The Haunted Palace (1963)

Good thriller with Vincent Price and Lon Chaney in the same movie for the first and only time. Also Debra Pagent's last movie. Debra by the way is stunningly beautiful in this movie. One of Vincent's best acting roles by playing two different personalities. Plot was a bit thin but the acting made this movie.

Fmovies: I don't consider The Haunted Palace one of Vincent Price's or Roger Corman's best. I do put Pit and the Pendulum, The Raven, The Fall of the House of Usher and especially Masque of the Red Death above it, but it is a very good film and worth checking out. It does get a little ponderous at times in the middle and while eerie in tone the music score is over-the-top. However it is well photographed and has beautiful sets. The writing has some fun and macabre moments and the story delivers its suspenseful atmosphere and creepy scares wonderfully even if the enacting terrible revenge angle is familiar territory. Corman's direction is secure also. The acting is very good. Debra Paget before she retired is beautiful and not too bland. Lon Chaney is wonderful, and his entrance is one of The Haunted Palace's creepiest moments. Even better is Price, he is in a double role here and he is deliciously evil. All in all, very good and very enjoyable, I just wish that it had more attention. 8/10 Bethany Cox

In 1765,evil warlock Joseph Curwen(Vincent Price)is lynched by the villagers and burnt alive for performing sorcery and for abducting some of the local women.Before he perishes,he puts a curse on the inhabitants of Arkham and their offspring.One hundred and ten years later,his kind descendant Charles Dexter Ward(Price again),visits Arkham with his beautiful young wife to claim the inheritance of Curwen's castle.The spirit of Curwen begins to possess him".The Haunted Palace" is actually based on H.P.Lovecraft's story.The film relies heavily on Gothic atmosphere with plenty of fantastic,cobwebby and shadowy sets.Price is amazing in the dual role and Curwen is one of his most despicable characters.The film offers some creepy scenes and is simply great.Give it a look.9 out of 10.

The Haunted Palace fmovies. Roger Corman's "The Haunted Palace" of 1963 is a truly brilliant Gothic Horror film, and, alongside the ingenious "Pit and The Pendulum" of 1961 and "The Masque Of The Red Death" of 1964, the greatest installment of Corman's superb Poe cycle with the great Vincent Price. Some people seem to be bothered by the fact that this is not actually based on the poem by Poe, but on H.P. Lovecraft's novel "The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward", but I can't really see why. First of all, there is no doubt that both Poe and Lovecraft were extremely important writers of the horror genre. Second, it doesn't matter what this film is based on, since it is simply a brilliant film, regardless of which literary model it used.

In 1756, the vicious warlock Joseph Curven (Vincent Price) is dragged out of his palace in the New England town of Arkham by an angry mob furious about his evil ways of hexing innocent young women. Before he is burned alive, Curven places a curse on his the people of Arkham and their descendants. 110 years later, Curven's great-grandson Charles Dexter Ward (also Price) comes to Arkham with his wife Ann (Debra Paget) to accept his inheritance - Joseph Curven's castle. Most of the little town's inhabitants, who still believe in the witchcraft and who are living in fear of Curven's curse, react hostile towards the couple, especially because Ward is the spitting image of his ancestor. The Wards, who are not superstitious, decide sleep in the castle anyway, although the only friendly person around is the town's doctor, who does not believe in superstition either. There are strange things happening in the town of Arkham, however, people have terrible deformities and when the Wards arrive they immediately notice an eerie huge painting of Joseph Curven, which has a strange effect on Charles...

There is no doubt in my mind that Vincent Price is one of the greatest actors who ever lived, and his performance in "The Haunted Palace" is one of his best. Price plays his role with pure brilliance, and once again proves that he is THE absolute master of sinister roles. Debra Paget's performance as Anne Ward is also excellent, and the cast furthermore includes Lon Chaney Jr., who proves his greatness in an eerie role. The movie is excellently photographed in great, eerie sceneries, and the film maintains a wonderfully creepy atmosphere from the first minute. The great score even intensifies the eeriness and suspense, and I couldn't find one aspect of "The Haunted Palace" that is not brilliant.

German speaking people - please make sure to watch this film in its original, English version. I personally always watch films in the original when its possible, but it is essential to do so with this movie. The German title reads "Die Folterkammer Des Hexenjägers" (=The Witchhunter's Torture Chamber), although the film has nothing to do with a Witchhunter, and there is no torture chamber either. In the dubbed German version, the Warlock becomes a Witchhunter, New England becomes Wales, and the whole plot makes little sense. Fortunately, the German DVD contains the English version, so stick with the original version of this masterpiece.

All said, "The Haunted Palace" is a perfect Horror film. Vincent Price's brilliant leading performance, the fantastic atmosphere, the constant suspense and genuine creepiness - everything about this film is superb! In short: "The Haunted Palace" is a Got

Centuries ago in Arkham, New England, the warlock Joseph Curwen (Vincent Price) abducts young ladies from the local village and brings them to his castle to use in experiments with the Necronomicon. The local Edgar Weeden (Leo Gordon) raises a lynch mob that go to the castle and burn Joseph Curwen alive at the stake. Before dying, he curses the village, the villagers and their descendants.

One hundred and ten years later, Charles Dexter Ward (Vincent Price), who has inherited the manor, comes to Arkham with his beautiful wife Ann Ward (Debra Paget) to visit the real estate and has a cold and hostile reception by the dwellers. Only Dr. Priam Willet (Frank Maxwell) helps him and tells that the village has many mutants and the villagers believe that it is a cursed town.

When Charles arrives in the castle, he meets two former associates of Joseph Curwen that also worship the devil, and Charles is possessed by the evil Joseph Curwen that wants to revenge on the descendants of those who killed him and to bring his beloved mistress back to life. Ann and Dr. Willet try to help Charles to escape from Curwen's power.

"The Haunted Palace" is a classic Gothic horror by Roger Corman that follows the same style of the Hammer films. The plot is very simple but works perfectly well, supported by Vincent Price and the gorgeous Debra Paget. Further, this is the last feature of this beautiful actress that retired after getting married for the third time. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "O Castelo Assombrado" ("The Haunted Castle")

The darkest of Roger Corman's Poe chillers, though this yarn owes more to HP Lovecraft than Edgar Allan's poetry. Vincent Price gives his all time greatest performance in a dual role as possessed and possessor, aided by a wonderfully literate script by Charles Beaumont. It gives Price no leeway to indulge his tendency to sometimes ham it up.

Here, he keeps tight dramatic restraint on himself, making his gradual transformation from kindly innocent to the reincarnation of his warlock ancestor a virtuoso portrayal of inner turmoil overwhelmed by fiendish evil. Corman even provides a last good role for Lon Chaney Jr (as he'd done previously for Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre and Basil Rathbone) as a ghoulish henchman.

Undeniably, 'The Haunted Palace' does have a rather ponderous pace and music score that makes the film seem stretched as Price wanders down just one more hidden corridor. Floyd Crosby's widescreen cinematography is also unrelenting, capturing the drab, muted blue and brown pastels of a Puritan village plagued by witchcraft. And the barely glimpsed green demon lurking inside the vault was perhaps a mistake.

But Corman's skill on a 15-day schedule and a cheap budget is evident throughout. He introduces Chaney in a splendidly done sudden shock appearance that will still make unwary audiences jump (asked why he is preparing a room in the dark, he tells Price, "One becomes accustomed to the darkness... here").

True Corman fans will rank this chilling piece of American Gothic among his best. Not least where an exasperated Chaney asks the possessed Price when he will be satisfied avenging himself on the descendants of those who burned him at the stake. "Not until this village is a graveyard," Price promises Chaney sibilantly. "Not until they too have felt the kiss of fire on their soft flesh... all of them."