Best Edgar Allan Poe screen adaptations?
September 13, 2022 5:02 PM Subscribe
Kiddo (who likes horror nearly as much as I do) is studying and very much enjoying the writings of Edgar Allan Poe. What are your favorite TV and film adaptations? Non-english is okay. Episodes of anthology series are also fine. We're looking for actual adaptations, not stuff that riffs on the stories.
I'm partial to Roger Corman's The Masque of the Red Death, starring Vincent Price as Prospero. The final scene of the Prince chasing the Red Death through a series of chambers, each a different color, is pretty striking. Corman could deliver when he wanted to. (Also, the film references another Poe story, "Hop-Frog".)
And of course Corman's The Pit and the Pendulum. Vincent Price again as a man driven mad by guilt over the crimes of his father, an Inquisitor. Also a reference to premature burial, always a popular Poe theme.
posted by SPrintF at 6:00 PM on September 13, 2022 [5 favorites]
And of course Corman's The Pit and the Pendulum. Vincent Price again as a man driven mad by guilt over the crimes of his father, an Inquisitor. Also a reference to premature burial, always a popular Poe theme.
posted by SPrintF at 6:00 PM on September 13, 2022 [5 favorites]
The Simpsons' Treehouse of Horror version of The Raven is actually really good.
posted by Adifferentbear at 6:30 PM on September 13, 2022 [10 favorites]
posted by Adifferentbear at 6:30 PM on September 13, 2022 [10 favorites]
The animated anthology Extraordinary Tales is kind of mixed in quality but I think it's worth a look for Poe fans.
posted by edencosmic at 6:36 PM on September 13, 2022
posted by edencosmic at 6:36 PM on September 13, 2022
IMDB: The Corman/Price Poe Cycle
Stephen King said that any movie with Roger Corman and Vincent Price and E.A. Poe together was guaranteed horror entertainment, and a big influence on his ethos.
All of these adapted scripts vary somewhat from Poe's original writing, from loose-adaptation to vaguely-inspired-by. Comparing the differences sounds like a fun project for a horror student.
My personal faves were 'House of Usher' and 'Masque of Red Death', which mostly followed the stories. 'The Raven' falls under "vaguely-inspired-by", but it's a fun satirical horror romp.
In loosely related, Rod Serling's Night Gallery 70s TV series included an episode inspired by 'Cask of Amontillado'. The entire series was often influenced by Poe's ethos.
There's a lot of interesting films that riff-on/inspired-by Poe out there.
posted by ovvl at 6:45 PM on September 13, 2022 [2 favorites]
Stephen King said that any movie with Roger Corman and Vincent Price and E.A. Poe together was guaranteed horror entertainment, and a big influence on his ethos.
All of these adapted scripts vary somewhat from Poe's original writing, from loose-adaptation to vaguely-inspired-by. Comparing the differences sounds like a fun project for a horror student.
My personal faves were 'House of Usher' and 'Masque of Red Death', which mostly followed the stories. 'The Raven' falls under "vaguely-inspired-by", but it's a fun satirical horror romp.
In loosely related, Rod Serling's Night Gallery 70s TV series included an episode inspired by 'Cask of Amontillado'. The entire series was often influenced by Poe's ethos.
There's a lot of interesting films that riff-on/inspired-by Poe out there.
posted by ovvl at 6:45 PM on September 13, 2022 [2 favorites]
Was gonna rec that Simpsons episode!
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 7:12 PM on September 13, 2022
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 7:12 PM on September 13, 2022
The Telltale Heart (1928) is pretty good--straightforward and taking some pretty clear inspiration from German Expressionism, like the very Caligari-esque weird angles of the set, the text on the film in addition to the intertitles, etc. So it's a bit of a film history lesson, but it's short, it's a reasonable adaptation of the story, and the cinematographer went on to direct more notable films.
posted by Wobbuffet at 7:14 PM on September 13, 2022
posted by Wobbuffet at 7:14 PM on September 13, 2022
Fool's Fire is Julie Taymor's film adaptation of Hop-Frog. It's amazing, and, I just discovered, on Youtube!
posted by prewar lemonade at 4:47 AM on September 14, 2022
posted by prewar lemonade at 4:47 AM on September 14, 2022
They did a fun version of The Purloined Letter on Wishbone: The Pawloined Paper
posted by Mchelly at 10:59 AM on September 14, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Mchelly at 10:59 AM on September 14, 2022 [1 favorite]
(Shoot, just saw that someone already mentioned the Wishbone episode. Sorry!)
posted by Mchelly at 11:29 AM on September 14, 2022
posted by Mchelly at 11:29 AM on September 14, 2022
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by the primroses were over at 5:45 PM on September 13, 2022 [2 favorites]