Obsessão Macabra

Intensely gloomy it may be, but an impressive example how a determined cinematic stylist can make a real virtue of a low budget. This was the third of director Roger Corman's AIP chillers based on Poe stories, and the only one not to star Vincent Price. Here, Ray Milland is the protagonist whose family history of catalepsy makes him fear burial alive.

Entirely shot on the sound stage, Corman and his regular art director Danial Haller have created a wonderfully expressionist garden of gnarled trees and shrubs wreathed with dry ice. Even the interior of Milland's mansion seems like a grave, notably in the scene where Hazel Court and Richard Bull take tea in a drawing room with wood-panelled walls, dark green wallpaper, with the dead tree pressing oppressively against the windows.

A number of other directorial touches make even this relatively minor Corman effort a winner. Court's shadow passing phantom-like over the sleeping Milland. The sudden shock moments when the sinister gravediggers Sweeny and Moe appear. And the blue-suffused dream-sequence in which Milland hallucinates the fate he fears most is quite masterfully shot, cut and scored (Ronald Stein).

A dark, dank little gem.

Roger Corman's Edgar Allan Poe cycle ranges among the most essential moments ever in Horror cinema, some of the adaptations such as "Pit And The Pendulum" (1961), "The Masque of the Red Death" (1964) or (the actually Lovecraft-inspired) "The Haunted Palace" (1963) being among the greatest Gothic Horror films ever brought to screen. The brilliance of these films lies in the creepy Poe-themed stories, Corman's outstanding talent for eerie Gothic atmosphere, and, not least, the leading performances by Horror-deity Vincent Price.

"Premature Burial" of 1962 treats an eponymous subject that is as essentially 'Poe' as it gets - being buried alive, or more precisely, the terror of being buried alive.While I did have high expectations for this film, it had been lying on my DVD shelf for a long while before I finally saw it, the only reason for delaying the viewing being the lack of Vincent Price in this film. Ray Milland, who plays the lead here, was a fantastic actor, but simply not quite as fantastic as Vincent Price (who happens to be my all-time favorite actor). Price simply was one of the greatest actors who ever lived, and the Poe-adaptations are arguably the ultimate highlights of his career. The only flaw of this film, is therefore not really a flaw, but the greatness of Corman's other Poe-adaptations: The fact that the other films had Vincent Price, and this one doesn't. As great as Milland is - and he IS great - every fan of the other films will see that Price could have been greater in some scenes. Vincent Price had a unique quality of being likable sinister. Price played dozens of Horror villains and murderous madmen, yet one always somehow had to like them (the one notable exception being his entirely diabolical eponymous role in Michael Reeves' 1968 masterpiece "Witchfinder General"). Ray Milland is a great actor, but he doesn't share this unique talent for being macabre, creepy, even scary, and yet somehow likable at the same time. Actually, his character here is not villainous, and yet he is somewhat unlikable.

This being said, "Premature Burial" is still and wonderful Gothic Horror experience, which once again proves that Corman is a true master of creepy greatness and beautifully eerie atmosphere. Ray Milland plays Guy Carrell, a man living in paralyzing fear of being interred alive. The beautiful Emily (Hazel Court) nonetheless falls for him and becomes his wife. Once they are married, however, his obsessions become worse and worse... The setting in an eerie mansion near a foggy cemetery is perfect for a Gothic Horror film like this one, and, apart from the usual atmosphere donors such as foggy grounds, Corman includes many morbid set-pieces, such as a demented live-in mausoleum. The fact that Milland's leading character is a painter of very morbid pictures also helps the film's creepiness. The stunning Hazel Court is, as always, absolutely wonderful in the female lead.

Overall, "Premature Burial" isn't quite as essential as films like "House of Usher" (1960), "Pit and the Pendulum" (1961), "The Haunted Palace" (1963) or "The Masque of the Red Death" (1964), but it is still a fantastic Gothic Horror that no genre-lover can afford to miss. The true genius of this film manifests in that it creates a uniquely claustrophobic atmosphere - which actually makes the viewer afraid of being buried prematurely!

I think this is a very underrated little horror film even among Roger Corman's own directorial output. This stems, perhaps, from the fact that Ray Milland steps in for Vincent Price here, making it the odd one out among the series of Corman's Poe adaptations.

Ray Milland must have seemed a rather offbeat choice at the time given his reputation of being one of Hollywood's most charming and debonair leading man. In hindsight, however, he gives the role of the paranoid and cataleptic Guy Correll a wounded vulnerability which Vincent Price would have had trouble in bringing out (without resorting to camp). This is evident when one compares two similar roles played by Price in PIT AND THE PENDULUM (1961), in which he overdid the fainting bit, and his later, admirably subdued performance in THE TOMB OF LIGEIA (1964). To his credit, Milland - who was at his best in such light but sophisticated comedies as EASY LIVING (1939), ARISE, MY LOVE (1940), THE MAJOR AND THE MINOR (1942) and KITTY (1945) - did not consider such roles as being beneath him and consequently gave them his all. As a matter of fact, he considered his subsequent role for Corman, that of Dr. James Xavier in X – THE MAN WITH THE X-RAY EYES (1963), to be his second best after his Oscar-winning turn for Billy Wilder in THE LOST WEEKEND (1945)! I sure would like to get a chance to see Ray Milland in his three other notable 'horror' films: THE UNINVITED (1944), ALIAS NICK BEAL (1949) and (directing himself) PANIC IN YEAR ZERO (1962).

As for the film itself, I admit that having just watched PIT AND THE PENDULUM, PREMATURE BURIAL and (fairly recently) HOUSE OF USHER (1960) in quick succession, the repetition in the story-lines (catalepsy and premature entombment), not to mention in the art direction (recycled sets), does tend to get rather tiresome. Nevertheless, PREMATURE BURIAL, while perhaps not among Corman's best work, is engaging enough to repay repeated viewings (this has been my third time round).

This is the only film in Corman's Poe cycle without Vincent Price. He chose instead Ray Milland as the man haunted by fear of being buried alive. In fact Milland portrays the protagonist more "seriously" than Price would have, or more "realisticaly". This is a good film for those who like the subject. Some critics have talked about films filled with fascination with death, quoting some times "Obsession" by Brian de Palma, for example. But if there is a "necrophiliac" film ever, this is "Premature Burial". Loosely based in Edgar Allan Poe's unfilmable tale, it has a magnificent plot and many hints and blinks. It is a disturbing film, too. Its atmosphere is perfectly gloomy. Milland seems genuinely tormented by his fears, and he delivers some modified Poe lines with intensity. I think that this picture is in the better half of the Poe cycle, and has a particular quality of its own.

The wealthy cataleptic painter Guy Carrell (Ray Milland) believes that he overheard his father, who also had catalepsy, crying in the crypt of his family when he was a kid and is obsessed by the fear of being buried alive. He leaves his fiancée Emily Gault (Hazel Court) and lives alone with his sister Kate Carrell (Heather Angel) in the family manor. However Emily seeks him out and convinces Guy to marry her, despite the disapproval of Kate, promising that she would never bury him without the certainty of his death by her friend, Dr. Miles Archer (Richard Ney), and her father Dr. Gideon Gault (Alan Napier).

After the wedding, Guy does not travel in honeymoon to Venice, as he had promised to Emily, and builds a crypt with safety devices to avoid that he is trapped alive inside. However Emily and Miles convince him to demolish the building. Guy has nightmares and visions with the gravediggers and weird events happen in the mansion. He decides to prove that is cured of his fear and opens his father grave, but someone has moved his skeleton and Guy is diagnosed of heart attack. However he is catatonic indeed and is buried alive as he has always feared. Will be the end of Guy? Who might have caused the shock on Guy?

"Premature Burial" is a creepy tale of paranoid obsession and madness, with good scenarios and locations and good acting. Ray Milland is a great actor but does seem to be miscast for the role of Guy Carrell that should be of an insane man instead of so dramatic. The conclusion is disappointing with the overprotective Kate disclosing the mystery after killing her insane brother. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): Not Available on VHS / DVD / Blu-Ray