The Haunting of Morella (1990) from Tuna

Tuna's comments in white

A Roger Corman production, The Haunting of Morella is a titty flick based on a story of the same name by Edgar Allen Poe. Jim Wynorsky directed, and tried to include homages to both early Italian horror masters and Corman's Poe films from the 60s.

Morella, a witch in Colonial America, is put to death via crucifixion and having her eyes put out with a hot poker. She warns her husband that she will return in the body of their baby daughter, Lenora. Cut to the future, and Lenora is nearly 18, but has been kept a virtual prisoner by her father, who is now blind. She is under the care of her governess (Lana Clarkson).

When a handsome attorney from town arrives to talk with Lenora about her inheritance, her father refuses to let them meet. The governess arranges the meeting anyway, and it is not long before we learn that she is actually working as an agent for the long-dead witch, Morella. Lenora and Morella are both played by Nicole Eggert. Before it is over, we are treated to virgin sacrifices. I am getting the idea that virginity has historically always been a serious liability, much the same as winning Aztec championships.

The film does drag on way too long, especially for a film with an obvious outcome. Still, it concentrates late 80s scream queens in one handy place, and some of the sets and photography are rather good for a small budget film.

Scoop's comments in yellow:

just like before ...

it's yesterday once more.
 

The amazing thing to me is the date of this film. 1990, not 1960.

I am not a young man, 56 as I type these words, and Roger Corman was producing low budget adaptations of Edgar Allen Poe stories in 1960, when I was in sixth grade, in one of the coldest stretches of the Cold War. The USA and Russia were at odds for the first time over Cuba after the Castro/Guevara revolution, and Ike was President. Vincent Price starred in Corman's The Fall of the House of Usher that year. I saw it at a drive-in, from the back seat of my parents' Studebaker. Corman and Price would follow in short order with Premature Burial, Pit and the Pendulum, Poe's Tales of Terror, The Raven, The Haunted Palace, The Masque of the Red Death, and the Tomb of Ligeia.

According to IMDb, Corman has produced at least 360 films, and the 1960s Poe adaptations may still be his best body of work. Those eight films are all in his career top twenty

1. (7.21) - Planète sauvage, La (1973)
2. (7.06) - The Intruder (1962)
3. (6.78) - Ginga tetsudô Three-Nine (1979)
4. (6.77) - House of Usher (1960)
5. (6.68) - Pit and the Pendulum (1961)
6. (6.66) - The Masque of the Red Death (1964)
7. (6.63) - Suburbia (1984)
8. (6.50) - Rock 'n' Roll High School (1979)
9. (6.49) - The Raven (1963)
10. (6.42) - A Bucket of Blood (1959)
11. (6.28) - Tales of Terror (1962)
12. (6.18) - The Tomb of Ligeia (1965)
13. (6.15) - The Little Shop of Horrors (1960)
14. (6.14) - Saint Jack (1979)
15. (6.14) - X (1963)
16. (6.07) - The Haunted Palace (1963)
17. (5.88) - The Shooting (1967)
18. (5.86) - The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (1967)
19. (5.77) - Death Race 2000 (1975)
20. (5.75) - The Premature Burial (1962)

If one looks at the films which Corman has directed personally, those films comprise eight of his top thirteen, and five of the top seven. (The scores vary slightly from list to list because of IMDb's weighting system, which is on double secret probation and cannot be revealed upon pain of death.)

1. (7.20) - The Intruder (1962)
2. (6.79) - House of Usher (1960)
3. (6.70) - Pit and the Pendulum (1961)
4. (6.69) - The Masque of the Red Death (1964)
5. (6.51) - The Raven (1963)
6. (6.48) - A Bucket of Blood (1959)
7. (6.33) - Tales of Terror (1962)
8. (6.18) - X (1963)
9. (6.18) - The Tomb of Ligeia (1965)
10. (6.16) - The Little Shop of Horrors (1960)
11. (6.13) - The Haunted Palace (1963)
12. (5.92) - The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (1967)
13. (5.82) - The Premature Burial (1962)

Fast forward thirty years to 1990. I was then a 40 year old man living in Norway, working with a major oil company, trying to figure out how to attend my 25th high school reunion an ocean away. Fortunately, the world had seen jet travel become commonplace, and I could hop from Oslo to Rochester for the weekend. Several presidents had come and gone in those thirty years. Man had walked on the moon. The USSR and East Germany had disintegrated. There were no longer many drive-ins to provide the natural outlets for Corman's films, as well as  appropriate Saturday night parking places for my parent's Studebaker, itself long since scrapped.

And Corman? Still producing low budget adaptations of Poe films, similar to his old ones, except that Vincent Price had been replaced by breasts. Corman and Castro seem to be the two most constant elements of the past 45 years.

I expect that the last thing I will see in my life, as I lie on my deathbed trying to distract myself with a newspaper or cable TV, will be an ad for a new straight-to-video film called Roger Corman's The Cask of Amontillado.