Vincent Price reads Edgar Allan Poe. Sounds very boring right - you may imagine Price dressed nicely in a chair, maybe with a fireplace at his side, reading a book to us in his acting voice - that is what I imagined anyway. Well rest assured that it's not at all what you would think nor exactly what I thought it would be.Basically Price is dressed for and sorta acts out each part/role while he tells us (not reads to us) each tell. Since the tales are written in first person (you know "I") it's a if you asked the character "tell me in detail what exactly happened" and each of the characters (played by Price) tells us what we wanted to know - what happened?! What I am saying is: This is NOT Price giving us a sit and read - this is Price acting out each role. In all honesty - I think Poe himself would have really enjoyed this "reading" of his tales.8.5/10

This was obviously made as an artistic escape for Vincent Price from the fun, campy American International films he was making around this time. It would have been perfectly made to capitalize on the Halloween season for T.V. audiences, but is listed as a New Year's day broadcast. For two of the segments, it is fairly interesting. However, they happen to be the first and final segments of stories I'm already familiar with, "The Tell Tale Heart" and "The Pit and the Pendulum". Price's recital of the later one is quite different than his early 60's film of the same name as Price's character here recites Poe's short story while strapped down by members of the inquisition. In fact, other than Price, the only other characters you see in the films (other than a few shadows) are the rats anxious to nibble on Price's dead body after the pendulum descends to slice him to bits. "The Tell Tale Heart" had a decent 1940's MGM short made, and even a low budget 1960's film was fairly good as well. Price's recitation of each of the four segments starts off subtle and ends up melodramatic as the menace grows, but in the middle two, the stories are somewhat difficult to follow considering their obscurity. Fortunately, its short enough to get through painlessly if you aren't into recitals, but that doesn't prevent it from sagging in the middle, fortunately building to a macabre conclusion.

Legendary horror icon Vincent Price narrates four tales of terror written by the great Edgar Allan Poe. The show starts off with a very passionate and riveting reading of "The Tell Tale Heart." Next we have a perfectly whimsical telling of "The Sphinx," a comical anecdote that builds to one doozy of a funny punchline. "The Cask of Amontillado" receives a beautifully chilling rendering. The program concludes on a properly unnerving note with a positively marrow-freezing rendition of "The Pit and the Pendulum." Director/co-writer Ken Johnson keeps the pace rattling along at a snappy clip and allows Price full reign to really strut his sensational show-stopping stuff. Price is in exceptional form throughout and acts with tremendous verve, intensity and conviction; his rich, plummy voice in particular rarely sounded more sonorously sinister than it does here. The lively and restless prowling cinematography adds a considerable amount of crackling energy to the deliciously macabre proceedings. Les Baxter's splendidly spooky and shuddery score likewise hits the spine-tingling spot. But what truly makes this affair so fine and effective is its refreshing faithfulness to the original material: There's no unnecessary padding or filler to speak of; instead we get extremely stark and straightforward presentations of Poe's stories that go right to the black heart of the matter with often genuinely scary and unsettling results. Essential viewing for both Vincent Price fans and Edgar Allan Poe aficionados alike.

I really couldn't believe my eyes as I started to watch this. The thought of an actor (even someone as iconic as Mr Price) simply reading Poe made me wary - I've heard it done often, and not well at that (why do actors always seem to get hysterical when reading Poe?!)! But from the first few words of The Tell Tale Heart I was, as the previous comment stated, absolutely mesmerised. Transfixed. And very probably sat with my mouth hanging open. It was magnificent. Poe in its truest form. Spell-binding, macabre, poetic, horrifying, all of it. However - the greatest revelation was the man himself. Boy, could he act! I never realised this. Why, oh why didn't directors push him more?! He was capable of so much more... I've always enjoyed his performances, glorious in their over-the-top ripeness, but never, ever, dreamed he was capable of such control and such intensity...I remained stunned and awed by the experience!