FAQ

The Tomb of Ligeia is based on the tale of Ligeia, a short story by American horror writer Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), first published in 1838 in the short-lived publication, The American Museum. The tale was adapted for this movie by American screenwriter Robert Towne.

Poe's Ligeia is in the public domain. You can read the story here.

As in the film. The first 'i' is long, the 'g' is soft, and the stress is on the second syllable, so the name is pronounced as Lie-GEE-ah.

Those shots were taken at the nearly 1,000 year old Castle Acre Priory, the ruins of a medieval priory (monastery) in the village of Castle Acre, Norfolk, England.

After brushing her blonde hair the first night Rowena (Elizabeth Shepherd) and Verden (Vincent Price) return from their honeymoon to the Abbey, she was shocked to later see her hairbrush filled with black hair, like Ligeia's.

After cutting her arm on a shattered mirror, Rowena finally locates the chamber where Verden has been keeping Ligeia's body shrouded in a black bed. When Christopher (John Westbrook) and Kenrick (Oliver Johnston) point out that Verden's mind is beyond all help (having been captured by Ligeia's eyes as she lay in her tomb), Rowena attempts to hypnotize him by claiming that she is Ligeia and that he will awaken from his trancelike state and remember her. Verden seems to snap out of his trance, and Rowena collapses on the floor. He then takes Ligeia's body from the bed and tosses it on the pyre. He places Rowena on the bed and closes the curtains. When he opens them, he finds the black cat sitting on her chest. Verden shooes away the cat and walks back to the fire. Suddenly Rowena gets up from the bed. She removes the gauze shroud from over her face to reveal that it is Ligeia. Verden strangles her, but Christopher and Kendrick return to the room and tell him that it's Rowena he has strangled. They remove her body from the room, leaving Verden to his madness. The cat jumps at him and scratches out his eyes. Blinded, Verden knocks over a post, which lands in the fire and starts burning. As the room is engulfed in flames, Verden finally strangles the cat. Outside, Rowena wakes up in Christopher's arms. The final scene shows Verden and Ligeia lying together, fire all around them.

Yes. Altogether, Corman made eight films based on Poe's stories. The first was House of Usher (1960). This was followed by The Pit and the Pendulum (1961), The Premature Burial (1962), Tales of Terror (1962), The Raven (1963), The Haunted Palace (1963), and The Masque of the Red Death (1964). The Tomb of Ligeia was his eighth and last film based on stories by Edgar Allan Poe.