The Oblong Box (15) |Home Ents Review

A classy bit of late 1960s Hammer-style horror that bigs up the gore and drifts into Jekyll and Hyde territory, with added splashes of voodoo and zombies. It’s no classic but the script sessions must have been fun. 

Sir Julian Markham (Price) is back from Africa and getting ready to marry his fiancé (Heath). But he has a secret, that he keeps locked in the attic: his brother, Edward (Williamson), has gone quite mad after being scarred by a vodoun priest on their travels. 

Meanwhile, Dr Neuhartt (Lee) is paying the local grave robber to bring him the dead bodies he needs for his research. The fate of the two men draws together when the vodoun priest appears on the scene, brought in by an unscrupulous colleague of Edward’s. 

This film has very little to do with the Edgar Allan Poe story with the same title, but remains an intriguing horror, that is shot through with odd inspirational touches. The red masked Edward is visually effective and the vodoun/ zombie angle allows for a whiff of apology for imperialist behaviour, while luxuriating in a Pinewood Studios version of jungle drum shenanigans. 

Lee and Price are always worth watching and there are good turns by the Peter Arne as the sneering colleague and Sally Geeson as the buxom maid who has an unhealthy (for her) interest in brother Edward. 

If dreams came true, there would be more onscreen energy between Price and Lee. As it is, they don’t share much screen time and are both playing relatively good sorts who are led into danger by their own enthusiasms.  

Extras include: 

• Audio commentary by film historian Steve Haberman (2015)
• The Immortal Mr Price (2024, 17 mins): Vincent Price’s daughter discusses her father’s career and his trips to England in the late 1960s
• The Bells (1913, 15 mins): Edgar Allan Poe’s poignant poem underpins this silent film rarity, which tells a melodramatic tale of love and death
• Prelude (1927, 7 mins): Rachmaninov’s wonderfully disturbing ‘Prelude in C-sharp minor’ sets the tone for a silent, nightmarish reverie on Poe’s The Premature Burial
• The Pit (1962, 27 mins): a strange and experimental gothic short, adapted from Poe’s The Pit and the Pendulum
• Roger Corman on Edgar Allan Poe (2013, 9 mins): the legendary director and producer discusses his Poe adaptations, including The Pit and the Pendulum and The Masque of the Red Death

The Oblong Box is out on Blu-ray from BFI on 21 October 2024.