Extraordinary Tales

Director Raul Garcia revisits five of Edgar Allan Poe’s best-known short stories with an animated anthology. The visual styles for each episode vary and have a subplot: Poe himself appears in one as Rabe Nevermore from his poem “The Raven”. At the gravesite of his departed wife he argues with the seductive Lady Death, who attempts to coax him into following her into the Kingdom of Death. His stories about death are proof for her that Poe’s time on earth elapsed long ago. Nevertheless, Poe resists her appeals… Edgar Allan Poe, whose work still influences today’s fantasy literature and crime fiction, is a literary lion of dark romanticism. Utilising the scope of the repertoire to its full extent, his protagonists wander madly like ghosts through decrepit Gothic castles and damp dungeons. Death, obsessive love and insidious insanity are the mainspring in his stories. Each of the five stories is crafted a different style and feature a surprisingly new visual language. For instance, “The Mask of the Red Death” was inspired by Egon Schiele’s paintings; references to Piranesi, Goya, the comics artist Alberto Breccia, German Expressionism or the Gothic novels can be discovered in other stories. The casting of voices in the original English version was also carefully selected. Christopher Lee (frequently cast as Dracula and Frankenstein in the legendary horror productions by Hammer Films), Guillermo del Toro (director of “Pans Labyrinth” or “Hellboy”, among others), and Bela Lugosi (star of numerous silent film horror classics) carry the gooseflesh atmosphere further on the acoustic level. (so)
Voices: Sir Christopher Lee, Bela Lugosi, Julian Sands, Roger Corman, Guillermo del Toro