Friday, July 25, 2014

Movie review - "Diary of a Madman" (1963) **1/2

Vincent Price's success with the AIP Poe films made it inevitable that other studios would come calling: here is Edward Small's Admiral Pictures, adapting not Poe but Guy de Massaupant, but it's still period horror with some sumptuous photography and art direction (Corman regular Dan Haller) and Price going insane, as he usually did in the Poes.

The plot has Price as French magistrate who gets possessed by an evil spirit.  There are some pretty girls and it looks great, with Price ideally cast, but goes on too long and Reginald le Borg isn't as good as that by Roger Corman. Also the fact he's a magistrate and a sculptor feels like two stories uneasily combined.

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