Near the Castle Acre Priory in England, a funeral takes place. There is a window in the casket allowing mourners to see the beautiful face of the woman inside—Ligeia Fell (Elizabeth Shepherd). A black cat jumps on the casket and the superstitious believe it has stolen the soul of the deceased. The dead woman’s husband, Verden Fell (Vincent Price) mourns her deeply and yet he somehow feels threatened by her death. He had sensed her soul’s reluctance to die and was worried about her blasphemy. She did not believe in God’s existence. He remains troubled and an eye condition forces him to wear dark glasses. They help him to shut out the world, and the gloomy abbey he lives in doesn’t help.
He meets a headstrong young woman named Rowena (also Elizabeth Shepherd), who resembles Ligea to a remarkable degree. Though she is betrothed to Verden’s old friend Christopher Gough (John Westbrook), he becomes enamored of her and she falls for him as well. He marries her, but she finds that there are three people in the marriage and one of them is dead.
Once they return from the honeymoon, Ligeia seems to haunt the mansion, which had once been a Medieval abbey. Rowena finds the nightly visits by the black cat distressing, as if the soul of Ligeia somehow lives inside it. She appears to be going mad, or Ligeia is haunting her. The audience really does not know which. The cat seems to try to kill Rowena several times and Fell orders it killed, but the attempts do not work. Ligeia is not actually in the tomb but hidden away in the house. Fell fears he must face the spirit of Ligeia and resist her attraction. He has a confrontation with the cat and it blinds him. Rowena and Ligeia seem to be exchanging places. The tomb collapses in an accident, killing Fell, and Rowena wakes in Christopher’s arms.
The film was directed by Roger Corman from a screenplay by Robert Towne, based on the short story Ligeia by Edgar Allan Poe. It was the last Corman/Price film based on a story by Poe. Towne tried to write a story that could be explained by both natural and supernatural events. Roger Corman was reluctant to use Vincent Price because the character in the story was only 25 or 30 years old. He considered Richard Chamberlain for a while. Towne thought the film might be better with an actor who didn’t look like a necrophiliac to start with, but AIP demanded they use Price. Corman assured Towne that they had Marlene Dietrich’s make-up man and they used make-up and a wig to make Price look younger.
The Tomb of Ligeia did not make as much money as the other Poe films. It seemed the whole Price/Poe thing was running out of steam, but Corman was exited about it. Martin Scorsese used a clip from Ligeia in Mean Streets. The Castle Acre Priory is a national heritage monument in England, though the tallest part of the residence was added in post-production so it could be burned. Vincent Price always brings down the house, literally, one way or another. The dream sequence was not shot in slow motion. It was shot normally and the actors moved slowly to make it seem unreal. The audience score on Rotten Tomatoes is 61%, but the critics score is 85%. Corman’s patience in creating a creepy, morbid, Gothic mood was praised, and the film is visually sumptuous. Price may well be at his creepiest in this movie.