The Raven

The humour of Richard Matheson's well- calculated send-up of Poe's gruesome The Black Cat - as the middle story in Corman 's Tales of Terror - went down so well that Matheson here used Poe's poem The Raven as the basis for a full-length parody. With Price, Karloff and Lorre superbly funny as rival magicians - and Jack Nicholson turning up to give the most atrocious performance of his career as the juvenile lead - The Raven is one of the few fantasy comedies that hangs together as happily as a fairytale, and it climaxes with a suitably splendid duel of marvels between Karloff and Price.