Rent Premature Burial (1962)

Spoilers ... - Premature Burial review by NP

I have always found it difficult to enjoy Roger Corman films, which surprises me. I like low-budget productions, and Corman always assembles very impressive casts. And yet, his projects appear to strive to create a staginess, a campy theatricality that I find difficult to become immersed in

Vincent Price was originally slated to play Guy Carrell, but the part went to Ray Milland. Milland has always been a very impressive actor in my view, able to transcend even average productions and emerge with dignity intact. Ten years later, he would exert his excellence on the notorious ‘The Thing with Two Heads’, where he somehow managed even there to inject his role as the titular creature with humour and above all, gravitas. He does the same here, as does Hazel Court, who plays Emily, his wife. Richard Ney plays family friend Miles and all characters are fairly staid and unengaging, lifted hugely by the playing.

Perhaps Price would have injected Carrell with a bit of a twinkle, which would at least have lightened this humourless piece. What we have here is a very earnest reimagining of Edgar Allen Poe’s short story. There’s a certain inevitability Carrell’s fate once we learn of his dread of being buried alive, and certainly the atmosphere reaches impressive levels as a result of this, and what happens beyond.

I would have liked to enjoy this more, but often couldn’t get past the style of the piece, which for the most part, looks like it has the production values of a television continuing serial, or soap. This is no slight on the budget or production team, it just fails to convince me, or to inject proceedings with any kind of eccentricity or outlandishness that offsets the limitations.