The Haunted Palace (1963) follows the ambivalent fate of a man, Kerwin (Vincent Price) who has become a necromancer in service to the “elder gods”, who wish to resume their positions of dominance. Much to his dismay, he is caught in flagrante delicto, quite literally, and is set ablaze by the local New Englanders. A great curse is pronounced as he discovers his supernatural patrons cannot protect him.
110 years later his descendant, Charles Dexter Ward, returns to the site of the crime, lured by the inheritance of a deed to the hulking palace. He and his wife encounter the descendants of those who persecuted his ancestor, and they have indeed been suffering from the curse.
They proceed to the inheritance, and soon the wife sees her husband begin to change, to know things. Servants appear, of some dismaying appearance, even if their words are correct, and soon procedures are back on track to return the elder gods to their places. Vengeance occurs as part of the conversion, and soon affairs become perilous, until the descendants of the villagers arrive. Then the fate of everyone becomes ambiguous.
For all that the plot sounds creepy, the movie is not what it could have been. The musical score is clumsily applied, and the story leaves too many questions: How do the descendants of the villagers recognize Ward as a descendant of Kerwin? No pictures are easily available. What is this monster in the closet, and where did it come from? Sometimes the segues are both abrupt and almost nonsensical. And what about these elder gods? If they were so dominant, what happened to them?
In the end, too many questions crowd the mind during this movie and ruin the fine efforts of the cast. It’s intriguing, but ultimately this Lovecraft-derived movie is unsatisfying.
