THE RAVEN
THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH
D: Roger Corman; with Vincent Price, Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, Hazel
Court, Jack Nicholson
Orion Home Video/Image Entertainment
Much of Roger Corman’s reputation as a director rests on a series of
Edgar Allan Poe films he created (most of which featured Vincent Price) for
American-International Pictures during the early to mid-1960s. Two of the best
of these – The Raven and The Masque of the Red Death – have been
recently released as a double-bill laserdisc set in their original wide-screen
format.
The Raven (1963) draws its inspiration more from Larry, Curly, and Moe
than Edgar Allan Poe, foregoing horror for comedic effect at every turn. The
film stars Price, Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, Hazel Court, and a very young
Jack Nicholson. Corman, along with screenwriter Richard Matheson, wisely
allowed the performances of his old-pro horror stars to carry the film. The
plot, such as it is, centers on rival wizards Price, Karloff, and Lorre, whose
ambitions and machinations drive the story forward. The climactic magical duel,
even though not up to today’s special effects standards, is quite entertaining.
Although neither scary nor screamingly funny, The Raven is still grand
entertainment, and holds up as well today as when it was released.
Considered by many to be the high-water mark of the Corman-Poe series, The
Masque of the Red Death (1964) is much closer to its source material in
tone than The Raven. For the most part, the horror elements are more
cerebral than graphic in nature, although the title assures a certain amount of
on-screen gore. Price is back, this time, cast as the evil Prince Prospero, a
Satan-worshipper bent of self-preservation at any cost. Hazel Court is again
memorable in her role as the bad girl gone worse. A handsome production by AIP
standards, the overall visual appearance of Masque is greatly enhanced
by the work of then-cinematographer Nicholas Roeg, who helped give the picture
a lusher, more decadent feel. Unrelentingly grim and often nightmarish,
Masque remains one of Corman’s greatest accomplishments.
Thankfully, these films have been restored to their original widescreen glory
for laserdisc release. The visual presentation of both The Raven and
The Masque of the Red Death is outstanding, with only the minor
imperfections one would expect from films released more than 30 years ago. The
sound on The Raven is not quite as crisp as on Masque, with
occasional muddiness and hiss, but this defect is compensated for by having the
second side of the disc in CAV format (in spite of the fact that no mention of
this is made on the sleeve and the disc itself says CLV), allowing for
single-frame manipulation of the duel of the wizards. Combined with a suggested
retail price that is considerably less than most double-disc sets, this
Corman-Price-Poe double feature in an exceptional value for fans of the
genre.
– Bud Simons ULTRAMAN: TOWARD THE
FUTURE
D: Andrew Prowse; with Steve Adams, Robert Semper, Gia Carides and Ralph
Cotterrill
Ultra Action Video
As horrified humans scatter beneath the foul shadow of a giant,
rubbery-fleshed alien wreaking random havoc on the skyline of post-industrial
Tokyo, one man stops in an empty parking lot, turns around defiantly, strikes a
John Travoltaesque, boogie-woogie pose lofting what appears to be a giant
dashboard cigarette lighter in one hand, pushes a button on the device, and
turns into…
Ultraman!
This stoic, silver-jumpsuited hero flew through the daydreams of a
thousand empty afternoons when I was a kid, delighting my friends and me with
his just-in-the-nick-of-time rescues of countless cowering multitudes from
monsters that seemed to have escaped from the broomcloset of some Hollywood
sci-fi nightmare. Ultraman rocked. As wimpy little tykes watching from
the floor of our parents’ basements, he was someone we could relate to: He was
the consummate outsider (no one could know his true identity); he was all too
human (often staggered and sometimes seemingly bested by his adversaries); and
best of all, he could only maintain his Ultraman form for three minutes at a
time – a feature of his allure that we found especially appealing, for it made
his powers seem almost within reach; surely someday one of us would be able to
stand up to the neighborhood bully for three wondrous minutes!
Perhaps only the Australians would take a cheesy, low-budget, Japanese sci-fi
series and redo the whole thing as a cheesy, low-budget, Australian sci-fi series. But that’s just what they’ve done, and now you can rent this
first episode of the re-make (available at Vulcan) which, considering the
singular quality of the original, is not half-bad. Gone are the exotic
skyscrapers and signage of Tokyo, replaced with the smaller and less mysterious
city-scape of what appears to be Sydney. Gone are the Japanese, in fact,
replaced by vaguely familiar Aussie actors sporting bad Eighties haircuts. But
at least they got Ultraman himself right, right down to the iridescent silver
suit and the awkward, slow-motion karate moves, the way he shakes his head to
gather himself after being body-slammed off a 20-story building. And the
monster, in this case a many-headed, insectile creature whose birth is
accompanied by a mammoth earthquake, is simply perfect. The internal logic of
the show, or lack thereof, is present as well: A giant monster from outer
space/the ocean/deep in the earth’s core simply appears, begins stomping like
hell through downtown metropolitan areas, and for whatever reason Ultraman is
forced to wait until the last possible second to save the Earth. My only
complaint with the whole thing, aside from its not being the original show, is
that they only put one 30-minute episode on this tape. The least they could
have done was include an episode of Johnny Socko and His Flying Robot,
which we used to enjoy right after Ultraman as kids.
-Dave Cook
This article appears in August 25 • 1995 and August 25 • 1995 (Cover).