WHILST working for American International Pictures in the 1960s, Vincent Price made a whole raft of rather good Edgar Allan Poe adaptations with director Roger Corman.
Although they began in Hollywood, these cheap but cheerful interpretations of the troubled poet and author’s most famous fables eventually brought the so called ‘Merchant of Menace’ to England for the two final offerings in the series, The Masque Of The Red Death (1964) and The Tomb Of Ligeia (1965).
While these two colourful adaptations were arguably the best of the franchise, they weren’t the last time Price would find himself involved in Poe related projects on this side of the pond.
By 1969 Corman may have left the fold, but Price was again working on this side of the Atlantic, still under contract to AIP and now toiling on a film that utilised the title of an Edgar Allan Poe story even if the plot itself bore little or no relation to Poe in any other way.
That film was The Oblong Box, a fascinating and long undervalued foray into period drama horror that’s now been given a tidy spruce up by the BFI for its very first UK Blu-ray release.
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The Oblong Box is a fascinating and long undervalued foray into period drama horror that’s now been given a tidy spruce up by the BFI for its very first UK Blu-ray release
Starring Price and fellow horror royalty Christopher Lee, it’s the story of two brothers who are off overseeing their plantations in Africa when one of them is ritualistically attacked after being blamed for a tragic accident involving the young child of a local villager.
Driven mad by his experience, the attacked brother is taken home by his sibling and locked away in an upstairs room for his own safety. From there, he swears revenge on his brother and threatens to reveal what really happened out in Africa.
On paper this should be horror movie gold: it’s got Price and Lee as its big name stars, it’s directed with style by The Golden Voyage Of Sinbad helmer Gordon Hessler and there are connections with Price’s earlier success in the casting of Witchfinder General alumni Rupert Davies and Hilary Dwyer.
There’s another connection with Witchfinder General in that Michael Reeves, who directed that 1968 masterpiece of the macabre, was due to direct this. Tragically, he died during pre-production, with Hessler stepping into his shoes at the 11th hour.
Sadly though, The Oblong Box just doesn’t do quite enough to make it to the top table of Poe-related horror movies from the 1960s. It’s missing the weird and wonderful directorial panache of Roger Corman for a start – nobody could do a clammy and claustrophobic Poe dream sequence quite like Corman – and what we’re left with is a fairly slight gothic tale of family secrets and misbehaviour that never delivers quite enough horror thrills and genuine scares despite the best efforts of all concerned.
The very presence of Price as the landowner with the awful secret and Lee as the surgeon with a taste for bloody experiments makes it worth taking the time for, though, although they only spend a few precious minutes on screen sadly, and there are still enough gothic chills to make this ideal viewing for a cold pre-Halloween night in.
