[yasr_overall_rating]
Based on the classic works of Edgar Allan Poe – a unique spin on three of Poe’s popular stories (The Tell Tale Heart, Cask of Amontillado & Dreams).
Directors Bart Mastronardi and Alan Rowe Kelly clearly adore horror. One look at their credits reveals a slew of Z-list slasher flicks with obvious titles that speak for themselves: “Vindication,” “Gallery of Fear,” “She Wolf Rising,” “Grindsploitation”… Unfortunately, their affection of the genre does not translate to technical prowess. Another horror film aficionado, heavy metal musician Rob Zombie, displayed surprising directorial chops with the “The Devil’s Rejects” and his remake of “Halloween” – both flawed-but-ambitious films, dripping with throwback style and a wretched/depraved/sick aura that has since become the director’s trademark. “Tales of Poe” strives hard to match that level of assuredness, but Mastronardi and Kelly’s attempt to “pull a Zombie” fails drastically. None of the bearded filmmaker’s skill is evident, showcasing the two directors as eager fans who perhaps need to take a film class or two to hone their craft behind the camera.
Split into three parts, “Tales of Poe” starts with the best one (and that’s saying a lot, considering how sub-par it is), “The Tell Tale Heart,” whose heartbeat plot will be known to anyone at all familiar with Poe. A middle-aged nurse (C-list horror mainstay Debbie Rochon), freshly committed to a mental hospital, encounters a wildly unhinged patient, Evelyn (Lesleh Donaldson), who corners her, rasping: “Tell me what you’ve done or I’ll rip out your cunt, like I did with all my husband’s other sluts.” (Classy!) So our hero reveals the story of how she used to work for an aging Hollywood star, Miss Lamarr (co-director Alan Rowe Kelly, hamming it up), in a giant Gothic mansion. The nurse quickly becomes obsessed with Miss Lamarr’s “empty, lifeless” eye, making it her goal to “rid herself of it forever.” And so she does – using her stiletto, no less! Before she has time to seduce and mount an oblivious police officer, the floors begin to shake, and Miss Lamarr’s beating heart sends the nurse on a rapid downward spiral.
The second story, “The Cask,” begins at a vineyard (we know this, because there is a repeated close-up of a green grape that graces the screen between each scene transition). The wealthy Fortunato Montresor (a flamboyant Randy Jones) is getting married to the deceitful Gogo (Alan Rowe Kelly, again). He takes Gogo, along with some friends and family, down to his wine cellar, where they encounter the mysterious Marco Lechresi (Brewster McCall). Before he knows it, Fortunato awakes paralyzed, and helplessly watches Gogo and Marco entomb him within the building’s walls. Mired in atrocious dialogue, FX and acting, “The Cask” has next to no redeeming value.
But it’s a masterpiece compared to the final story, if you can even call it that, entitled “Dreams.” The protagonist, a young woman (Bette Cassatt) is immersed into a variety of different trippy environments, supplemented by a sometimes-ominous, sometimes-lunatic musical score. Inherently, the concept of visualizing someone’s nightmares is a tricky task – it’s akin to the utterly tedious chore of listening to someone recounting their dreams – and the third part of this anthology is a near-wordless hallucinatory mess, a jumbled montage of cheap, distorted shots, demons dancing behind white bed sheets, 19th-Century frolicking/picnicking in a garden, grotesque “The Cell”-like torture and crimson-red roses – all seemingly edited by someone deep into week three of a massive cocaine binge.
“Tales of Poe” contains all the hallmarks of a made-for-TV production: cheap title credits, bad acting, shoddy effects, nails-on-a-chalkboard dialogue… The mental hospital is straight out of TV’s campy “American Horror Story,” filled with belligerent maniacs and crazed, murderous psychos. Even Poe’s lovely prose, injected intermittently to add some sophistication to the proceedings, can’t save the film, which substitutes their subliminal terror with a blood-and-gore-soaked orgy. Think of an extended, particularly cheap “Tales of the Crypt” episode, and you’ll be close to imagining what the experience of sitting through “Tales of Poe” is like. Among the esteemed author’s many adaptations (“The Raven,” “The Pit and the Pendulum,” “Extraordinary Tales,” etc), “Tales of Poe” crumples to pieces like the House of Usher. Here’s hoping Mastronardi and Kelly leave H.P. Lovecraft alone.
Available on DVD & Digital HD October 11th
