El retrato ovalado

ONE MINUTE BEFORE DEATH is a non-threatening, sub-soap opera-quality "horror" movie, loosely based on a short story by Edgar Allan Poe.

A family is haunted by the ghost of Rebecca, who died under suspicious circumstances. Her portrait hangs over the fireplace and her spirit roams the house.

Unfortunately, this movie suffers from horrid acting and dialogue, among other things. On top of all that it's boring as hell! Otherwise, it could have been a riotous schlock masterwork! Instead, watching it is like wading through treacle...

What can be said about this forgotten flick, which gratuitously uses Edgar Allen Poe's name (on the British and home video release)in an attempt to punch up it's marquee value, employs an actress who is 50 if she's a day as the leading ingenue, and is lensed by Mexican filmmakers in what looks like the American Northwest? Quite a bit.

The movie concerns a mother and daughter who have come for the reading of a will to the mother's brother's house. Soon the daughter becomes possessed by the spirit of her dead cousin and all sorts of weirdness happens. We learn from the faithful housekeeper that her former employer was a Union Commander and left his daughter alone to go off to war. Unbeknownst to him, their was a renegade Confederate soldier hiding in his house, and his daughter had fallen in love with him. The soldier is recaptured (as he and the girl almost exchange wedding vows), the now-pregnant daughter is thrown out by her father when he learns of this, she loses the baby and her mind, the father goes crazy and dies, and the daughter dies. Whew! and that's the backstory! Certainly no plot deficiencies here!

In it's better moments, ONE MINUTE BEFORE DEATH(or ONE MINUTE BEFORE MIDNIGHT or THE OVAL PORTRAIT, take your pick)plays like a lesser entry in the Hammer Studios catalog. In it's worse moments, the movie comes on like a particularly overripe episode of DARK SHADOWS. The premise, concerning a deceased woman who possesses the body of a cousin, is rather weak and the film slips into weirdness near the end. The movie resorts to flying objects and mummified corpses to carry the last 30 or so minutes. The post-Civil War setting details are shakey; some of the dresses and hats the actresses wear look to be from a vintage some 20-40 years after the time of the setting. Still, there is some pretty scenery and some luxurious antebellum sets. Not high art, or even frightening, but clean and okay for passing an interminable Sunday afternoon.

Loosely based on a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, The Oval Portrait opens in classic Gothic horror mode with a horse-drawn carriage drawing up to a storm-lashed antebellum house, the passengers—Mrs. Buckingham (Doris Buckinham) and her daughter Lisa (Wanda Hendrix)—arriving for the reading of a will. As the women approach the front door, Lisa sees a ghostly apparition of a lady in white, which vanishes before she can show her mother, who understandably dismisses the vision as a product of her daughter's overactive imagination. Once inside the house, the women meet housekeeper Mrs. Warren (Gisele MacKenzie), who shows them to their room.

During the night, Lisa wakes to the sound of music and goes downstairs, where she sees a man—who we later learn is named Joseph (Barry Coe)—playing the piano and talking to a woman called Rebecca. The next day, Lisa puts on a dress that she finds in a wardrobe, the sight of which sends Joseph into a hysterical state. In a prolonged flashback, Mrs. Warren explains the tragic story behind Joseph's strange behaviour: he was once a Confederate soldier in love with Rebecca, the daughter of a Union major, but as the couple were about to be wed in a secret ceremony, Joseph was arrested and taken away. On returning from the war, Rebecca's father discovered the truth about his daughter, who was pregnant with Joseph's baby, and threw her out of the house. When the war was over, Joseph returned to the house to find Rebecca dead, the young woman having fallen victim to a fatal illness.

Thus far, The Oval Portrait has been a pretty unremarkable Gothic tragedy with a narrative hampered by weak direction and sloppy editing (including gimmicky 'flickering' scene transitions that really grate). From here-on in, however, things get much more interesting…

The flashback ends with a distraught Joseph digging up the corpse of his dead bride-to-be, after which the action switches to the present, with the reading of the will. Rebecca's spirit then possesses Lisa, and furniture and ornaments start to fly around the house. Lisa runs upstairs where she discovers Rebecca's corpse hidden in a wardrobe. And the craziness doesn't end there: the next evening, after most of the visitors have left, Joseph sneaks back into the house for one last dance with Rebecca. While he's waltzing round the room with his putrid partner, Mrs. Warren gets out of bed, investigates, and sees Joseph kissing the crumbly cadaver (which makes one wonder what else he's been doing with it). Clearly well off his rocker, the man approaches the housekeeper, who pulls a gun and fills him full of lead, finally allowing him to be united with Rebecca in death.

Director Rogelio A. González's handling of matters is just as shambolic as before, but the madness is far more entertaining—after all, there's nothing like a spot of necrophilia to pep up an otherwise mediocre movie.

4.5 out of 10, rounded up to 5 for IMDb.

How many horror movies have you seen where you whined about the poor, dark, murky cinematography?

Well here, every scene is brightly lit for you to see in all it's horrific glory.

That's what sucks. There's so much subtext, but the photography killed all nuance.

Not that this thing would have been a gem otherwise, but how many movies can you name that are ruined by its photography? Yep, this is the only one that I can think of.

Ever.

The Oval Portrait is based on a short story by Edgar Allan Poe. Poe's story is one of his shortest only two pages long. So to create a film that is around 1 1/2 hours long must have been a difficult task but it was done with this film - and beautifully I must add.

This is a film that has escaped me for years. I acquired a copy of this one from the Pure Terror 50 Movie Pack and I am pleased this film was added to the collection.

Overall this is a good film - especially if you are interested in movies that are based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe. I was not disappointed with this film adaptation.

7/10