Extraordinary Tales [Horror Movie Review]

Extraordinary Tales is an animated anthology film based around Edgar Allan Poe's horror and mystery short stories. In the wraparound segment, Poe, reincarnated as a raven, converses with Death (voiced by the author of Inkheart, Cornelia Funke). Their dialogue somehow connects to narrated (except for one; will put the narrators in parentheses), animated retellings of "The Fall of the House of Usher" (Christopher Lee), "The Telltale Heart" (an old Bela Lugosi tape), “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” (Julian Sands), "The Pit and the Pendulum" (Guillermo del Toro), and "The Masque of the Red Death" (Roger Corman has one character line).

Thoughts? Well, I thought it was child-friendly until all the post-orgy T&A in "The Masque of the Red Death." But, given that Poe's works are full of incest, depravity, and murder, it's hypocritical to cry foul there. Anyway, the strongest points to me were the narration in "The Telltale Heart" (Lugosi and the tape quality capture something magical)

and the "The Masque of the Red Death" animation (seen above). I liked Del Toro's narration, but not so much the video game-ish art style; this hurt "Usher" and "Pit" for me, despite those being my favorite Poe stories. It is, however, intriguing how different animation styles were chosen to complement each story's tone.

I'd recommend this to anyone who enjoys Poe; if you don't, I doubt the retellings will grip you.

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