Vincent Price Ranked

Some of the lower 1970s titles could do with a rewatch - memory a bit hazy on them.

priceless..
witchfinder general
house of wax
house of usher
the masque of the red death
theatre of blood
pit and the pendulum
the abominable dr. phibes
tales of terror
the tomb of ligeia

worth-a-look..
the fly
the haunted palace
the raven
the tingler
twice-told tales
the last man on earth
the invisible man returns
diary of a madman

other..
madhouse
scream and scream again
dr. phibes rises again
house on haunted hill
cry of the banshee
the oblong box
the bat
return of the fly
the offspring / from a whisper to a scream

top 5 non horror..
laura (1944)
leave her to heaven (1945)
while the city sleeps (1956)
dragonwyck (1946)
his kind of woman (1951)

If I was one to make horrible jokes I'd point out that none of these are "Priceless" as Price is in all of them...

But I would never make such a terrible joke.

I still haven’t seen a bunch of these, but I love The Masque of the Red Death and House on Haunted Hill. The latter is terrible in all the right ways, and Price is at his hammiest (“playboy kills rich wife with champagne cork”). Some of the actors are awful in it, and the plot makes no sense, but all of this only adds to its charms. A classic. A pal and I watched it on Halloween several years back and were MST3K-ing through the whole thing, and it was great.

Red Death is, for me, the best-directed and -written of the Corman Poes. The ending sequence retains its power, and while it’s still schlocky it is more successful in attempting to bring Poe’s mood to the screen than Usher or Pit. The fairy-tale nature also recalls the contemporaneous Hammer horrors, in particular Brides of Dracula with that bright color scheme, but Corman was a better director than Terence Fisher.

I started watching Dr. Phibes a year or so ago and didn’t finish it—though not out of lack of interest. Not sure why I didn’t finish it. It’s one heck of a weird movie.

I don’t think House of Wax even comes close to the original Mystery of the Wax Museum, and even the original isn’t that good (it’s also not that much of a horror flick). The best thing going for it is Vinnie hamming it up.

I love Laura, of course, but Price isn’t even that good in it, with that accent Roger Ebert described as halfway between Kentucky and Transylvania… One non-horror film that did give him a great role, though, is The Baron of Arizona. Little known despite being directed by Samuel Fuller, but highly recommended.

Edward Scissorhands is OK. It’s the purest distillation of Burton’s worldview, but it’s not great. It’s not terrible, either, though.

Someone I know highly recommends The Oblong Box, but I haven’t seen it.

The Fly is another absolute masterpiece of schlock.

The Bat (’59) is, unfortunately, as dull as dishwater.

Hm. Maybe I have seen more of these than I’d thought… 

yes, that was the terrible joke. I was gonna say
top phibe - but there are 9 movies I really like.

For the the fun of it, Vincent's movie debut:


Service de Luxe 1938, a comedy starring Constance Bennett, at least his name was on this lobby card, ironically made at Universal, the studio of the famous classic monsters.