When Tropes Feel New-ish

Here we go…

We all know tropes can be really tiresome and that every genre has them. There are times, however, when tropes don’t feel like tropes, even in B-movies, and 1963’s The Haunted Palace is one of those times. Directed by Roger Corman, it’s at once a typical American International Pictures low-budget horror movie and yet somehow very effective.

It all opens on a dark and stormy night in Arkham, Massachusetts circa 1765, and a young woman in a trance is walking up the coast to a mysterious castle, where she’s ushered by Joseph Curwen (Vincent Price) through a creaky secret door next to the massive fireplace. She submits to going onto the creepy platform in the dank, dark basement and having her arms tied up by Curwen’s mistress, Hester (Cathie Merchant), and somehow she comes out of her stupor enough to scream hysterically at what she sees below her. We can’t see it, but she can, and it’s supposed to be terrifying.

Meanwhile, the villagers are mobilizing, because they think Joseph is of the devil and needs to be eliminated, plus they’re mistrustful of a palace in their wee New England town, so, led by Ezra Wheeden (Leo Gordon) they take off for Curwen’s bearing literal torches and pitchforks. Long story short, they pull the poor tortured woman out of the castle and burn Joseph at the stake, leaving Hester alive (We have to deduce later that she’s pregnant, but no one says it in the moment). Joseph curses the town, promising to return and punish everyone.

Fast forward to 1875, when Charles Dexter Ward (Vincent Price) and his wife, Anne (Debra Paget) have come into town to take a look at the old Curwen place, because Joseph is Charles’s great-grandfather and the property has been handed over to him. They’re a nice couple who don’t seem to know much about Charles’s family history, and they certainly don’t know about Joseph being burned at the stake.

The townspeople don’t want anything to do with Ward’s request and tell him to leave town without looking at the property. Just tear up the deed. Charles will be better off. Only Dr. Marinus Willett (Frank Maxwell) is willing to help them out, although he advises caution as well.

As Charles and Anne walk through the town, they notice something oddly disconcerting. Some of the townspeople are blind or are missing one or more of their other senses, and there’s a lot of lurching around like zombies. It’s not exactly a comforting sight after being warned about the mysterious palace.

Our couple get up to the palace to find a caretaker there, Simon (Lon Chaney, Jr.), who looks like death warmed over. He chalks it up to being in the dark so much. Anne doesn’t want to stay, but the sun has already gone down and the weather isn’t great. Charles and Anne decide to stick it out for one night, at least. Charles has the idea of fixing up the palace and selling it because it could fetch a good price. Never mind that a property everyone stays away from is probably not going to be in high demand, but he’s optimistic.

Naturally, weird things happen right off the bat. Charles gets possessed by Joseph and quits acting like himself, Simon turns out to be more ghostly than he’s let on, and Hester is suddenly back from the dead. A mysterious and cursed volume called Necronomicon becomes a thing, and of course, the mysterious entity under the castle might still exist. There just might be more torches and villagers in store as well.

Oh golly, let us count the tropes. We’ve got dark and stormy nights. We’ve got creaky doors into mysterious palaces overlooking the ocean. We’ve got secret passages. We’ve got women in trances. We’ve got torches and villagers. We’ve got characters who spend the night where they’ve been told not to. We’ve got dark, dank basements. We’ve got instruments of torture. We’ve got mysterious creatures behind closed doors and peeking through vents. We’ve got a caretaker who looks like death warmed over. We have possession. We have lots of poking around dark hallways with candles. We’ve got enchanted spellbooks. We’ve got creepy guys trying to raise the dead. It’s Horror Story Bingo.

We’ve also got the low-budget tropes, too; namely, the requisite goofs. Lon Chaney’s face is ghoulish green while his neck is a healthy pink in one scene. The poor woman at the beginning of the movie is remarkably quick at getting out of her bonds, out of the basement, and up to the front door to declare there’s nothing wrong with her whatsoever. And those blind people we see at the beginning of the movie? We can also see the tape that holds the covers on their eyes.

Also, the town where this all happens is named Arkham. Really? Heh. I’m guessing Arkham Asylum is named in tribute to H.P. Lovecraft. It’s just too big of a coincidence. Anywhoo…

Cliches aside, Haunted Palace somehow works. There’s genuine horror going on here, never mind that it’s clearly very low-budget. It’s also slightly confusing but completely understandable that the people we see in 1875 look exactly like their 1765 forebears (Very clever, Mr. Corman). That these tropes fall in with a decent story is what makes them seem less expected. It doesn’t hurt that we see a few people burned alive, either, sadistic as it is.

The funny thing about Haunted Palace is that AIP decided to bill the film as Edgar Allan Poe’s Haunted Palace instead of playing up the story’s real author, H.P. Lovecraft. Poe’s only contributions are a few lines of poetry. The idea was that not only was Poe more well-known, but giving him top billing allowed the studio to include the film in Corman’s Poe series. While this is a no-brainer from a marketing standpoint, it’s also a wee bit tacky. It wouldn’t have killed anyone to write a “From the director who brought you…” type of tagline, right? Oh well.

The Haunted Palace was vastly overshadowed by other 1963 titles, bringing in a paltry $3.4M in 1963 money, but it’s definitely not half bad, especially for a B-movie.

For more B-movie goodness, please see Brian at Films From Beyond the Time Barrier (here are Days One, Two, and Three). Thanks for hosting this, Brian–this blogathon is always a blast! Thanks for reading, all, and I hope to see you on Monday for another post…

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