Too much of everything

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

Not bad early 60's Vincent Price horror film. Price plays a French magistrate (a judge?) who slowly becomes possessed by an evil spirit called a Horla. Usually a respectable, decent man, he starts n affair with a married artist's model (who's a tramp) and eventually murders her. When the model's husband is accused of the killing, the magistrate, still under the influence of the jeering Horla does his utmost to make things right. Not Price's best but watchable. Joseph Ruskin's marvelous voice plays the unseen Horla. The DVD-R is excellent quality. The only extra is the trailer. Recommended for horror movie fans

Interestingly enough this is not based on Nikolai Gogol's short story Diary Of A Madman but on a short story by Guy de Maupassant called The Horla. The film is very different from the short story and takes a totally different direction with the plot while expanding on some things already established in the short story. The acting is decent(and of course there is Vincent Price who is awesome as always). The cinematography is pretty bland and there are some nice yet sparingly used special effects. The Horla is one of my favorite short stories so I just had to look this up but instead of being a study of a very deluded mind this adaptation was a cheesy 60s supernatural horror film with Vincent Price.Not terribly and not even that bad but it just could and should have been a lot better.

Vincent Price is one of my all-time favorite actors, and it is undeniable that most of his greatest work comes from the the 60s. Even though not nearly as memorable as the masterpieces Price was in in the the early 60s (such as Roger Corman's brilliant Poe-cycle, or "The Last Man On Earth"), Reginald Le Borg's "Diary Of A Madman" is a moody and spooky little Horror tale that my fellow Price fans can not afford to miss.Price stars as Simon Cordier, a widowed magistrate, and spare-time sculptor. When Cordier visits a convicted murderer in his cell, the convict keeps swearing that he was forced to murder by an evil spirit. After a subsequent fight, in which Cordier accidentally kills the murderer in self-defense, he soon has to find out that the murderer's claims were not the foul excuses he thought they were, as he suddenly begins to hear the voice of evil himself. It is the voice of a 'Horla', a bizarre entity that feeds on evil, able to take control over people once it has possessed them... The film is based on the story "The Horla" by Guy de Monparnass, a French author whose writings reportedly served as a major inspiration to H.P. Lovecraft. Vincent Price is, as always, great. Pice always played madmen like no other, and the particular role as a possessed man who is still trying to fight the evil spirit possessing him fits him like a glove. It should be a joy for any fan of classic Horror to watch Vincent Price try to fight off evil and turn into a mindless executor of the Horla's will. The Horla is never seen, only heard, but the voice is eerie enough. The film is well-shot on cool settings and in nice colors and Nancy Kovack makes a nice female lead. The rest of the performances are not particularly memorably, but Vincent Price alone is more than enough.As mentioned above, "Diary Of A Madman" is not nearly as memorable as many other contemporary films with Price. Price starred in quite a bunch of brilliant flicks around that time, however, (one of his greatest films, "The Haunted Palace" was made in the same year as this one) and this is still a highly entertaining, eerie and nicely made film that none of his fans should miss. More than once, this film resembles older Vincent Price Classics, but, as far as I am considered, this is legitimate. Overall "Diary Of A Madman" is great, spooky fun that should not be missed by any of my fellow Price-enthusiasts! Highly recommended!

Diary Of A Madman (1963): Vincent Price, Nancy Kovack, Chris Warfield, Ian Wolfe, Stephen Roberts, Elaine Devry, Lewis Martin, Edward Colmans, Mary Adams, Nelson Olmsted, Dick Wilson, Harvey Stephens, Gloria Clark, Wayne Collier, Joseph Del Nostro Jr, Don Brodie, Joseph Ruskin, Sayre Dearing, Stuart Holmes....Director Reginald Le Borg, Screenplay Robert E. Kent.By 1963, Vincent Price was a recognizable and very familiar name to many movie-goers. Through the 50's, he appeared in several well-made horror films, some of them very successful, others not as successful. He was, one can say, a breed of actor that was well-received during a generation of Alfred Hitchcocks and Rod Serlings, a time when horror, the bizarre, the supernatural, the grotesque and the mysterious was in vogue in film. Price would have fared well as a director but he remained first and foremost an actor, appearing in films through the 70's and 80's, his last film being "Edward Scissorhands" around 1991. Here, Vincent Price portrays the protagonist of 19th century French author Guy De Maupassant's obscure and little-known story - Simon Cordier, a court judge from Paris who sentences a psychopathic killer to death and is subsequently the victim of the same killer's possession, that is, the killer's spirit has taken over him and drives him to murderous acts. This film, however, does not do follow the Maupassant story faithfully and it's strictly Hollywood material. It's yet another vehicle for Vincent Price to flex his muscle as a skilled actor in this type of film. The film co-stars Nancy Kovack and Chris Warfield, a couple whose lives are affected by Simon's murderousness. Odette Duclasse (Nancy Kovack) is a model who poses for art and fashion magazines or tableaux vivants, and becomes the object of Simon's obsession. At first, Simon experiences a subtle change and begins to kill small animals like a pet canary. But gradually the spirit of the killer leads him to murder Odette. If this film works, it's because there is a "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" influence and through the fine performance by Vincent Price, who never failed to step up to challenge of every role he undertook. Another element that makes this film pretty good is the revenge theme. Revenge has long been a preferred subject in historical fiction (The Count of Monte Cristo being the greatest sample) but the supernatural slant of the film makes this particular revenge story most engaging - a killer who's been sentenced to death dies and then gets back at the Judge by possessing his body and driving him to brutality and violence. Still, don't expect the same amount of gore and violence one finds in modern horror films. This film, however, makes use of fine special effects for 1963, these done by Norman Breedlove and include animation-within-a-live-film. The scene in which the killer's spirit breaks loose is evidence of this. The art direction and production design, which featured sculpture and artwork, are very evocative of 19th century Paris at the time of Maupassant and the costumes by Marjorie Corso are authentic, if a bit 1950's version of 19th century. The original music by Richard La Salle, a French composer, is a lovely touch. All in all, this is not a bad film but it lacks something other Vincent Price films have - some edge. Vincent Price has done better roles and this film is rather strange and dull. Therefore this film is mostly catering to Price fans.