THE TOMB OF LIGEIA

You may be surprised, as I was, to find that the script of Roger Corman's "The Tomb of Ligeia" was written by none other than Robert Towne but then again perhaps not since this is an unusually  intelligent 'horror' picture, filmed not on the Californian coast like the earlier Poe pictures, but in England like its immediate predecessor "The Masque of the Red Death". It also marked the end of the Corman/Poe cycle and like its predecessor is one of the best examples of the genre. Price may still be hamming it and the supporting cast are mostly wooden, (although Elizabeth Shepherd is surprisingly good as both heroine and villainess) but it looks terrific, (Corman was never really given the credit he deserved for his use of colour), and as a study of obsessive love (or hate) reaching out even beyond the grave it is worthy of any number of great directors. Maybe not quite the masterpiece some people think it is but it's certainly superior to any number of 'prestige' pictures of the time.