The Fall of the House of Usher/The Pit and the Pendulum (1960)

This double feature offers two inspired pairings of shockmeister Roger Corman and the quintessentially sinister Vincent Price in moody adaptations of the short stories of Edgar Allan Poe.

In THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER, hopeful Phillip (Mark Damon) rides up to the crumbling Usher estate to pick up his betrothed, Madeline (Myrna Fahey), and is coldly received by her brother, Roderick (Price). A most unwilling host, Roderick suffers from "morbid acuteness of the senses" and is convinced their family lineage--and the very house itself--is cursed by the evil deeds of their forebears. He is sworn to do everything in his power to keep his sister from leaving with Phillip--even burying her alive--to stop her from continuing their damned lineage. "King of the Bs" Corman got permission from his producers to make this, his first film in color and with a recognizable star, for the same price as two of his usual black-and-white films. The result was a smash hit with critics and audiences, and Corman made seven more. This is still one of the best, with a comparatively restrained performance by Price, good set design and photography, and eerie music by the legendary Les Baxter.

THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM (1961) takes place in 16th-century Spain with Francis Bonnard (John Kerr) visiting the gloomy castle of his late sister's husband, Nicholas (Price), in order to discern the reason for her death. It seems Nicholas is terrified that wife Elizabeth (Barbara Steele) is not really dead and that her spirit wanders the halls at night. It turns out Nicholas' father was a feared leader of the Spanish Inquisition, and as a child he saw him torture his mother and then bury her alive. He's now convinced Elizabeth has suffered a similar fate, even though his doctor (Antony Carbone) disagrees. Meanwhile, his father's torture chamber is still down in the basement, just waiting to get back into service. There are twisted twists and gristly surprises aplenty in this second of the Poe adaptations, which benefits from nice costumes, atmospheric cinematography, a mournfully eerie score by Baxter, the presence of European horror star Steele, and Price at his most floridly hammy.