L' enterré vivant

With Vincent Price busy elsewhere, Roger Corman shoveled the dirt on Ray Milland for this adaptation of Poe's "The Premature Burial." A bit too mature for the role, Milland nonetheless gives a good account of himself as an artist convinced that he'll meet the same fate as many of his ancestors by being buried alive. This movie offers some fairly useful tips for those who have a similar fear, but after watching it you might agree with me that cremation is the way to go.

Corman keeps things nice and creepy throughout, and your skin is sure to crawl at the appropriate moments. This is no match for the director's magnificent "Pit and the Pendulum," but it's an above-average horror flick recommended for everyone but the ghouls employed in the funeral industry.

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.

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).

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!

Solid, well crafted entry in producer / director Roger Corman's cycle of Edgar Allan Poe adaptations that's an effective exercise in psychological horror as well as more traditional kinds of horror (such as we see in the nightmare sequence, for example). It shows just how badly one's life can be affected by an unhealthy obsession.

Corman initially tried to get Vincent Price for the lead, needing to switch to Ray Milland instead. While the casting of Milland may have seemed odd at the time, the esteemed, Oscar winning actor would go on to make appearances in other genre and schlock movies in the future. Milland offers a mostly understated performance as the tormented Guy Carrell, medical student and painter who can't get his supposed legacy and phobia of being entombed alive out of his mind. Meanwhile, good friend Miles (Richard Ney), new wife Emily (beautiful genre vixen Hazel Court), and sister Kate (Heather Angel) grow increasingly concerned over his behaviour.

Working with his consistently reliable production design / cinematography team of Daniel Haller and Floyd Crosby, Corman is able to create very effective atmosphere for the production, and the 2.35:1 aspect ratio allows him to pack the frame with detail, and he also continues the practise of creating depth to the images. The music by the great Ronald Stein would be enjoyable enough on its own, but it's supplemented by the repeated refrain of the "Molly Malone" melody, whether it's whistled or played on the piano.

Milland does some delicious work here, particularly in the sequence where Guy is showing Emily and Miles all the safeguards he's put in place in case of his being "buried alive". The excellent cast also includes Alan Napier as Emily's doctor father (who utters one of the best lines, "I never enjoy myself, I merely experience greater and lesser amounts of tedium."), and John Dierkes & Corman regular Dick Miller as the unsavoury grave diggers.

The script by Charles Beaumont and Ray Russell has a very literate quality, and Milland gives his dialogue all of the gravitas that he can muster.

While this wouldn't rank among the best of Corman's Poe series (that honour would have to go to "House of Usher" and "The Masque of the Red Death"), it's still very respectable and fun viewing for classic horror fans.

Seven out of 10.