He was a helpless emo and he married his 13-year-old cousin, but dangit could Edgar Allen Poe write a decent scary story. His short tales of horror are so influential, in fact, that they’ve recently been reworked into Mike Flanagan’s latest Netflix series The Fall of the House of Usher. It’s basically Scary Succession, and our critics ate it up.
If visions of red masks, walled-up jerks and guilt-tripping black cats and ravens are still swirling within your head this Halloween season, we recommend the following four films (plus one TV episode!) that adapt the Bostonian scribe’s scares to the screen. Quoth me: nevermore.
The Masque of the Red Death (1964)
Over the course of just four years, schlockmeister Roger Corman and horror icon Vincent Price collaborated on a staggering seven films adapting terrifying Poe tales. They’re each lush, atmospheric, and ideal for a Halloween movie marathon, but Masque has Nicolas Roeg’s gorgeous cinematography, so it slightly pips the rest for me.
Price is a fabulous ham as the loathsome Satanist Prince Prospero, who gets the ultimate comeuppance when he throws a masquerade ball during a whole dang plague, locking virtuous villagers outside of his not-so-solid fortress. This one might’ve been a timely watch during COVID lockdowns, when celebs were recklessly travelling and throwing huge parties, masks be damned.
Crimson Peak (2015)
I’m totally cheating by including this one, but Guillermo del Toro’s original Gothic horror is entirely indebted to Poe’s pet themes: haunted mansions that crumble into the infernal soil, siblings that are a tad too handsy with one another, an 1880s East Coast setting. It stars Mia Wasikowska and Tom Hiddleston as newlyweds who are torn apart by his dark ancestral home…and his sister, Jessica Chastain, who hides a Bluebeard-esque secret beneath her gloriously ruffled costume. Your boy Edgar would be proud as punch.
Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have The Key (1972)
Goddamn giallo movies: they always have the best, nuttiest titles. The Italian thriller genre is a great fit for Poe’s bibliography, centring around murderous mysteries and obsessive protagonists. While Fulci’s 1981 version of The Black Cat might adapt Poe’s tale of a pussy-hating killer (somewhat) more faithfully, this Martino terror brings the psychological mind games rocketing up to a hysterical degree. It’s sleazy, lurid, and drenched in marital guilt. It’s also on my favourite streaming service, Tubi, right now!
The Pale Blue Eye (2022)
If you studied Poe in high school or uni and are seeking a bit of extra-curricular homework this spooky season, a crime-mystery movie blended with biopic detail might be just the thing. This recent Netflix original stars Christian Bale as a detective investigating a military murder, with the help of a sweaty young cadet who will one day become the legendary author Edgar Allen Poe. Harry Melling breathes life into the gloomy writer, and the supporting cast isn’t to be sniffed at, neither: Gillian Anderson, Toby Jones, and Timothy Spall bring some high-brow to a wacky procedural plot, stuffed with touches of black magic weirdness.
The Simpsons s02e03: “Treehouse of Horror” (1990)
Right from the very first instalment of their non-canonical, Halloweeny “Treehouse of Horror” episodes, the team behind The Simpsons showed a commitment to educating kids on Victorian literature. The great James Earl Jones narrates Homer’s descent into madness when a very irritating raven (Bart, of course) taunts him over his lost love Lenore (Marge, hair bigger than ever). It’s not especially scary or funny, but it’s a nice window back into the undying animated series’ former commitment to pop culture homage. “The Tell-Tale Heart” also got referenced in Lisa’s disastrous showing at her school’s Diorama-rama day. Mike Flanagan, eat your tell-tale heart out.
