The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men (1952) – Review

Walt Disney’s The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men is what happens when a studio famous for singing animals decides to behave like a respectable purveyor of English folklore. The result is earnest, handsomely mounted, and just a little too polite for its own good. It’s Robin Hood scrubbed clean for family viewing, which means fewer moral ambiguities and more men in tights behaving like they’ve read the employee handbook.

In 1190 England, King Richard the Lionheart summons his knights to join him on crusade, because delegating national stability to your sketchy brother has always been a winning strategy. Among those answering the call is the Earl of Huntingdon, who, in a mild panic, discovers his daughter Maid Marian (Joan Rice) is missing, only to find her in a field with Robin Fitzooth (Richard Todd), a master archer who, for all his skill, turns into a completely hopeless, love-struck schoolboy in her presence, the kind who forgets how sentences work and would probably carve her name into a tree if given five unsupervised minutes.

 

“How I love thee, let me count thy ways.”

At court, the Earl entrusts Marian to Queen Eleanor (Martita Hunt), who accepts with the kind of enthusiasm usually reserved for adopting a very well-behaved cat. Richard (Patrick Barr), radiating kingly confidence, instructs his brother Prince John (Hubert Gregg) to rule wisely in his absence, which is roughly equivalent to handing a pyromaniac a box of matches and asking him to water the plants. With a blessing from the Archbishop of Canterbury (Anthony Eustrel), off he goes, leaving England to its inevitable downward spiral.

 

“You wouldn’t try and usurp my throne, would you?”

Predictably, the moment Richard exits stage left, John installs the Sheriff of Nottingham (Peter Finch), who immediately sets about taxing peasants into misery and organizing an archery contest that doubles as a recruitment drive for state-sponsored bullying. Robin and his father, Lord Hugh Fitzooth (Richard Tate), show up, win effortlessly, and decline to join the Sheriff’s merry band of extortionists. The Sheriff responds with the subtlety of a brick, ambushing them in Sherwood Forest, murdering Hugh, and forcing Robin into outlaw life after he avenges his father and is declared a traitor.

 

He is now The Fugitive!

Robin, now upgraded to Robin Hood, gathers a band of similarly inconvenienced citizens and starts redistributing wealth with the enthusiasm of someone who has just discovered both injustice and a bow. Along the way, he rescues Stutely (Bill Owen), recruits Little John (James Robertson Justice) via a fight that ends in a dunking, and ropes in Friar Tuck (James Hayter). The Sheriff, meanwhile, continues to demonstrate that cruelty and incompetence are not mutually exclusive.

 

“I’m evil, and I’m fabulous.”

Two years later, Richard is captured and needs a ransom, which John claims he cannot pay because, apparently, all the gold he squeezed out of the peasants evaporated into thin air. Marian, now less interested in polite court life, joins Robin in the forest and helps orchestrate a plan to expose the Sheriff’s hoarded wealth. After a series of disguises, ambushes, and a castle rescue that hinges on the guards being remarkably unobservant, Robin defeats the Sheriff, survives a near-fatal encounter with a drawbridge, and is eventually rewarded when Richard returns, reveals himself dramatically, and makes everything official, including Robin’s promotion and marriage to Marian.

 

“Sorry about the whole Crusades thing, my bad.”

Stray Observations:

• Splitting an arrow in the contest is treated correctly as a tie, not an automatic victory. Somewhere, a thousand other Robin Hood movies quietly pretend they never heard that.
• Prince John’s plan to rule responsibly lasts approximately four minutes. A personal best for him.
• The Sheriff’s strategy for dealing with dissent is to escalate immediately to murder. Conflict resolution workshops were clearly not a thing in medieval England.
• Robin repeatedly disguises himself, and no one notices. Medieval people apparently had the observational skills of goldfish.
• Friar Tuck gets into a full-on brawl with Robin and immediately joins him afterward, because nothing builds trust like attempted assault.
• Shooting on location in Sherwood Forest gives the film real texture, which is nice, because half the characters are operating on pure fairy-tale logic.
• Disney, in a rare moment of restraint, avoids turning this into a musical. One can only imagine the alternate universe where Little John gets a jaunty solo.

 

“Could you imagine me as a singing bear?”

Director Ken Annakin approaches the material with a kind of brisk professionalism that suggests he knows exactly what kind of film he’s making and has no interest in overcomplicating it. The pacing is tight, the action is clear, and there’s a refreshing lack of narrative bloat. More importantly, shooting on location in actual Sherwood Forest lends the film a grounded, almost tactile quality that studio-bound versions often lack. You can practically smell the damp leaves and questionable hygiene, which is more than you can say for most Technicolor adventures of the period. That’s not to say the film doesn’t utilize classic Hollywood trickery to create the world of Robin Hood.

 

“Yonder lies the matte painting of my faddah.”

The cast is a mixed bag, though a generally engaging one. Richard Todd makes for a solid Robin, projecting decency and quiet authority rather than the flamboyant swagger of predecessors like Errol Flynn. He fills out the tights admirably, even if the film occasionally has to resort to apple boxes and creative staging to compensate for his height next to Joan Rice’s Marian. Rice, by most accounts, including Annakin’s own, struggles to bring much life to the role, which is unfortunate given how central Marian is to the story. Meanwhile, Peter Finch delivers a Sheriff of Nottingham who is properly menacing without descending into pantomime, giving the film a villain who feels like an actual threat rather than a theatrical inconvenience.

 

Peter Finch nails true villainy.

As a piece of Robin Hood mythology, the film plays it mostly straight, hitting all the expected beats while sanding off the rougher edges. It doesn’t try to reinvent the legend so much as present a clean, accessible version for family audiences. In the grand hierarchy of Robin Hood films, it inevitably lives in the long shadow of The Adventures of Robin Hood, which still sets the gold standard for energy and charisma. Disney would later revisit the legend in animated form with Robin Hood, swapping tights for anthropomorphic foxes and leaning fully into whimsy. This 1952 version sits comfortably in between, more grounded than the cartoon, but never quite as electrifying as Flynn’s swashbuckling classic.

 

Richard Todd does give it the old college try.

In the end, The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men is a film that understands its assignment and completes it with quiet competence. It lacks the electric charm and larger-than-life bravado of the 1938 version, but it compensates with authentic English locations, elegant Technicolor photography, and a straightforward sincerity that makes it easy to enjoy. It’s the kind of movie that doesn’t demand your attention so much as politely request it, and then rewards you with a solid, well-crafted adventure. Not the king of Sherwood, but a respectable deputy who knows how to do the job without setting anything on fire.

The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967) – Review

Roman Polanski’s The Fearless Vampire Killers is a Gothic romp, a parody of Hammer-style horror that plays like a Looney Tunes cartoon trapped inside an old German Expressionist nightmare. It’s silly, stylish, sometimes aimless, and yet oddly charming, like a vampire who insists on wearing a cape to dinner but can’t find his fangs. Uneven though it is, the film manages to be both an affectionate send-up of vampire lore and a surreal comedy of errors that stakes itself somewhere between slapstick and arthouse.

Professor Abronsius (Jack MacGowran), a mothballed vampire scholar, drags his bumbling apprentice Alfred (Roman Polanski) into the snowy heart of Transylvania. At a village inn where the mere mention of vampires sends everyone into fits, Alfred promptly falls for Sarah Shagal (Sharon Tate), the innkeeper’s bath-loving daughter. Unfortunately, Count von Krolock (Ferdy Mayne)—all aristocratic menace and razor cheekbones—whisk her away before Alfred can stammer out a hello.

He just stopped in for a bite.

The innkeeper Shagal (Alfie Bass) charges after her with garlic in hand but winds up frozen and later reborn as an even sleazier vampire, proving undeath can’t fix bad habits. Abronsius and Alfred pursue Sarah to Krolock’s lavish castle, where they meet hunchbacked servant Koukol (Terry Downes) and the Count’s flamboyant son Herbert (Iain Quarrier), who develops an instant crush on Alfred. While Abronsius blunders through escape plans, mostly getting stuck in windows, Alfred finds himself dodging Herbert’s advances as Sarah prepares for the grand vampire ball. Could things get any worse?

“What do you, the viewers, think?”

The hunters sneak into the crypt, fumble the staking, and ultimately crash the undead gala in disguise. But when a mirror reveals their inconvenient reflections, the jig is up. They barely escape with Sarah in a sleigh—only for her to reveal she’s already turned. She sinks her teeth into Alfred, leaving humanity doomed at the hands of cinema’s most inept vampire hunters.

I’ll say this: I think humanity had it coming.

Stray Observations:

• Abronsius is basically Van Helsing if Van Helsing had osteoporosis and asthma. More likely to get stuck in a window than stake a vampire, he wheezes through Transylvania like a relic in need of a relic.
• Shagal proves that death is no obstacle to being a sleazy creep. As a vampire, he doubles down on the lechery—eternity just means more time to chase barmaids.
• Sarah spends half the film in or near a bathtub—truly a pioneer in cinematic hygiene. In a world of cobwebs and mildew, she’s the first horror heroine to lure vampires with bubble bath instead of blood.
• Koukol, the hunchback, seems to moonlight as both servant and snowplow. Coffins, snowdrifts, grunt work—he’s less henchman, more one-man sanitation department.
• The vampire ball is part Eyes Wide Shut, part community theatre dress rehearsal. Cloaks, waltzes, and all the menace of a church raffle—it’s undead glamour on a budget.

It’s safe to say, he’s no Tom Cruise.

Polanski directs The Fearless Vampire Killers like a man torn between making a parody and a genuine Gothic horror film. At times, the film is a meticulous recreation of Hammer Horror aesthetics—snowbound landscapes, candlelit crypts, elaborate cobwebs that could win awards for set dressing. At other moments, it feels like a parody skit stretched to feature length, with slapstick timing that borders on farce. The tonal balance is wobbly, but the sheer oddity of it keeps you glued to the screen.

“See here? This vampire is an ankle biter!”

Douglas Slocombe’s cinematography is perhaps the film’s secret weapon. The wintry exteriors look genuinely chilling, while the interiors are painted in deep reds and shadows that feel both atmospheric and knowingly over-the-top. Even when the comedy falters, the visuals retain that lush Gothic allure, as though you’re watching a vampire opera directed by Mel Brooks’ serious cousin.

“Is it time to roll credits yet?”

The cast is a patchwork of eccentric performances. Jack MacGowran plays Abronsius like a fragile wind-up toy teetering on the edge of collapse. Polanski, as Alfred, gives himself the role of the perpetual underdog, all nervous stammers and wide-eyed panic. Sharon Tate, in her breakout role, brings both innocence and sly humour to Sarah, making her more than just the stereotypical damsel. Ferdy Mayne’s Count von Krolock is pitch-perfect: aristocratic, sinister, and just amused enough to underline the parody. And of course, Iain Quarrier’s Herbert steals scenes with flamboyant menace, a queer-coded vampire prince decades ahead of his time.

“I’m dead, and fabulous!”

In conclusion, The Fearless Vampire Killers is a peculiar beast: part parody, part homage, and part Gothic dreamscape. It doesn’t always land its jokes, and its pacing occasionally stumbles, but it’s buoyed by striking visuals, eccentric characters, and Polanski’s willingness to embrace absurdity. At once a parody of the vampire genre and a stylish love letter to it, the film lingers as a cult curiosity—flawed, yes, but fearlessly memorable.

The Devil Rides Out (1968) – Review

Hammer Films’ The Devil Rides Out is a strange beast: a heady cocktail of stately drawing-room drama, occult chills, and pure pulp lunacy, all handled with a straight face by people who should have known better but somehow pulled it off magnificently. Directed by Hammer’s maestro Terrence Fisher, the film remains one of the studio’s boldest attempts at mixing gothic tradition with contemporary supernatural dread. It’s serious, scary, sometimes silly, and endlessly entertaining.

Based on the 1934 novel by Dennis Wheatley, our story is set in London, 1929, where the refined Duc de Richleau (Christopher Lee) notices his young protegé Simon Aron (Patrick Mower) has been keeping suspicious company and decorating his house like a Black Mass IKEA showroom—pentagrams, symbols, the whole “Don’t open this book” starter pack. With his old chum Rex Van Ryn (Leon Greene), de Richleau snoops around and discovers Simon is being groomed for devil-worship by a shady cult led by the smooth-talking Mocata (Charles Gray). They also stumble across Tanith Carlisle (Nike Arrighi), another recruit who looks like she wandered in from a Vogue séance spread. The Duc whisks them both away and even gatecrashes a May Day ritual on Salisbury Plain where the Devil himself shows up in full “Goat of Mendes” cosplay.

 

“You were expecting, maybe, Smokey the Bear?”

The escape plan? Hide everyone at the country estate of de Richleau’s niece, Marie (Sarah Lawson) and her husband Richard (Paul Eddington). Safety first! Except de Richleau then leaves, Mocata shows up to be all smug and evil, only to be thwarted by the interruption of their small daughter Peggy (Rosalyn Landor). Sadly, she’s later left upstairs with only the butler as protection while de Richleau draws a protective circle for the grown-ups downstairs. Yes, the same butler who couldn’t stop two initiates from wandering into a cult earlier. Guess who Mocata decides to target?

 

Spoiler: Not the heavily armed adults in the magic circle.

While Mocata’s polite but menacing visit to the Eatons failed – he briefly mind-controlled poor Marie before her daughter’s well-timed entrance saved the day – and he ups the ante by unleashing a barrage of psychic assaults on the household. Cue nightmare visions, sinister apparitions, and finally the summoning of the Angel of Death, who arrives on horseback like the world’s grimmest Uber Eats delivery. De Richleau wards him off, but Tanith pays the price since death apparently runs on a strict “must claim someone” policy.

 

Well, there goes the film’s love interest.

Mocata, annoyed but not deterred, escalates by kidnapping Peggy outright. And I must say, leaving a little girl upstairs in her bedroom, with nothing but the butler for protection, seems like a bit of an oversight when facing the forces of evil. All seems lost until De Richleau calls forth the spirit of Tanith, who possesses Marie and drops some cryptic breadcrumbs. Rex remembers a suspicious house from earlier (convenient!), and the gang rushes in for a final showdown. Mocata looks poised to win, but divine intervention kicks in: Marie channels Tanith to help Peggy recite a spell that basically rewrites history. Time reverses, Tanith and Simon live, and Mocata’s attempt to summon death boomerangs right back at him, condemning him to eternal damnation.

 

Cue the fiery wrath of God.

Stray Observations:

• Charles Gray’s Mocata is the suavest cult leader imaginable. You’d almost join just to hear him narrate your downfall.
• The “protective circle” sequence is great—until you realize the adults are safe while poor Peggy is left upstairs, basically babysat by a tea tray. Parenting level: Victorian horror film logic.
• Tanith’s possession of Marie is handled with utmost seriousness, but it plays like the world’s slowest improv séance
• The Goat of Mendes looks less like the Prince of Darkness and more like the mascot for a rural cheese festival. He’d have been more at home in the Wicker Man remake with Nicolas Cage.
• The Angel of Death arriving on horseback indoors is both terrifying and hilarious, like a Monty Python gag played straight.

 

“None shall pass!”

Terrence Fisher, Hammer’s house genius, directs with his trademark blend of gothic grandeur and stiff-upper-lip seriousness, while none other than Richard Matheson — yes, the legendary mind behind I Am Legend and The Twilight Zone — provides the screenplay. What could have been a campy Dennis Wheatley adaptation full of hokey costumes and silly incantations is instead played utterly straight, and that’s exactly why it works. Fisher stages occult ceremonies with ritualistic weight, treating every chant like it might truly summon something dreadful. Even the quieter dialogue scenes crackle with unease, as if danger lurks just outside the frame. With Matheson’s sharp scripting and Fisher’s refusal to wink at the audience, the supernatural is treated as serious business, giving the film an unsettling edge. That restraint in the face of absurdity is what lifts The Devil Rides Out from pulp curiosity to legitimate horror classic.

 

A supernatural Holmes and Watson, if you will.

Arthur Grant’s cinematography is another triumph, bathing the countryside in golden light that suggests calm, only to plunge interiors into shadow that drips menace. The film has a painterly richness, like an old master’s canvas on which someone scribbled a pentagram. The protective circle sequence is especially striking: tight close-ups, distorted angles, and oppressive lighting make it feel as though evil is pressing in from every side. Even when the effects wobble (and they do), Grant’s careful compositions elevate the material, making the supernatural seem far more powerful than the budget could show. His visual grandeur gives the film a scale Hammer’s modest resources could rarely match, proving that atmosphere can be just as convincing as spectacle.

Note: This film does contain the standard trope of the hero on guard falling asleep at the most inopportune time. Poor Rex; he can’t catch a break.

In the context of 1960s horror, The Devil Rides Out is Hammer pushing boundaries in both bold and daring ways. Gone are the endless Dracula retreads; this time the studio tapped into the rising public fascination with Satanism, black magic, and whispered tales of real covens. The result is eerie and strangely ahead of its time, swapping cobwebbed castles for something that felt alarmingly contemporary. In doing so, it bridges the gothic traditions Hammer had built its empire on with the darker, more experimental horror sensibilities the 1970s would embrace in films like The Exorcist and Rosemary’s Baby. It’s as if Hammer, usually lost in Victorian fog, briefly looked around at swinging London and declared: “The devil is in fashion now—let’s give people what they’re afraid to admit they want.”

 

Hammer knows how to deliver nasty occult action.

As for the performances, Christopher Lee shines as the heroic Duc de Richleau, relishing the chance to be the learned saviour instead of the monster. He brings such authority to his performance that you half believe he really does keep grimoires on his nightstand. Charles Gray, meanwhile, is pure charisma as Mocata: Urbane, hypnotic, and deliciously sinister. He plays evil with such charm that it’s no wonder he later got to stroke a white cat as Blofeld. The supporting cast, from Rex’s square-jawed loyalty to Tanith’s ethereal wavering, all play their parts well, but this is ultimately a duel between Lee and Gray, and what a duel it is.

 

Charles Gray, the epitome of smug evil.

In conclusion, The Devil Rides Out is one of Hammer’s crown jewels: bold, atmospheric, and unapologetically pulpy. It mixes ritual magic, genuine chills, and the occasional head-scratching character decision into a heady brew that has aged surprisingly well. Fisher, Grant, Lee, and Gray elevate the material beyond its hokey roots, creating a film that still rides high in the Hammer canon.

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) – Review

There are movies you respect, and then there are movies you quietly resent for making everything else look lazy. The Adventures of Robin Hood sits in that second category, prancing around in glorious Technicolor like it knows it set the template and nobody’s really topped it since. It’s annoyingly perfect, but at least it has the decency to be fun while showing everyone else up.

England, 1191. King Richard the Lionheart is off getting himself captured after the Crusades, leaving his slimy brother Prince John (Claude Rains) to run the country into the ground with all the subtlety of a tax audit conducted by a cartoon villain. With Sir Guy of Gisbourne (Basil Rathbone) lurking nearby like a well-dressed snake, the Normans crank up taxes “for the king’s ransom,” which is historically questionable but morally consistent with being terrible.

 

“We’ll be fine, unless Errol Flynn shows up.”

Enter Robin of Locksley (Errol Flynn), a Saxon noble who apparently woke up and chose violence, but like, righteous violence. He rescues Much the Miller’s Son (Herbert Mundin) from execution, storms a banquet to call Prince John a traitor to his face, and then escapes certain death because the plot would be very short otherwise. With his lands seized and his name now officially “outlaw,” Robin heads into Sherwood Forest to start what is essentially medieval guerrilla theatre.

 

Guerrilla warfare of unbridled charisma. 

Sherwood fills up fast. Will Scarlet (Patric Knowles), Little John (Alan Hale), and eventually Friar Tuck (Eugene Pallette) join Robin’s merry little insurgency. They rob the rich, help the poor, and somehow maintain a strict code of courtesy while committing organized banditry. Along the way, Robin captures a Norman convoy that includes Lady Marian (Olivia de Havilland), who starts off unimpressed and ends up fully converted after witnessing Norman cruelty firsthand. Nothing like a forced woodland banquet to change your political alignment.

 

Will romance survive Robin’s dining etiquette?

Prince John, clearly tired of being embarrassed, cooks up an archery tournament to trap Robin, which works because Robin cannot resist showing off. He wins, gets arrested, and is promptly scheduled for execution because subtle traps are not this movie’s thing. Marian flips sides completely, helps orchestrate his escape, and then sticks around the castle as a spy, because falling in love apparently comes with a side of espionage.

 

These two had an undeniable screen chemistry.

Things escalate. King Richard (Ian Hunter) returns in disguise, and everyone spends a while not recognizing him because medieval facial recognition is weak, and Marian nearly gets executed for treason. Robin and his men infiltrate the castle dressed as monks, which works disturbingly well, leading to a massive swordfight where Robin finally takes down Gisbourne in a duel that basically defines cinematic swordplay. Richard reclaims the throne, John is exiled, and Robin gets his title, his girl, and the kind of happy ending that feels earned instead of stapled on.

 

A good knight was had by all.

Stray Observations:

• The second time Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone cross swords, literally, after Captain Blood, and somehow, it’s even better, which feels unfair to every other swordfight in cinema.
• The famous “splitting the arrow” trick gets immortalized here, despite the fact that in reality it would just result in a tie and a lot of confused judges.
• Stunt performers were paid per arrow hit, and we’re talking real arrows here, which sounds motivating until you realize each arrow was fired by a professional who absolutely did not miss.
• The guards at Nottingham Castle have the situational awareness of houseplants. Disguises work on them with alarming consistency.
• Marian switching allegiances after one well-catered forest picnic is narratively efficient, if not exactly gradual.
• Little John and Robin settling their first meeting with a stick fight on a log bridge is peak “men will do literally anything except communicate.”
• Alan Hale not only plays Little John here, but also played the same role in the silent Robin Hood with Douglas Fairbanks, making him the rare actor to get a sequel gig 16 years before sequels were even pretending to be a business model.

 

“You don’t look like Douglas Fairbanks.”

Director Michael Curtiz runs this like a man fully aware he’s building something that’ll outlive him. The pacing moves fast without feeling frantic, juggling action, romance, and intrigue without dropping any of them. His staging is clean and purposeful, so every swordfight and chase is easy to follow, not a blur of chaos. There’s a real sense of scale too, from crowded halls to open forest, and it never buckles under the weight. Most impressively, he balances adventure and humour without letting one sabotage the other, which is rarer than studios like to admit.

 

Even fat jokes land with aplomb. 

The Technicolor cinematography by Tony Gaudio, Sol Polito, and W. Howard Greene is pure flexing, but at least it’s justified. The colours are bold and deliberate, with Robin’s green popping against the lavish reds and golds of the Norman court. It’s not just decorative either; colour helps define class and mood without spelling it out. The lighting and compositions are sharp and intentional, giving every frame a sense of care that a lot of modern films somehow skip. It still looks better than plenty of big-budget movies that should know better by now.

 

An epic look for an epic tale.

As for the performances, Errol Flynn is Robin Hood in the same way gravity is a thing. You can argue alternatives, but you’re mostly wasting oxygen. He’s charming without being smug, heroic without being stiff, and has the kind of effortless screen presence that makes you forget acting is supposed to be hard. The fact that James Cagney was originally considered is fascinating, mostly because you can’t quite imagine that version without it turning into a very different, probably louder movie. Producer Hal B. Wallis taking the risk on Flynn was one of those rare studio decisions that didn’t age horribly.

 

There’s a reason he’s the definitive Robin Hood.

Reuniting Flynn with Olivia de Havilland gives the film its romantic backbone. Their chemistry is effortless, the kind that makes you believe they actually enjoy being around each other, which is not something every classic Hollywood pairing managed. De Havilland gives Marian enough intelligence and agency to keep her from being just another decorative love interest. And then there’s Basil Rathbone, who might as well have patented the concept of the elegant villain. His Sir Guy is cold, precise, and completely believable as someone who would absolutely stab you and then critique your posture. He was one of Hollywood’s best swordsmen, and it shows in every movement during that final duel.

 

This film really knew how to swashbuckle.

Before this, you had Douglas Fairbanks bounding around in the silent-era Robin Hood, which set the stage. But this film is the one that locked the image into the public imagination. The green outfit, the swashbuckling tone, the mix of humour and heroism. This is the Robin Hood people think of, even if they’ve never seen it. Every version since is either copying it, reacting to it, or pretending it doesn’t exist while quietly borrowing everything.

 

Everything else pales in comparison.

In conclusion, The Adventures of Robin Hood is one of those films that makes you a little annoyed at how right it gets everything. It’s exciting, funny, visually stunning, and anchored by performances that refuse to age. There are moments that are silly, conveniences that are obvious, and logic that occasionally takes a holiday, but none of it matters because the film knows exactly what it is and executes it with near-perfect confidence. It doesn’t just entertain, it defines what cinematic adventure should feel like, and then dares everything that follows to keep up.

The Oblong Box (1969) – Review

What happens when you mix Edgar Allan Poe, African voodoo, Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, and a British moral panic about imperial guilt? You get The Oblong Box, a gothic fever dream that starts in a coffin and ends in colonial karma. Directed by Gordon Hessler with enough fog and guilt to fill a Hammer vault, this is a movie where everyone either fakes their death, digs someone up, or just wishes they’d stayed in bed.

In 1865 England, Sir Edward Markham (Alister Williamson) is having the worst case of bad skin in Gothic cinema history. Disfigured in an African voodoo ritual after his brother’s questionable conduct abroad, he’s been locked away in the attic like a Victorian family secret. His brother Julian (Vincent Price), wracked with guilt but also apparently fine with imprisoning a relative, keeps him under wraps until Sir Edward decides enough is enough. With help from shady lawyer Samuel Trench (Peter Arne) and the conveniently available witch doctor N’Galo (Harry Baird), Edward fakes his own death using a potion that simulates the afterlife, or at least a really long nap.

 

“Have you, by chance, read Poe’s Premature Burial?”

Unfortunately, Julian is not the kind of man who handles family crises with grace. He finds his “dead” brother and, too embarrassed by the whole facial-melting situation, decides to substitute another corpse for Edward’s wake. Trench and N’Galo oblige by murdering a nearby landlord (because why not?), dumping the body in a river, and letting Julian bury his not-so-dead sibling alive. Once that’s all settled, Julian celebrates by marrying his young fiancée, Elizabeth (Hilary Dwyer), proving that nothing says romance like family homicide.

 

The horror of May-December romances.

Things go awry (as they do when you bury people who aren’t dead). Grave robbers dig up Sir Edward and deliver him—still very much breathing—to the morally flexible Dr. J. Neuhartt (Christopher Lee). Edward wakes up, blackmails the doctor, and covers his Freddy Krueger face with a crimson hood, which somehow makes him even creepier. Now convinced he’s been betrayed, he embarks on a killing spree to find the witch doctor, pausing only for a brief love affair with Neuhartt’s maid Heidi (Uta Levka). Naturally, the relationship doesn’t work out, and the maid ends up changing employers just before her homicidal ex starts turning the countryside into a murder buffet. Including an unwanted stop with a prostitute.

 

“Do you know a Jack the Ripper?”

Julian eventually catches wind that the wrong man was buried, the right man is killing everyone, and the whole situation’s about to implode. Sir Edward tracks down N’Galo, hoping for a cure, but instead learns the ugly truth: Julian—not Edward—committed the crime that led to Edward’s punishment. Voodoo justice, as it turns out, is efficient but not always accurate. After a brutal fight, Edward kills N’Galo, then returns to confront Julian. Cue gunfire, sibling accusations, and the big hood reveal. Edward gets both barrels, but not before biting his brother like a gothic vampire with a taste for irony. The curse passes on, and in the final twist, Julian’s face begins to melt just like Edward’s.

 

Somewhere, Poe is smiling—probably while rolling in his grave.

Stray Observations:

• Christopher Lee is given a “Guest Starring” credit, but as this is a movie, and not a TV show, that doesn’t make much sense. It’s not as if this were the pilot for a new show.
• Edward’s “death” plan involves so many unnecessary steps, including hiring both a lawyer and a witch doctor. A simple note saying “don’t bury me” would’ve done wonders.
• Christopher Lee’s Dr. Neuhartt may be a “doctor,” but his bedside manner suggests he got his degree from the University of Body Snatching.
• The “pro-black” themes were apparently so shocking that the film was banned in Texas, because nothing says “outrage” like a white man facing consequences for colonialism.
• Vincent Price’s Julian somehow remains dignified even while making catastrophic moral decisions. That’s the power of the mustache.
• The witch doctor’s name, N’Galo, sounds like a lost Bond villain, and he’s one of the few Black characters in gothic horror of the time who isn’t treated as a pure stereotype, which is a minor miracle in 1969.

 

He’s quite a stylish witch doctor at that.

Director Gordon Hessler, stepping in after Michael Reeves fell ill, reshaped The Oblong Box into something richer and more subversive than its modest gothic trappings suggest. Where Reeves might have gone for bleak irony, Hessler leans into atmosphere and moral decay. He takes what could’ve been a by-the-numbers Poe adaptation and turns it into a sly critique of colonial exploitation and the lingering stain of empire, a bold move for 1969 horror. Hessler’s pacing is deliberate but never dull, allowing the story’s rot—moral and literal—to seep slowly into the viewer.

 

“I’ll just ponder here, weak and weary.”

The visual style owes much to cinematographer John Coquillon, whose eye for texture and light gives the film its haunting mood. Coquillon bathes everything in the soft, golden decay of a dying empire—sunlight streaming through dust, flickering candles, and the kind of blood-red filters that make you want to check your wallpaper for mildew. He captures England as both idyllic and sickly, a place where repression grows like fungus under the drapes. Later, Coquillon would work with Sam Peckinpah (Straw Dogs), but you can already see the restless energy here. The camera prowls, curious and uneasy, as though the film itself can’t quite decide who deserves sympathy.

 

The Red Hood, later to become a Batman villain?

Screenwriter Lawrence Huntington, with Christopher Wicking adding polish and bite, built a film that steals Poe’s title but writes its own moral. Instead of the Gothic cliché of madness and mistaken identity, they blend in voodoo, revenge, and colonial guilt. It’s an audacious hybrid—half Poe, half post-colonial guilt trip—and somehow it works. The story dares to make its horror not just about curses and coffins but about the violent legacy of imperialism. That subtext—one of retribution and mistaken punishment—was bold enough to get the movie banned in some U.S. states.

 

“They’ll never let this play down South.”

Vincent Price and Christopher Lee share only one brief scene together in The Oblong Box, but it’s a doozy. When they finally meet, Lee’s Dr. Neuhartt is bleeding out on the floor, delivering his lines with the calm resignation of a man who knows he’s about to exit both the scene and the film. Price’s Julian hovers with that weary aristocratic guilt of his, a man who knows he’s damned but still manages to look stylish about it. Their combined gravitas practically tilts the set; it’s less a horror pairing than a gothic duet, cruelly cut short just as the melody begins. Even in that fleeting moment, it’s like watching two masters duel over who can arch an eyebrow more dramatically.

 

He is king when it comes to handling a death scene.

In conclusion, The Oblong Box may not be pure Poe, but it’s pure Gothic gold. Hessler and Coquillon transform what could’ve been another dusty graveyard tale into a meditation on guilt, class, and the festering sins of empire; delivered with crimson masks, foggy moors, and Vincent Price in peak brooding form. It’s a film of moral rot and literal disfigurement, where revenge rises from the grave and history itself won’t stay buried.