Tuesday, November 30, 2021

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

Sunday, November 28, 2021

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

Wednesday, November 24, 2021

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

Sunday, November 21, 2021

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

Saturday, November 20, 2021

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

Tuesday, November 16, 2021

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

Monday, November 15, 2021

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

Sunday, November 14, 2021

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

Tuesday, November 9, 2021

Deviant art


ETERNALS

2021
Directed by Chloé Zhao
Written by Patrick Burleigh, Ryan Firpo, Kaz Firp, and Chloe Zhao

Spoilers: moderate

Sunday, November 7, 2021

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