THE PREMATURE BURIAL
US, 1961, 81 Minutes, Colour.
Ray Milland, Hazel Court, Richard Ney, Heather Angel, Alan Napier.
Directed by Roger Corman.
The Premature Burial is a Roger Corman adaptation of an Edgar Allan Poe story. Roger Corman, master producer and director of small budget films in the 50s and early 60s, made a series of films from Poe's novels and these have received wide acclaim. They are generally in widescreen, have rather lurid colour, but are striking, overdramatic adaptations, possibly in the Poe spirit. They generally feature Vincent Price. However Ray Milland is the star of this particular film (He also appeared in Corman's X). Corman went on to become a more respectable director e.g. The St. Valentine's Day Massacre, The Red Baron. He is also a patron of young directors and has encouraged quite a number of them, especially Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese. This is quite an enjoyable horror film, of interest for enthusiasts of the horror genre, and those interested in Corman's series.
1. How enjoyable was this film, how frightening? Was it a successful horror film? Why?
2. Why do audiences enjoy such films? Are they too morbid? Do they explore hidden fears and drives? Are they just good thrillers to be forgotten?
3. How much did this film rely on colour, Panavision, the eerie sets, houses and fog, graveyards and crypts, creaking doors etc.? How much did it rely on frights and scares of the audience? Was it successful here?
4. How subtle was the atmosphere of menace and fear in this film? The colour and atmosphere, the dialogue and the very theme of the film? Or was the treatment too heavy-handed and obvious?
5. What was your response to the issue itself of premature burial? Its playing on human fears? People's anticipation of death and memories? Guy's description of what it is like to be buried alive? How the theme was used in the film: the opening pre-credits, the father and the fear of his catalepsy, the dog who was not dead, the cat in the wall, the sequence in the crypt? Guy's mausoleum and his lengthy explanation? The ironic horror of his dream and its failure? His own death and the funeral? The eeriness of the music of Molly Malone? Emily's burial? How did the cumulative effect of the emphasis on premature burial affect the audience?
6. How impressive a character was Guy? How real? How mad and obsessed? Could audiences identify with him and share his fear? The portrayal of his sanity and madness? Comment on particular details and the way he was photographed? Especially in his dreams, fears, death, and his berserk murdering at the end?
7. Were you deceived by Emily? The impact of the opening and audience decisions to like her and dislike Kate? Her attitude in the marriage, relationship with the doctor, her innocence and plotting? Were you surprised at the truth? Did she deserve to die, buried alive?
8. How did the film contrive to make audiences suspicious of Kate? Was she right to shoot Guy at the end?
9. what did the gravediggers contribute to the film, their whistling, their sinister comments, their deaths? The doctors? The right of the doctor to experiment on the dead Guy and his death?
10. How well did the film frighten and scare? By its use of editing and sudden cuts, dreams? Comment on the technical skill of the dream sequence.
11. Why was Edgar Allen Poe obsessed with death and with burial? How did he communicate this to his readership? What fears and response in them did it touch.
