Growing up, I was obsessed with Edgar Allen Poe and his tales of the supernatural. I blame these stories for my lifelong fear of being buried alive, since that plot twist featured in a lot of his work. Luckily, that horrific events doesn't occur very often now, but it was more common in Poe's time. It's a terrifying thought, being buried alive, trapped in a grave, unable to escape while your air slowly runs out.
In this movie, we meet a rich baron whose brother has been traveling in Africa in the 1800s. The brother is captured by a tribe who curse him with an awful facial deformity that drives him mad and causes his brother to bring him home and keep him in isolation, locked away in a room where no one can see him. The brother wants to escape his prison, if course, and that sets in motion a tragic chain of events that lead to murder and mayhem.
Nowadays, with all the buckets of gore we see in our horror movies, this movie might seem silly, but it was pretty shocking back in its day, and it worked for me. I felt bad for both the baron and his brother, trapped by circumstances into playing out this sad story. I also like the idea of evil being punished and equiry restored. Plus it's always fun to watch Vincent Price in action.
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