Vincent Price had starred in the first two Poe films but for complicated contractual reasons involving AIP Corman was unable to secure his services for the third film. Ray Milland played the lead rôle instead.
Guy Carrell (Ray Milland) is obsessed by the fear of being buried alive. He is convinced that that is what happened to his father - that his father suffered from catalepsy and was pronounced dead and sealed in his coffin even though he was still alive. Guy is convinced that, as a boy, he heard his father’s screams of terror. Guy’s fears are intensified by a couple of odd incidents.
Guy feels that as a result of his affliction he cannot go ahead with his projected marriage to Emily Gault (Hazel Court) but Emily persuades him to change his mind. Guy however cannot prevent himself from brooding endlessly about the horrors of premature burial.
Guy comes up with an elaborate plan to deal with his fears. He designs a mausoleum for himself, and a special coffin. Both the mausoleum and the coffin are cunningly designed to allow him to escape should he, by mistake, be buried alive after an attack of catalepsy.
Not surprisingly Guy’s behaviour becomes increasingly worrying to Emily and to his friend Miles (Richard Ney). And to his sister Kate (Heather Angel), although she has always worried about his sanity.
Emily and Miles decide there’s only one way to cure Guy - they must persuade him to destroy his ingenious mausoleum.
Ray Milland does a fine job here but would Vincent Price have done a better job in the lead rôle? Price could certainly have done the part and it’s arguable that in this case Price’s extreme theatricality might have compensated for the thinness of the plot. On the whole though Ray Milland was a very good choice and he delivers the good.
Hazel Court was one of the great scream queens and she’s terrific here.
The movie’s major weakness is that while Poe’s story is excellent it doesn’t provide quite enough plot for a feature film. It’s a story that might have worked better as an episode for the Thriller TV anthology series.
The movie has a very artificial shot-on-a-soundstage look (as do the other early films in Corman’s Poe cycle). I personally think that’s an asset in this case as it adds to the hallucinatory nightmare feel.
Floyd Crosby did the cinematography for this film (and for all the Corman Poe films up to The Haunted Palace) and he and art director (and frequent Corman collaborator) Daniel Haller provide plenty of gothic creepiness. Corman knew how to pick people with whom to work who could do great work on tight budgets and tight schedules which is why his Poe films always look much better than you’d expect on such small budgets.
Because there’s not a great deal of plot and for most of the running time no overt horror this movie has to rely very heavily on atmosphere and even more heavily on creating a mood of uneasiness and uncertainty. Is Guy mad or sane? Are his fears irrational or all too rational? Fortunately the movie manages to do this quite successfully, and Ray Milland manages very successfully to keep us in doubt about Guy’s sanity (and perhaps does a better job of this than Vincent Price would have done).
Kino Lorber’s Region 1 DVD (there’s a Blu-Ray edition as well) provides an excellent anamorphic transfer. Corman’s Poe films rely a great deal on his bold use of colour and the colours look great on this transfer. There are a few worthwhile extras as well including an interview with Corman.
The Premature Burial is usually considered to be one of the lesser films in Corman’s Poe cycle but that’s a bit unfair. It’s actually a very effective horror chiller with its own flavour and it’s very very creepy. Highly recommended.
I’ve also reviewed the first of the Corman Poe films, The Fall of the House of Usher, and one of the later Poe films he did in England, The Masque of the Red Death.
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