Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Mathilde the Guild Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

mark.waltz A classic gruesome threesome that focuses on three short stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne, all starring the fabulous Vincent Price. He plays an aging friend of a grieving man whose fiancée died on their wedding eve, the ailing and reclusive father of a young girl he keeps hostage and alive through a mysterious power that has the capability to kill. In the third segment, he returns to familiar territory: the saga of the Pynchon family, a cursed clan consumed with dark secrets of the past, culminating in a time of great social uproar in 17th Century New England. Sebastian Cabot and Mari Blanchard co- star in the first tale, focusing on the mysterious crypt water which seemingly brings the dead back to life and possible eternal youth. It is eerie, poignant and ultimately haunting. The second segment has a beautifully colorful set but a strange and convoluted tale of a young man (Brett Halsey) obsessed with the creepy beauty (Joyce Taylor) next door. Jaqueline de Witt is Price's sinister and Beverly Garland his innocent bride in one of several short stories that Hawthorne wrote about the doomed Pynchon family. Hoimh back to the early days cinema and feature length films, there's been a slew of multi story structures especially in the horror or mystery genre. I can think of a handful that featured Vincent Price, and indeed, he is the king of the macabre. This one is enjoyable overall, but the second segment takes some patience. It's ironic to see Price have a second involvement in a tale loosely based on "The House of the Seven Gables", this one quite distinctive with a totally different story than the 1940 Universal classic. It's a treat to add to any horror collection, but in my case, it is filed with the rest my Vincent Price treasures.

classicsoncall The title seems a little distracting, I imagine it refers to Nathaniel Hawthorne's original works and this Vincent Price adaptation. Hawthorne's writing style was more darkly romantic than overtly macabre, but the transition seems to work well enough. The picture follows an earlier Price trilogy in the prior year's "Tales of Terror". Fans of the actor will probably want to catch both.Of the three entries, I liked 'Dr. Heidegger's Experiment' the best. Price and Sebastian Cabot portray long time friends who eventually find themselves at odds over Heidegger's fiancé (Mari Blanchard), who died thirty eight years earlier. She's revived by a mysterious mineral water that also acts as a fountain of youth for Heidegger and Alex Medbourne (Price). 'Tales From the Crypt' fans will probably see the ending coming, not very surprising but satisfying enough to conclude this chapter."Rappaccini's Daughter" has some creative and novel elements at work, but strains one's credibility to learn that Beatrice (Joyce Taylor) has never ventured outside the garden gate that surrounds her home. The toxic plant business is a bit of a stretch too, making Dr. Rappaccini (Price) it's final victim in this story of unrequited love and it's tragic aftermath.The third part of the trilogy is a much condensed version of Hawthorne's 'House of the Seven Gables', and mysterious enough to recommend that I get the source material to check it out in novel form. Once Alice Pyncheon's (Beverly Garland) role in the story is established, it takes a fair amount of concentration to follow the family's sordid history. It comes to a rather rushed conclusion, evidenced by some glaring continuity errors. For example, after Gerald Pyncheon (Price once more) discovers the cellar vault, he has the lid to the vault almost back in position, and after a quick cutaway, he's shown with the lid standing up once again about to place it. Then, as the Pyncheon mansion is beginning to implode, Jonathan Maulle (Richard Denning) attempts to remove the same slab, but it's thicker than the one Price's character dealt with. I don't think the ghosts at work in the house would have bothered.But all in all, not an altogether bad bit of fun for Vincent Price fans. You have to give any actor credit for allowing himself to be killed off so many times for the sake of his craft.

GL84 Bound together in one package, three stories from writer Nathaniel Hawthorne are presented in one collection.The Good Stor(ies): Dr. Heidegger's Experiment-Dining together, two friends start in on his long-deceased wife and his desire to see her again. As he continues on into the night, they notice her crypt disturbed during a thunderstorm and investigate, venturing into her tomb. Finding a water-vein that drips onto it, they find that it preserves eternal youth, only for there to be grave consequences. This is a frustratingly uneven segment. There's a lot to love with it's Gothic atmosphere on display, from the raging thunderstorm that opens it that sets the mood for this almost perfectly to the way the tomb looks and its overall layout all provide general Gothic ambiance and feeling. Perhaps the best is the standout shock scene that occurs when the discovery of its effects wear off, and one turns around to see a bride standing as a skeleton wearing the dress, where just a moment before was seen to be fully viewed as a human, before crumbling to dust. The segment hits a low-point, though, when it concerns the endless prattling on over the love and marriage. It just goes on and becomes somewhat irritating, especially the amount of time that's devoted to that issue. The positives, though, outweigh the negatives.The House of the 7 Gables-Returning to his home, a man immediately causes a stir between the women in his life over the supposed family curse. Laughing it off as mere superstition, he goes about in search of a long-lost treasure that will help him with his gambling debts to her utter contempt. As events occur within the house that lead them to believe something is wrong, he goes about trying to do whatever is possible to rid the curse upon the family and find the treasure before it affects him as well. This is another mixed segment which had some good points and bad ones, but it's a much stronger segment and is it's best one overall. One of the best aspects is the fact that this one feels like it's an actual segment, as there's a much more thought-out and complete aspect to this one missing from the others. The story is really strong and actually has some strength to it, managing to break free of its clichéd trappings and deliver some nice thrills, including some really nifty floating action early on and throughout the middle segment as well. The house has an appropriately creepy feel, inspired by the Gothic classics and working just as well as any other entry here with some rather impressive and spectacular showings from the finale. As the house begins to crumble, as per usual, a fantastic shock scene erupts from the painting that is simply incredibly delivered, and there's the rush as the search-and-rescue carries on while the house still crumbles, and upon exiting, the house is singularly destroyed once and for all in a classic shot that is far better than anything else attempted with that style. The story here and the attempts of the film to play off them are where it scores best, and almost all those scenes score nicely. It's just simply hurt by a clichéd and completely un-surprising romance angle that develops, which can't be too hard to guess, is set-up to come out exactly like it anyways and just drags the segment, and the film as a whole, out much longer than needed. Otherwise, there's enough positives here to lift the segment up anyways.The Bad Stor(ies): Rappacini's Daughter-Moving into a new house, a man finds that his neighbor lives alone with her father and tries to be friends. When she constantly backs away from his advances, he tries to understand why they are so fearful of others, only to be stone-walled at every turn. When he finally discovers the true reason for their condition, he races to stop them before it becomes too late. This is an extremely disappointing segment that really should've been much better than it actually is. One of the main flaws is that there's very little action to it. There's a pattern of a meeting she blows off cryptically, his investigation into the family followed by another meeting, starting off the same cycle and it gets rather boring. There's also a quite questions that go unanswered in it. There's little that's said about how the surgery worked that gave her the condition in the first place, or even how the poison managed not to kill her to begin with. It does a rather poor job explaining these, along with a couple others in here as well. Despite this, there's some good to be had. The effectiveness of the poison is well-done, conveyed through several nice scenes where the power is demonstrated to great effect, and there's some real suspense to be had when we know but he doesn't, and the potential is there as the premise to this is nice, but it's shot down due to the focus on the lame love story, and overall becomes a huge missed opportunity.Today's Rating/PG-13: Violence.

Scarecrow-88 A trio of tales, all starring Vincent Price, has a virgin spring that returns youth, a scientific experiment which causes an acidic touch, and a hidden vault long sought after somewhere in an old manor deemed cursed. The first tale has Vincent Price as Alex Medbourne, sharing a whiskey with long time friend, Dr. Carl Heidigger (Sebastian Cabot), as the two talk about old times while a thunderstorm stirs outside. Carl has long mourned the loss of his fiancée, Sylvia (Mari Blanchard), not knowing she was having an affair with Alex. Noticing the crypt's door open, Alex and Carl enter to see what's up, where they discover Sylvia's body as if it hadn't aged a day since her death 38 years ago—the reason is a spring that drips from a crack above her casket. Carl and Alex drink from this water and become young again, soon awakening Sylvia from her slumber. As passions reawaken, Carl will discover the betrayal and seek to get even for their sins. The second tale has Vincent Price as an embittered father, Dr. Giacomo Rappaccini, whose wife left him for another man, inflicting his daughter, Beatrice (Joyce Taylor) with an affliction where her touch is acidic, killing anyone or thing instantly. Student Giovanni Guasconti (Brett Halsey) takes a shine to Beatrice and the feelings are mutual but her affliction puts a damper on any idea of romance. Giacomo, who caused Beatrice's affliction as a means to "protect her", will try to appease her after she attempts suicide with tragic consequences. The third tale has Price portraying a scoundrel, Gerald Pyncheon, who has gambled away all his inheritance, returning to his ancestral manor, considered cursed as the past men on his family line have died in a blood-stained chair sitting near a fireplace with a portrait that bleeds from the lips. Alice Pyncheon (Beverly Garland, simply stunning) is Gerald's unhappy wife who seems to be possessed by a ghost who knows things she shouldn't. Jonathan Maulle (Richard Denning), whose family are enemies with the Pyncheons for the thievery of the ancestral home (with Maulle's ancestor said to be buried somewhere in the home), might just know where the vault resides. Alice and Jonathan seem to "connect" as if they know each other with Gerald hoping the two of them will lead him to the vault. Meanwhile Gerald's sister, Hannah (Jacqueline deWit), isn't about to let her brother get the hidden loot all for himself, constantly reminding him of her right to some of the money. In the third tale, Price is at his ghoulish best, quite a vindictive bastard concerned only with securing the missing money, willing to kill anyone who stands in his way. In the first tale, Price is simply a backstabber who seemed to be Carl's friend, for over 40 years, only to hide the fact that he was the one Sylvia truly loved. The second tale provides Price with a bitter character who causes emotional crisis to the daughter he thought he was keeping safe from sin and eventually afflicting the man she loves, resulting in tragedy. While perhaps not better or worse than Corman's Poe movies, the Hammer horrors, or the Amicus anthology movies, "Twice-Told Tales" has plenty of Price, with each tale featuring him in a role that causes turmoil and pain to those around him, particularly to the people he is supposed to care for. The third tale is the most similar to a Corman Price film as the manor collapses into ruin as the villain meets a fate most unkind (involving a severed skeletal arm!).