Received a 5 film Bela Lugosi collection yesterday, was unsure as to wether i'd ever seen The Raven so i gave it a whirl and must say i really enjoyed it.
I can't remember ever seeing this before and although not as good as The Black cat it was still a great vehicle for the talents of Lugosi and Karloff.
Lugosi is a Poe obsessed surgeon who develops an obsession with a young woman, when denied her love he decides to kill her and her fiancee and father.
This is were Karloff comes in, on the run for murder he asks Lugosi to change his face, Bela obliges by making him disfigured and compels Boris to do his evil bidding and in return will make him look better again.
This all comes to a head in a basement filled with Poe inspired instruments of torture.
Lugosi is great in this, really quite twisted and menacing, while Karloff gets sympathy from us for his plight echoing his performance in Frankenstein during a few moments.
The only downside is that considering Lugosi is supposedly a Poe fanatic he still manages to get key Poe facts completely wrong.
Oh and also in Pendulum scenes how come the swinging blade always seems to be really close to the body one moment, then the next second not so near.
All in all a solid film with great performances from the two terror titans. 8/10