American Gothic Week: From a mere eccentricity to a dark mania

THE HAUNTED PALACE

1963

Directed by Roger Corman

Written by Charles Beaumont (based on the novella "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward" by H.P. Lovecraft plus eight lines of the poem "The Haunted Palace" by Edgar Allan Poe)

Spoilers: moderate

American Gothic Week: Poe boys

THE TERROR

1963

Directed by Roger Corman with Francis Ford Coppola, Dennis Jakob, Jack Hill, and Jack Nicholson

Written by nobody till after it was over, and credited to Leo Gordon and Jack Hill

Spoilers: moderate

American Gothic Week: When we are alone for a long time, we people space with phantoms

DIARY OF A MADMAN

1963

Directed by Reginald Le Borg

Written by Robert E. Kent (based on the stories "Diary of a Madman" and "The Horla" by Guy de Maupassant)

Spoilers: moderate

American Gothic Week: Forgotten lore

THE RAVEN

1963

Directed by Roger Corman

Written by Richard Matheson (with several lines taken from the poem by Edgar Allan Poe)

Spoilers: moderate

American Gothic Week: Determined to prove a villain

TOWER OF LONDON

1962

Directed by Roger Corman

Written by Leo Gordon, F. Amos Powell, and Robert E. Kent

Spoilers: the Plantagenets don't make it

American Gothic Week: The notion of that identity which at death is or is not lost for ever, was to me, at all times, a consideration of intense interest

TALES OF TERROR

1962

Directed by Roger Corman

Written by Richard Matheson (based on the stories "Morella," "The Black Cat," "The Cask of Amontillado," and "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" by Edgar Allan Poe)

Spoilers: moderate

American Gothic Week: The rigid embrace of the narrow house

PREMATURE BURIAL

1962

Directed by Roger Corman

Written by Charles Beaumont and Ray Russell (based on the story by Edgar Allan Poe)

Spoilers: moderate

American Gothic Week: I felt every fiber in my frame thrill as if I had touched the wire of a galvanic battery

PIT AND THE PENDULUM

1961

Directed by Roger Corman

Written by Richard Matheson (with one scene toward the end somewhat based on the story by Edgar Allan Poe)

Spoilers: moderate; high for the original short story

American Gothic Week: A countenance not easily to be forgotten

THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER

1960

Directed by Roger Corman

Written by Richard Matheson (based on the story by Edgar Allan Poe)

Spoiler alert: you read this in 9th grade and presumably recall that the title is not metaphorical, but somehow still only moderate

Deviant art

ETERNALS

2021

Directed by Chloé Zhao

Written by Patrick Burleigh, Ryan Firpo, Kaz Firp, and Chloe Zhao

Spoilers: moderate

Just try to make it sound like you wrote it that way on purpose

THE FRENCH DISPATCH OF THE LIBERTY, KANSAS EVENING SUN

2021

Directed by Wes Anderson

Written by Roman Coppola, Hugo Guinness, Jason Schwartzman, and Wes Anderson

Spoilers: moderate