Since he's my favorite actor of all times, I just owe it to myself to track down and watch every single movie, TV-episode, cartoon and narrated documentary the almighty Vincent Price has ever been involved in. This has been going on for several years now, so naturally I have seen the most widely acclaimed and easily available ones numerous times already, and the ones I still occasionally discover are often obscure and practically forgotten for a reason. "Diary of a Madman", for example, certainly isn't a highlight in Price's career and understandably got pushed to the background when it came out in between much bigger crowd-pleasers like "The Raven", "The Haunted Palace", "Last Man on Earth" and "The Masque of Red Death". But seriously, even a mediocre Vincent Price film is still very much worth checking out, and "Diary of a Madman" is actually quite underrated and very entertaining.
Simon Cordier has always been known as wealthy and highly respected magistrate, but nevertheless he was an emotionally tormented soul ever since he lost his first wife and child. The movie opens with Cordier's funeral service and a bizarrely horrific confession through his carefully updated diary. Whilst visiting a condemned man in jail, Cordier "inherits" his possession with an evil spirit called "The Horla". The next few days, Simon Cordier undergoes a mental metamorphosis and become restless and aggressive. He decides to take up his old hobby of sculpting again, and by doing so he meets and falls in love with a beautiful model named Odette. But The Horla homing inside Cordier is stronger and forces him to murder the girl and even abuse his magistrate position to have her ex-husband charged for it.
Perhaps the main reason why "Diary of a Madman" isn't that great or memorable – not to me, at least – lies with the type of evil good old Vincent struggles with here. "The Horla", spawn from the mind of French novelist Guy De Maupassant, is sort of like a variant on "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" without the physical transformations. The evil spirit talks aloud (and way too much) to his host and behaves itself quite pompous and superior. Whenever Simon Cordier feels its presence, his eyes are covered in flashy green light and the widows blow open. But even worse than its attitude is the fact that the Horla doesn't specifically wants or needs anything. It gains absolutely nothing from possessing Cordier and even less from murdering the poor girl. Fans of obscure and almost- forgotten 60's horror will surely still enjoy "Diary of a Madman" is spite some of the defaults. The dialogs, choreography, camera-work and acting performances are splendid. Reginald Le Borg's direction is a bit absent occasionally. The murder sequence is quite gruesome and sadist for its time and the scenario touches some fairly progressive themes, like adultery.
Simon Cordier has always been known as wealthy and highly respected magistrate, but nevertheless he was an emotionally tormented soul ever since he lost his first wife and child. The movie opens with Cordier's funeral service and a bizarrely horrific confession through his carefully updated diary. Whilst visiting a condemned man in jail, Cordier "inherits" his possession with an evil spirit called "The Horla". The next few days, Simon Cordier undergoes a mental metamorphosis and become restless and aggressive. He decides to take up his old hobby of sculpting again, and by doing so he meets and falls in love with a beautiful model named Odette. But The Horla homing inside Cordier is stronger and forces him to murder the girl and even abuse his magistrate position to have her ex-husband charged for it.
Perhaps the main reason why "Diary of a Madman" isn't that great or memorable – not to me, at least – lies with the type of evil good old Vincent struggles with here. "The Horla", spawn from the mind of French novelist Guy De Maupassant, is sort of like a variant on "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" without the physical transformations. The evil spirit talks aloud (and way too much) to his host and behaves itself quite pompous and superior. Whenever Simon Cordier feels its presence, his eyes are covered in flashy green light and the widows blow open. But even worse than its attitude is the fact that the Horla doesn't specifically wants or needs anything. It gains absolutely nothing from possessing Cordier and even less from murdering the poor girl. Fans of obscure and almost- forgotten 60's horror will surely still enjoy "Diary of a Madman" is spite some of the defaults. The dialogs, choreography, camera-work and acting performances are splendid. Reginald Le Borg's direction is a bit absent occasionally. The murder sequence is quite gruesome and sadist for its time and the scenario touches some fairly progressive themes, like adultery.