My mother would tell me story’s of how he older brother
Lenny, used to make her sneak down stairs late at night to watch horror/scifi
movies with him. My uncle was afraid to watch them alone so he always made my
mother watch with him. Some of my mother’s favorites were the Bride of
Frankenstein and Dracula. Back before my mother was young and even today, I
think that the monsters, the fear, the gothic is gear in our society at the
young.
The iconic
images created by Universal Pictures in their monster films have weaved their
way into our society, I feel forever. But I think one of the most iconic faces
of gothic isn’t a monster but a man, Vincent Price. An amazing actor in my
opinion, he embodies gothic in his portrayals. In the 1960s, he was in a number
of film adaptations to Edgar Allan Poe’s writings; House of Usher(1960), The Pit
and the Pendulum(1961), Tales of
Terror(1962), The Comedy of Terrors(1963),
The Raven(1963), The Masque of the Red Death(1964) and The Tomb of Ligeia(1965). Although, Price was in many great films, I
am only going to focus on one, The Tomb
of Ligeia. Based on Poe’s writings the film stars Vincent Price as Verden
Fell, a newly married man still mourning the lose of his first wife, Ligeia.
Her spirit soon begins to haunt him and his new wife at their gloomy Gothic abbey.
Verden is convinced that Ligeia can’t die.
The film over all in my opinion is
the epitome of gothic in cinema. The plot based on one of America’s most gothic
horror writers, Eger Allen Poe. The setting, costumes and atmosphere take you
to a Victorian time period were gothic and horror had many of its beginnings. The
lightings and shadows add to the setting giving it more gloom. Not only the
setting, and plot is gothic but Price himself. In all of his films he connects
deeper with his character, becoming one. You can connect with Verden Fell in
his misery. Vincent Price is an actor that embodies gothic in his portrayal’s,
the man that is the monster.
