14 December 2024
The Raven (1963)
85 min.
Directed by Roger Corman.
With Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Boris Karloff, Hazel Court, Olive Sturgess, Jack Nicholson, Connie Wallace, William Baskin, Aaron Saxon.
This entertaining Roger Corman horror/humor piece features a top notch cast of terror icons as cranky sorcerors out to undo each other.

Dr. Craven (Price) finds that evil sorcerer Scarabus (Karloff) has imprisoned fellow wizard Bedlo (Lorre) in the form of a black raven...and he's also usurped his own long lost love Lenore!

Can Craven unleash his powerful wizard heritage to tame the dark Scarabus? Or will the latter keep Craven's woman, and turn Bedlo back into a smelly bird?

Lovely scream beauty Hazel Court (from Roger Corman's 1964 masterpiece The Masque of the Red Death and Hammer's 1957 Curse of Frankenstein, et al) joins the blood boyz for a little feminine touch as Lenore.

Look for Jack Nicholson as Peter Lorre's "son" here.

Scripted by genre scribe Richard Matheson (and generally inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's classic poem, of course) this is not without its witty charms and well worth a look.

Not to be confused with Lew Landers' 1935 mad doctor/straight horror The Raven starring Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff.

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