The Haunted Palace

Roger Corman's and HP Lovecraft's Time Machine

As far as I know, The Haunted Palace (1963) is the first Lovecraft-inspired movie to introduce the great author’s mythos, along with some of his other literary elements to a wider mainstream audience. Roger Corman fused an Edgar Allen Poe poem of the same title, with Lovecraftian elements to produce this somewhat forgotten masterpiece.

Released by American International Pictures, and starring Vincent Price, Lon Chaney Jr. and Debra Paget which was to be her final movie. Directed by Roger Corman, and is one of his series of eight films loosely based on the Gothic Horror style of Edgar Allan Poe. Francis Ford Coppola also provided additional dialogue for the film. While this was a low budget movie by Hollywood standards, Corman’s direction and use of clever camera lens techniques results in an impressive—almost theatrical dreamscape look—to the final film.

Within the plot, the owner of the hilltop “grand palace" named Joseph Curwen, that overlooks a New England fishing village is discovered to be a warlock and is then burnt alive by the residents of Arkham, Massachusetts during the late 1700s. But not before he places a curse upon the community. Over a century later, Curwen's great-great-grandson, Charles Dexter Ward, and his wife Anne arrive in Arkham after inheriting the palace.

The rest of the movie is classic Corman and plays on ideas surrounding the wealthy treating the locals as a form of human livestock for their amusement and occultic experimentation. Not dissimilar to another Roger Corman masterpiece The Masque of the Red Death again featuring a top-notch performance by Vincent Price.

The Necronomicon, Arkham and Charles Dexter Ward are some of the Lovecraftian elements featured in the film, as well as references to the Elder Gods. Elements from The Dunwich Horror and The Shadow Over Innsmouth also weed their way into the narrative. Another Lovecraftian trope is the concept of genetic deformity within the community. Created possibly by the Arkham residents becoming fearful and insular. Therefore shunning outsiders and breeding among themselves until they manifest “that Innmouth look”. Rather than the results of an actual curse placed upon them coming to pass. It is actual magic, or are they alone responsible—having developed a fear of outsiders—with a belief their town has been cursed? A deep occultic and philosophical question indeed.

In the age of the Scamdemic the movie takes on a whole new meaning. As is generally the case with everything Lovecraft inspired. The Haunted Palace shows us that the seer of Providence knew more about the potential fate awaiting humans—at the hands of the respectably insane—and one that continues to echo through the ages.