HAUNTED PALACE
In 1960, AIP’s go-to director for cheap, quickly produced science fiction and horror double bills convinced the powers that be to gamble on letting him make a stand-alone film, in color, with double the production time and more money. Granted that, compared to other studios, this still meant an incredibly lean budget and an incredibly short production schedule. The result was Roger Corman’s Fall of the House of Usher, a landmark film in the history of American horror and one of the best Gothic horror films from any country. With the runaway success of House of Usher, Corman found himself free to direct a rapid succession of follow-up films that all relied on the same basic formula. In 1963, flush with success and probably more than entitled to do so, Corman asked if he could do something just a little bit different.