Tales of Terror

Tales of Terror is an anthology horror film made up of three stories drawn from the writings of Edgar Allan Poe. In one, a widowed man is reunited with his daughter while the death of his wife continues to hang over their relationship. In another, a drifter takes on a local wine-tasting champion, and the contest turns toward more drastic action when the champion's wife becomes involved. The third follows a man suffering through a long illness who consents to be hypnotized as he nears death, with results that go beyond what anyone intended. Vincent Price appears in all three segments, playing Locke, Fortunato and Valdemar as well as serving as narrator. Peter Lorre, Basil Rathbone, Debra Paget, Maggie Pierce and Joyce Jameson fill out the main roles.

Roger Corman directed and produced, working from a screenplay by Richard Matheson. The film was the seventh of the nineteen features Corman directed in chronological order, arriving between The Pit and the Pendulum and The Intruder. It was released in the United States in July 1962 and runs eighty-nine minutes, mixing horror and mystery with streaks of comedy. On IMDb it holds a critics' rating of 6.4 out of 10 from fifteen reviews, while on TMDB it stands at 6.7 out of 10 from 212 votes, a close alignment between professional and audience responses.