instead plies more of a slightly creepy ambience that has some interstitial comedy relief, especially courtesy of co-star Peter Lorre.

Morella, the first tale, is probably the most traditionally "Corman Poe" like, with a brooding Gothic atmosphere that features a house that could very well have been owned once by a certain Usher family. An curmudgeonly drunk named Locke (Vincent Price) isn't exactly thrilled when his estranged adult daughter Lenora (Maggie Pierce) shows up for a kinda sorta reunion (even though she admits she just wants one moment of "normal" interaction before she goes and lives the rest of her life elsewhere). It turns out that Locke's wife Morella (Leona Gage) died shortly after having given birth to Lenora, and Locke feels Lenora is responsible. When Lenora finds Morella's rotting corpse in the mansion, things take a sinister turn, with another apocalyptic ending that is very much in keeping with House of Usher.

The Black Cat combines elements of that Poe story with The Cask of Amontillado, not always to good effect. Montresor Herringbone (Peter Lorre) has a dysfunctional relationship with his wife Annabelle (Joyce Jameson), as well as with Annabelle's seemingly self aware black cat. When Herringbone engages in a wine tasting contest with Fortunato Luchresi (Vincent Price), in one of this film's most gonzo sequences, that leads to Fortunato returning to Herringbone's home with Herringbone, where sparks fly between Fortunato and Annabelle. Suffice it to say a little quick masonry work leads Herringbone to think his "problems" are solved, but of course there's a bit of comeuppance in store. This center "episode" is played largely for laughs, which probably undercuts any sense of suspense or, indeed, terror.

In a kind of cheeky way, each of the trio of stories in Tales of Terror features a kind of ménage à trois, and that's once again the case with the final installment, The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar. Valdemar (Vincent Price) is mortally ill, and he has hired a "mesmerist" named Carmichael (Basil Rathbone) to help alleviate his pain by keeping Valdemar in a trance. Unfortunately for Valdemar, Carmichael has designs on Valdemar's wife Helene (Debra Paget), and a kind of metaphysical power struggle ensues. This "tale" offers one of the film's few semi-gory special effects sequences, and the narrative itself is a bit unsettling, if never downright scary.

Tales of Terror Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Tales of Terror is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Anolis Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.34:1. Tales of Terror received a Blu-ray release for the North American market by Kino Lorber several years ago, and judging solely by screenshots, this transfer looks pretty similar, though I'm not as generous in my score as Brian was in his review of that release. While this offers a generally very nicely suffused palette and some commendable detail levels, things aren't quite as vivid as in the recently reviewed Frankenstein Created Woman, also from Anolis Entertainment. There are also a few curious moments where the image quality suffers some pretty serious degradation, as seen in screenshot 19 (it also appears that this particular snippet had some dubbing involved, so I'm wondering if a dupe element had to be inserted for some reason at some point). Grain resolves naturally throughout the presentation, and I noticed no signs of aggressive digital tweaking of any kind, nor any overt compression anomalies.

Tales of Terror Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Tales of Terror features three DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono mixes, one the original English, and then two German tracks which, if I'm translating German correctly (a dubious proposition, given my less than scholarly knowledge of the language), are the original theatrical version and a later television version. All three tracks have very similar mixes in terms of amplitude and balance between dialogue, score and effects. I spent most of my time with the English language track, and found it often surprisingly full bodied given its age. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly, and Les Baxter's sometimes bombastic score sounds great. Optional German subtitles are available.

Tales of Terror Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary with Dr. Rolf Giesen and Dr. Gerd Naumann (in German, no English subtitles)


• Audio Commentary with Uwe Sommerlad and Volker Kronz (in German, no English subtitles)


• The Tale of Mr. Corman and Mr. Poe (HD; 51:56) is an interesting and well done piece from Diabolique Films which gets into Corman's Poe cycle featuring a glut of talking heads like Gavin Baddeley, David Huckvale and Kat Ellinger, along with several snippets with Mr. Corman himself. In English with optional German subtitles, though the disc is perhaps understandably authored to default to the German subtitles being on (they can be toggled off if you wish).


• American Theatrical Trailer (HD; 2:18)


• German Pressbook (HD; 2:08)


• British Pressbook (HD; 1:30)


• British Press Sheet (HD; 1:01)


• Film Program

  NFP (HD; 00:51)

  
  

  Phantopia (HD; 00:35)

• Image Gallery (HD; 9:41)

Additionally, this is another extremely handsomely packaged release from Anolis Entertainment, with an oversized DigiBook featuring glossy pages filled with text (in German, which I'm not sufficiently schooled to translate very effectively), stills and production data.

Tales of Terror Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

For those who might need a gentle reminder, the age of the internet means we may all be connected in ways in which we're not fully aware. I am a huge Les Baxter fan, and posted on social media about him a few weeks ago, and then was astounded when one of my friends turned out to know his daughter, who then joined the conversation. Baxter's music, along with Floyd Crosby's evocative cinematography, helps to elevate this effort, which is fun if never very frightening. Technical merits are generally solid, and the supplemental features and packaging very well done. Recommended.