One Minute Before Death

What can be said about this forgotten flick, which gratuitously uses Edgar Allen Poe's name (on the British and home video release)in an attempt to punch up it's marquee value, employs an actress who is 50 if she's a day as the leading ingenue, and is lensed by Mexican filmmakers in what looks like the American Northwest? Quite a bit.

The movie concerns a mother and daughter who have come for the reading of a will to the mother's brother's house. Soon the daughter becomes possessed by the spirit of her dead cousin and all sorts of weirdness happens. We learn from the faithful housekeeper that her former employer was a Union Commander and left his daughter alone to go off to war. Unbeknownst to him, their was a renegade Confederate soldier hiding in his house, and his daughter had fallen in love with him. The soldier is recaptured (as he and the girl almost exchange wedding vows), the now-pregnant daughter is thrown out by her father when he learns of this, she loses the baby and her mind, the father goes crazy and dies, and the daughter dies. Whew! and that's the backstory! Certainly no plot deficiencies here!

In it's better moments, ONE MINUTE BEFORE DEATH(or ONE MINUTE BEFORE MIDNIGHT or THE OVAL PORTRAIT, take your pick)plays like a lesser entry in the Hammer Studios catalog. In it's worse moments, the movie comes on like a particularly overripe episode of DARK SHADOWS. The premise, concerning a deceased woman who possesses the body of a cousin, is rather weak and the film slips into weirdness near the end. The movie resorts to flying objects and mummified corpses to carry the last 30 or so minutes. The post-Civil War setting details are shakey; some of the dresses and hats the actresses wear look to be from a vintage some 20-40 years after the time of the setting. Still, there is some pretty scenery and some luxurious antebellum sets. Not high art, or even frightening, but clean and okay for passing an interminable Sunday afternoon.

The plot is AWESOME with that Gothic Haunted House vibe if the 70's that made that era of movies so good. The acting however was atrocious. How many people noticed that the portrait changed a few times from one woman to another? What could have been such a good movie of the 1970's turned out to be just another one of those leaving you saying WHY??

ONE MINUTE BEFORE DEATH is a non-threatening, sub-soap opera-quality "horror" movie, loosely based on a short story by Edgar Allan Poe.

A family is haunted by the ghost of Rebecca, who died under suspicious circumstances. Her portrait hangs over the fireplace and her spirit roams the house.

Unfortunately, this movie suffers from horrid acting and dialogue, among other things. On top of all that it's boring as hell! Otherwise, it could have been a riotous schlock masterwork! Instead, watching it is like wading through treacle...

The Oval Portrait is based on a short story by Edgar Allan Poe. Poe's story is one of his shortest only two pages long. So to create a film that is around 1 1/2 hours long must have been a difficult task but it was done with this film - and beautifully I must add.

This is a film that has escaped me for years. I acquired a copy of this one from the Pure Terror 50 Movie Pack and I am pleased this film was added to the collection.

Overall this is a good film - especially if you are interested in movies that are based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe. I was not disappointed with this film adaptation.

7/10

While staying in an old house to hear the reading of a will, a woman becomes haunted by the spirit of the deceased girl whose room she is occupying. The kindly housekeeper advises her to leave the house quickly, and supports this warning with what is possibly the longest expository flashback sequence in film history.

This fly-ball ghost story is mostly a woebegone romance set during and shortly after the U. S. Civil War. Stir in some soap-suds melodrama and a fat pinch of horse-and-buggy chills of the "old dark house" variety, and there you have The Colonel's secret recipe for one peculiar little movie. It's a noticeably insouciant project filmed almost entirely within a neo-Victorian styled house, and features some laughably unconvincing period wardrobe and wigs. That said, it's a modestly watchable item which transcends slightly the usual expectations held for underprivileged cinema. The has-been female leads(Hendrix and Mackenzie) are commendable, if a bit outmoded in their old-school Hollywood histrionics, but come-off nearly Oscar-worthy in comparison to their less-distinguished support players. Truth is, there's actually little to gripe about where the rudiments of production are concerned...it's adequately overseen for the most part. It does suffer from directorial lassitude and yo-yo pacing, however, and the dearth of gratuitous sensationalism renders it a rather prudent entry to the delectus of horror cinema.

4.5/10...not exactly "bucket list" material.