The Premature Burial is a 1962 US horror film, directed by Roger Corman from a screenplay by Charles Beaumont and Ray Russell, based upon the 1844 short story of the same name by Edgar Allan Poe. It stars Ray Milland, Hazel Court, Alan Napier, Heather Angel and Richard Ney.
Corman had made two successful adaptations of Poe’s works for American International Pictures (AIP) starring Vincent Price. He decided to make his own Poe film with financing through Pathe Lab. He wanted to use Price, but AIP had him under exclusive contract, so he cast Ray Milland instead. On the first day of shooting AIP’s James Nicholson and Sam Arkoff turned up, announcing Corman was working for them – they had threatened Pathe with the loss of their business if they did not bring the movie back to AIP.
Francis Ford Coppola (Dementia 13; Bram Stoker’s Dracula; Twixt) worked on the movie as dialogue director.
Plot teaser:
Guy Carrell (Milland), who is obsessed with the fear of death. He is most obsessed with the fear of being buried alive. Though his fiancee Emily says he has nothing to be afraid of, he still thinks he will be buried alive (a common fear and in reality an occasional occurrence). So deluded, he seeks help from a few people, including his sister, but he still is haunted by the fear of death and the sense that someone close wants him dead…
Buy The Premature Burial on Blu-ray from Amazon.com
Reviews:
‘Oh and Milland was fine, not much of a surprise since he IS an Oscar winner. I mean, he’s no Price, but who is? He’s got the perfect look, where you can buy him as a villain or a hero quite easily – a benefit during the back and forth finale. The rest of the cast is also pretty good; it’s always nice to see Hazel Court, and Alan “Batman TV show Alfred” Napier is great as a doctor who at one point stands by looking bored when Milland is found “dead”. It seems like they were putting some effort into making up for Price’s absence by having a lot of the characters give dryly sarcastic reactions to things, as he would; if so – it worked!’ Horror Movie a Day
‘There is the nucleus of a good movie in The Premature Burial. Unfortunately, most of that nucleus is recycled from The Fall of the House of Usher and The Pit and the Pendulum, and three consecutive movies spent tinkering with the same material is at least one too many. Indeed, the only feature this film has with which to establish its own voice is Guy’s delightfully paranoid design for his tomb, and it isn’t in the movie for very long. Everything else— the catalepsy, the “revenge of the resurrected,” the grave robbers, the crooked doctor, the setting, the basic story structure— is lifted either from one of the previous AIP Poe movies…’ 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting
‘A shocker rather than a chiller, Corman conjures up some colourful, cobwebbed Poe atmosphere with swirling mists, petrified corpses and dank atmospheric suspense; and Milland’s dream sequence is genuinely frightening. But while Premature Burial does have the same rich décor and Gothic trappings as House of Usher and The Pit and the Pendulum, the screenplay relies too heavily on elements from those films, and Milland lacks Price’s barnstorming qualities.’ Peter Fuller, The Spooky Isles
Cast:
- Ray Milland as Guy Carrell
- Heather Angel as Kate Carrell, Guy’s sister
- Hazel Court as Emily Gault, Guy’s wife
- Alan Napier as Dr. Gideon Gault
- Richard Ney as Miles Archer
- John Dierkes as Sweeney
- Dick Miller as Mole
- Clive Halliday as Judson
- Brendan Dillon as Clergyman
