originally posted on tumblr, Mar 3rd 2026  

Movie-A-Day-Thon #8: Tomb of Ligeia (1964)

MORE VINCENT PRICE LET’S GOOOO!! It’s a bit weird to see him without the stache tho.

Of course it wouldn’t be a 60s movie without some severely dated pseudo-Egyptian bullshit. And misogyny so foul I actively had to pause and cringe a few times. Beyond that, the writing can be quite poetic and enchanting, but I think that’s Poe’s laurels to have.

Overall the photography is on par with Masque of the Red Death which is appropriate, it was directed by Corman back when he was doing some Poe adaptations and those were two of them. I do find the sets more scrapped together than Masque, which is understandable all things considered for the story, but the difference in energy and costuming is rather startling. I feel like Masque had more inventive art direction.

This movie did however, have a much more intense horror to it, and I think again the credit is to Poe, since this movie was likely closer to the original story than Masque was. No shoehorned satanic panic shit at least, or swashbuckling adventure hero sideplot.

I really do pity Rowena. It’s hard to say when the haunting properly began, and just how much influence Ligeia had on her since she fell off that horse, but she truly was a victim in all this, more so than Verden. Reminds me of Rosemary’s Baby in a way, which is amusing given how they came out only a few years apart (both movie and book). Wonder if it’s a horror trend of the time?

I also really enjoyed the cat as the haunting figure, and the use of the mix of cat and woman scream for it was really harrowing to experience, props to the audio team! And the movie’s tension and pacing really picks up close to the end, it’s a bit harsh but not entirely unwelcome, one can only take slow build up for so long. I’m only surprised it took them so long to try and kill the cat.

Overall pretty decent movie, dated but once it gets going it’s good. Also pay attention to the cat actors, you can tell there’s like, three of them plus puppets and it’s fun to keep track of who does which scene!