Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.0

The Comedy of Terrors Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 18, 2014

Note: This film is available in the bundle The Vincent Price Collection II.

Vincent Price’s career spanned everything from classic noir ( Laura) to somewhat questionable biographies (he played a rather unlikely Joseph Smith in Brigham Young in a film which always delighted this non-Mormon Utah native), but Price’s lasting legacy will probably always be the horror films he started making in the 1950s with the now iconic House of Wax 3D. Scream Factory, the horror themed imprint of Shout! Factory, gave Price fans a great Halloween present last year when they released The Vincent Price Collection, which included a gaggle of Price’s American International Pictures releases, often made in collaboration with Roger Corman. Scream is back now with a second volume just in time for this year’s Halloween festivities, casting a somewhat wider net that features some of Price’s horror themed outings for other production entities (as well as some AIP features). Once again generally strong technical merits and some fun supplements make this an enjoyable “treat” for horror fans.

If Floyd Crosby's evocative Gothic cinematography sets up what looks like a traditional fright fest as The Comedy of Terrors opens, Les Baxter's playful music, which plays kind of like a low rent Ländler by Gustav Mahler, lets the viewer know that the film is going to be a playful escapade. That becomes all too evident when two funeral parlor directors, played by the inimitable Vincent Price and Peter Lorre, empty the deluxe casket they've provided for a burial, dumping the corpse into the grave, quickly covering it with dirt, and then "recycling" the coffin for whatever dead "client" shows up next.

What is often hilarious throughout The Comedy of Terrors is the disconnect between a gaggle of frankly low rent characters and their completely idiosyncratic, high-falutin' language. This is one of the most floridly verbose of any of the Corman outings with Price, and Price and co-star Basil Rathbone especially seem to delight in screenwriter Richard Matheson's penchant for over the top dialogue. Just listen, for example, to the opening "repartee" (a nice word for an argument) between Waldo Trumbull (Price) and his buxom wife Amaryllis (Joyce Jameson), where Matheson must have had some arcane thesaurus handy to provide the various disparaging bons mots the two spouses lob at each other. Later, Trumbull utilizes the adjective "Stygian" which the subtitle creator for this release must not have understood, as there is a completely nonsensical word offered on the subs at that moment.

The basic plot of The Comedy of Terrors deals with Trumbull and his assistant Felix Gillie (Peter Lorre) attempting to keep their funeral business alive by actually killing people, thereby raking in dough when distressed relatives use the firm for burial services. Things become desperate when their black hearted landlord, appropriately named Black (Basil Rathbone), puts his foot down after not having received rent for a year. Playing out against all this madness are subplots involving the less than talented Amaryllis' desires to be an opera star, and the mostly deaf and decrepit elderly father of Amaryllis, Amos Hinchley (Boris Karloff), the original owner of the funeral parlor and a man Trumbull wouldn't mind getting out of the way in order to receive Hinchley's supposed inheritance.

While there aren’t mistaken identities or much potent door slamming, The Comedy of Terrors often plays like flat out farce, especially in the film’s madcap closing moments, where virtually everyone gets involved in an over the top melee. The cast is in top form here, and Matheson’s screenplay is bizarrely literary given its intentionally low class demeanor. The Comedy of Terrors evidently didn’t ignite at the box office the way other Price films of this period did, but ironically it holds up very well and may in fact be even more enjoyable now seen through a somewhat jaded post-Modernist prism. Journeyman horror director Jacques Tourneur keeps things moving at a spry pace (notice his brilliant staging of the final moments of the film, where one of the "punchlines" plays out in the background while an oblivious Karloff is front and center), and the film delivers a number of hearty laughs along the way.

The Comedy of Terrors Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Comedy of Terrors is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Scream Factory, an imprint of Shout! Factory, with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. Once again elements are in largely very good shape, with only occasional dust and flecks showing up. The color space here is quite inviting, with very little fade and good tonal reproductions. Grain is natural looking, and there are no resolution problems when the film exploits things like mist strewn cemeteries. The increased resolution does tend to show things like seams on matte paintings or painted backdrops, but otherwise this is a solid, engaging looking transfer.

The Comedy of Terrors Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Comedy of Terrors lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono track provides good support for the film's hyperbolic dialogue, as well as Les Baxter's fun (and funny) score. Fidelity is excellent throughout, though there is just very slight distortion at times when Amaryllis sings her very highest notes. Otherwise there are no issues or defects to report.

The Comedy of Terrors Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Richard Matheson Storyteller: The Comedy of Terrors (1080i; 9:35) features the legendary screenwriter discussing the film.


• Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 2:32)


• Still Gallery (1080p; 3:18)

Though it isn't officially listed as a supplement, this feature begins with:

• Introduction to The Comedy of Terrors (1080i; 3:40), produced by Iowa Public Television for The Vincent Price Gothic Horrors, featuring Price discussing the film.

The Comedy of Terrors Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Comedy of Terrors is one of the breeziest Price entries from this period, and it's obvious that Price, along with Karloff, Rathbone and Lorre, are having unbridled fun in this lunatic romp. Technical merits here are very strong, the supplementary package is decent (if not quite as good as some others in this set), and The Comedy of Terrors comes Highly recommended.