Tales of Terror is a 1962 American International Pictures Gothic horror anthology film in colour and Panavision, produced by Samuel Z. Arkoff, James H. Nicholson, and Roger Corman, who also directed.

The screenplay was written by Richard Matheson, and the film stars Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, and Basil Rathbone.

It is the fourth in the so-called Corman-Poe cycle of eight films, largely featuring adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe stories and directed by Corman for AIP.

When Lenora Locke travels from Boston to be reunited with her father in his decrepit and cobwebbed mansion, she finds him drunk, disordered, and depressed.

Dying from a painful disease, M. Ernest Valdemar employs a hypnotist, Mr. Carmichael, to alleviate his suffering by putting him under various trances.

Price explained how the effect of slow decomposition was achieved in "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar": "We settled for an old-fashioned mud pack – it dries and draws the skin up and then cracks open."

To give the impression of Vincent Price's face melting away, a mixture of glue, glycerin, corn starch and make-up paint was heated and then poured over his head.

Producer Corman, though, plays his latest entry for all it's worth and has assembled some tasty ghoulish acting talent which have marquee strength."

[9] Margaret Harford of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "Poe admirers will almost certainly find 'Tales of Terror' no substitute for the master's original work but entertaining as another seance with spooks.

[13] Time Out said the film was "elegant and funny, but the short-story format deprives Corman of the majestic, melancholic rhythm which characterizes his best work of this type.

[15] A novelization of the film was written in 1962 by Eunice Sudak, adapted from Richard Matheson's screenplay, which was published by Lancer Books in a mass market paperback.

In 2011, La-La Land Records released on CD Les Baxter's music score from the "Morella" segment of Tales of Terror.