Too much of everything

How sad is this?

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

An interesting anthology of Edgar Poe short stories. The best part is that they use different forms of animation for each story. They all add a special feeling to each story. The one from Tell tale Heart is pretty hard to watch, but it very artistic and is fine for such a short animation, it is also extra creepy because of it and it fits well with the old recording of Bela Lugosi.I liked the comic books style animation of The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar, it gave it a very vintage feeling.All in all a great collection. Doesn't really feel like horror animation though. I think it is even suitable for children from a certain age to introduce them to literature.

I really enjoyed this. The style of the animation varied in each tale but had in common an antiquated look and feel which I'm guessing was intentional to fit the period and mood of these five great tales by Edgar Allan Poe. Everything from scenes incorporating amazing background colors, textures and layering to the stark 2D black-and-white presentation of The Tell-Tale Heart. Pretty decent soundtrack too.The five adapted stories were: The Fall Of The House Of Usher (narrated by Christopher Lee); The Tell-Tale Heart (narrated by Bela Lugosi); The Facts In The Case Of M. Valdemar (narrated by Julian Sands); The Pit And The Pendulum (narrated by Guillermo Del Toro); and The Masque Of The Red Death (with Roger Corman in the role of Prince Prospero).One of Poe's most famous tales, The Raven, was not included but in between each tale were short segments featuring a raven embodied by the still living spirit of Poe who has conversations with a non- traditional manifestation of Death. All of which added up to a very enjoyable side story that also set the mood nicely throughout.You would almost expect a film like this to have come up with some way to include Vincent Price as one of the narrators...it doesn't and yet his likeness was used as a character in one of the stories and I thought that was a nice touch.This is one I'll be revisiting.

Edgar Allen Poe's stories have endured for decades, and with showings like this--demonstrating how his work continues to fire the imagination--they'll continue to do so for years to come. Each animation style is uniquely suited to the story. The choice of a stark black-and-white stylistic animation combined with the incredible sound of Bela Lugosi reading "The Tell-Tale Heart" was sheer perfection. Sir Christopher Lee and Julian Sands matched 'Dracula's' prowess in reading with fully immersive and emotional narration. And Guillermo del Toro... My gods. He was absolutely the PERFECT choice for reading "The Pit and the Pendulum." The inflection, the emotion and the intensity of his narration was completely profound. Although I was a little disappointed that the final piece--"Masque of the Red Death"--wasn't narrated, that changed in seconds with how incredibly effective the purely visual storytelling was. The score was amazing. So completely suited to this absolutely overwhelming piece. Everything about this was mind-blowing and I will be purchasing a hard copy as soon as I possibly can.

The movie is likely to be entertaining for those who have read little to none of Poe's oeuvre, but it fails to deliver for those who know Poe very well. It didn't live up to my expectations, and they were not too high.Were the stories presented back to back, the whole would be much better than with the cheesy conversation between a crow (shouldn't it be a raven?) that represents Poe and a feminine Death. The bird is poorly drawn and speaks nonsense that would never have left Poe's mouth, making the dumb dialog in the cemetery rather cringeworthy. With a more Poe-like Raven and a more Gothic feel, the tone could have been much closer to that of Poe's tales.The short story adaptations are OK, although the recording of Bela Lugosi is (understandably) very bad quality, and the last story just didn't feel like a story at all. Naturally, not much happens in the original short story; it has a vivid imagery, full of gloomy impressions. This is why it probably shouldn't have been included in the movie. The other four stories are decently realized. Sadly, at the end, a word of the famous line from The Raven is misspelled: "quot", instead of "quoth", adding insult to injury.A good effort, overall. It's a pity that the stories were "linked" to each other in such an awkward manner.