Underappreciated Edgar Allan Poe Horror Films

Vamshi Ohgs
Vamshi Ohgs
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Published 2023-06-25
Edgar Allan Poe is easily one of the most prominent and influential writer of short stories and poems from the past whose methods, structuring and subject matter have became widely and deeply appreciated after his death.
Though his catalogue isn't the most extensive and sadly fully complete, the ones which are preserved in a consumable quality gives us an insight on the sort of person Edgar was and the life he led.
As most of the characters in his stories and the challenges they faced in them parallels his own, the cycle of deaths, troubled or disturbed mind and their melancholic way of being.
And some of these traits were able to be captured in the cinematic medium, while suffering from the constraints of commercial filmmaking that demanded the film to heavily follow or rely on the genre tropes.
However there were certain titles which found the balance between that and offered the source material an opportunity to be respectfully adapted into an effective horror film.
Which is quite rare when it comes to adaptations of popular author's works particularly in the fiction genre, but Roger Corman in his quest to visualize the world of Poe, produced various films with his own distinct flavour added on top of them.

Voice V - Although working on this was beneficial to my knowledge I have to stop this

Voice S - Stop what exactly?

Voice V - You know, basing ideas before completely exhausting the source material

Voice S - Did that affect the overall working process?

Voice V - Not per se, however it did weaken the final product

Voice S - Do you think it's tamer than your last works?

Voice V - Not that, the problem lies in the source material

Voice S - Well that's not an issue you can solve

Voice V - I know, but I did choose to talk about it

Voice S - And you did a good job

Voice V - Only that it could've have been even better

Voice S - But that doesn't mean you left out something

Voice V - Maybe, or maybe I wasn't able to truly find it

Voice S - Or maybe you were trying to find something that never existed in the first place

Voice V - I wouldn't be that harsh, it's not bad just a bit a watered down with it's talking points

Voice S - So you are disappointed that it didn't went deeper with those topics, right?

Voice V - In a way, yes, that is my major concern

Voice S - So the usual loss of potential

Voice V - The case with so many artistic projects from the olden times and even nowadays

Voice S - And a good lesson for us that mustn't be repeated
All Comments (5)
  • @VamshiOhgs
    First of all I have to address what I will refer as the "Le Corbeau Incident", generally I don't like to read or watch anything about a film before consuming it, the ratings and genre are all of the factors I need to judge if something is worth the time or not. So before watching any of the films I shortlisted the ones which were based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe, some were easy as the names of the films were a clear indication and then comes Le Corbeau. A French film by Henri-Georges Clouzot, the only film of his that I watched at point was Les Diaboliques and seeing him making an adaptation of "The Raven" was quite surprising but I didn't ponder on that thought for a long time. I was content that I was able to find adaptations of Poe's work from different time periods and directors, which would've given the source material more variety and offer me distinct interpretation, and this brings me to the next point. Originally it was supposed to be based around different filmmakers however I was forced to stick to one and that is the reason it's a video revolving around Edgar Allan Poe and not Roger Corman, but the other films didn't satisfy me so it stuck to just Corman's work. Not saying they were bad as Le Corbeau is a well constructed film hence they were utilized in a visual form, now let's conclude this with how all of it started, the idea of a video on the writings of Poe arose when I first watched House of Usher. And the main reason for that was Mike Flanagan announcing that he will be making a TV series on "The Fall of The House of Usher" and after watching the film it was apparent why he wanted to explore that story. It is completely up his ally and suits his style of storytelling, it would've been better if I made this after the release of that upcoming series however the timing for this video to release now made sense so I had to do it.
  • @anchorofthenightsky
    this channel is so so so underrated! also i have been reading a LOT of poe lately and that was a sign, i think. subscribed!
  • @HEXW1N2
    Wow this channel is pretty underrated, good work!