La rossa maschera del terrore

In the end of the Nineteenth Century, the aristocrat Edward Markham (Alister Williamson) is disfigured by sorcery in Africa by the natives. His brother Julian Markham (Vincent Price) brings him back to the Markham Manor in England and keeps him prisoner in the attic. The mad Edward asks his lawyer Trench (Peter Arne) and his partner to bring the African sorcerer N'Galo (Harry Baird) in secret to heal him but Julian does not allow any contact with his brother. Trench and N'Galo simulate the death of Edward to remove him from the attic in a coffin. However, body snatchers bring his body to the unscrupulous Dr. Newhartt (Christopher Lee) for his research. Edward offers a large amount to Dr. Newhartt to stay hidden in his house and wears a crimson hood to hide his face. When Edward goes to the town, his mask brings problem to him and he begins a series of murders. When he finally meets N'Galo, he finds why the natives have deformed him and he seeks revenge.

"The Oblong Box" is a dark horror movie based on a story by Edgar Allan Poe. The screenplay keeps the story interesting until the end and the cast has two icons of the genre - Vincent Price and Christopher Lee. The sets and the atmosphere are stylish and adequate for the story. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): Not Available

We have all kind of barbarities featuring in this dark and moody tale. Only the wicked pen of Edgar Allen Poe could have come up with a tale that blends voodoo, body snatching, medical experiments, brotherly betrayal and a taste of what most likely is the worst imaginable nightmare: being buried alive! Set in the second half of the 19th century, Vincent Price (oh, how I love this man) stars as a wealthy landlord who returned from Africa severely traumatized. His brother got cursed by the aboriginals there and now lives locked up in his room, heavily deformed. But he's still clever enough to plan an escape and pays some small crooks to have him appear dead. Due to several unfortunate events, the plan goes wrong and Sir Edward's supposedly dead body ends up in the laboratory of morbid scientist Christopher Lee (another man I love!)

The entire film carries some sort of unnameable eeriness. The depressing set pieces and colorless locations add a great deal to the sublime horrific atmosphere. All this, together with an intriguing and complex screenplay makes this movie yet another highlight in the careers of Vincent Price and Christopher Lee. Both icons of horror give away amazing performances and it's actually a damn shame they don't share many sequences together. This is a marvelous film from the time that horror still was the greatest genre in cinema. They simply can't deliver movies as good as this anymore. Maybe I'm giving it a little too much praise but you can't but agree with me that at least this kind of horror oldies demand a much wider attention span than the nowadays gore-junk. For that aspect alone, I feel obliged to give it a high rating.

Disfigured in an African ritual, Edward is kept, "protected", by his brother Julian by being kept chained up in attic. He fakes his death to escape from Julian and another man is killed to take Edward's place in the "oblong box". Film looks like a low-key, photographed stageplay, a well-dressed period piece having little to do with Poe's short story, besides the title box. This is one of those films to watch primarily to enjoy the cast, lush settings and photography, hooded killers, throat-slicings, and a couple of good scares along the way, even if it has little if anything to do with Poe, just don't get one's hopes too high up. It does have a good unmasking scene, and genuinely creepy twist-ending, which still stood out in my mind years after I had last seen this film.

Favourite line: "I'll only do my prowling at night."

This movie was rather good, but it had a major flaw. Throughout the movie they hide one character's face. You know he is disfigured and considering how the people act when they see it you know it must be bad. I was expecting something like I saw in the movie "The Projected Man" (bad movie, but they did a good job with the face). Then finally when you see the face at the end, I wasn't all that impressed. The guy was not all that disfigured. However, I did enjoy how the movie played out as Vincent Price was good as was Christopher Lee. Though I find the opening credits funny when they say Lee is the guest star. How do you have a guest star in a movie? You are never quite sure where the movie is going at times and there are some twists and turns. In the end I had very little pity for the messed up brother, rather I felt sorry for Price's character that had done something wrong, but he had regret over it. The murders could have been done a bit better as they usually involved throats being slit and this did not look to good. For the most part it looked liked the killer was wiping blood on the people's neck. There is a rather interesting scene involving a brothel. Lots of cleavage and even a bare breast or two if you like that sort of thing. Overall I enjoyed it.

"The Oblong Box" is about what you'd expect. Like "Witchfinder General" (aka "The Conqueror Worm") the previous year, a lot of it seems to be going for shock value. Vincent Price plays a 19th-century nobleman keeping his disfigured brother locked in a room...only then the brother manages to escape. There's some violence (although I wouldn't call it gore) and no shortage of women with bug-eyed, frightened looks on their faces.

As with the other 1960s horror flicks based on Edgar Allan Poe stories -- although this one is not part of Roger Corman's series -- the movie only uses the title and is otherwise unrelated to the original story. There's certainly nothing special about the movie, except that it was the first pairing of Vincent Price and Christopher Lee. Otherwise, Corman's movies are the ones that I recommend.

Also starring Rupert Davies, Peter Arne, Sally Geeson and Hilary Dwyer.