The Fall of the House of Usher and 4 Other Best Edgar Allan Poe Adaptations
Edgar Allan Poe's dark and mystical tales have served as a fertile ground for suspenseful thrillers and horror films since the birth of cinema.
The work of Edgar Allan Poe, a writer who gave the world several dozen outstanding stories and poems, has inspired film directors for a hundred years.
The literary fantasies of the dark genius are so visible and tangible that they demand a visual reading – and the cinema has repeatedly taken on such a responsible task.
1. The Fall of the House of Usher, 2023
A reimagining of Edgar Allan Poe's legacy by The Haunting of Hill House director Mike Flanagan. Like his previous horror series, the story is less about the numerous jump scares and more about the personal dramas and long-standing traumas.
Billionaire pharmacist Roderick Usher tells how everything came crashing down. Now all his heirs are dead, but just a few weeks ago the House of Usher was thriving, with six children competing for the love of their world-famous father.
Roderick and his sister made their fortune from a popular opioid painkiller that killed thousands. The price of success was exorbitant.
2. Two Evil Eyes, 1990
A joint directing project of George A. Romero and Dario Argento, in which they brought to the screen two famous novellas of the writer – The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar and The Black Cat.
The first novella is a dark horror, telling the story of a woman and her psychiatrist lover who try to hypnotize a terminally ill old man and acquire his financial inheritance.
The second novella is a thriller about the fatal consequences of human madness. An irritated photographer kills a black cat and then his girlfriend. The more the killer thinks about the cat, the more the creature begins to resemble a personified image of fate.
3. Twixt, 2011
One of Francis Ford Coppola's most unexpected and unusual works. Twixt is a B-movie made with the director's own money, starring Val Kilmer and Elle Fanning.
Twixt is the story of a detective novelist who comes to a mysterious town and is inspired by the recent murder of a girl.
Along with real events, the author of the books gets into a funnel of his own hallucinations and dreams – the man is confronted not only with the ghosts of dead girls, but also with Edgar Poe himself.
4. Spirits of the Dead, 1968
The Franco-Italian almanac is an adaptation of three short stories by Edgar Allan Poe. The first part, called Metzengerstein, tells the story of the young Countess Frédérique who falls in love with her cousin.
The second part, William Wilson, tells the story of a boy who has been bullying his peers with impunity since childhood. But one day fate brings the boy together with his double.
The third part, Toby Dammit by Federico Fellini, tells the story of the actor Toby, who comes to Italy to shoot a western and encounters unusual circumstances.
5. Stonehearst Asylum, 2014
Stonehearst Asylum is an adaptation of the story The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether. The events take place in England in 1899, a young Oxford graduate, Doctor Edward Newgate, takes a difficult job in a remote psychiatric clinic.
The head of the institution, Mr. Lamb, seems suspicious – he takes the illusions of the patients for reality and does not limit their actions in any way.
The young graduate is eager to find out what lies behind the doctor's unusual methods, but soon his attention is drawn to the charming Lady Graves, who was sent to the clinic for attacking her husband.
