Edgar Allan Poelife at times feels like gothic melodrama, too wild to be true. Losing several family members and the love of his life to cholera and tuberculosis, marrying his cousin and then mysteriously dying before he could see the fruits of his labor. The poster child of a poor, struggling artist, underappreciated in his time, his genius was not discovered until he was gone. Although this description is not entirely accurate, he was quite famous as an inflammatory literary critic, his poem Crow was an instant success, he was definitely a writer who lived paycheck to paycheck and spent most of that paycheck on booze until he got sick.
The trauma and anxiety he experienced throughout his life is evident in his work. His famous poems and short stories usually contain themes that can be described as somewhat autobiographical. Destructive alcoholism Black catfestering world Mask of the Red Deathisolation and anxiety Fall of the House of Usher. There’s a lot of content here, not just in Poe’s work, but in his life and figure as a pop culture icon and figurehead for the goth subculture. Needless to say, we have a lot to tell and it won’t be perfect, but here’s a brief history of Edgar Allan Poe on screens big and small.
Edgar Allan Poe has been around since the beginning of cinema
Our story begins in 1909, at the very beginning of cinema as D. W. Griffithbetter known for being, to put it mildly, controversial Birth of a Nationguides Edgar Allen Poe. Despite the misspelled middle name, it was a biographical and heavily dramatized film about Poe’s struggle for Crow posted to help his dying wife Virginia. It was about seven minutes long, and luckily it was saved for viewing 113 years later.
Poe continues to act in silent films; in 1915 Crow another biography of Poe was published with an abbreviation of his most successful work, and in 1928 an experimental adaptation Fall of the House of Usher was released. When cinema moved into sound, it was Universal Pictures’ turn.
Although legends like Bela Legoshi and Boris Karloff took the 1930s by storm with films like Dracula, Frankenstein and Mommy, they have also contributed to the Universal Horror canon with adaptations Murders on the Rue Morgue, Black catand Crow. Many see Universal Monsters as a set of mascots, such as Squad A, the aforementioned Dracula, Frankenstein, and Mommytogether with The invisible Man and Creature from the Black Lagoon maybe B-Squad including Phantom of the Opera and Bride of Frankenstein. But Universal fell into that niche of horror and sought to adapt all the great gothic works, including, of course, Poe’s best. Ultimately, only three of his works were adapted by Universal, but many more would be released over the next couple of decades.
Roger Corman, Vincent Price and a lot of ravens
When one thinks of film adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe, the legendary Roger Korman. Of the 55 films he made during his incredibly long career, eight were either directly based or inspired by his poetry and stories. Roger Corman’s “Poe Cycle” ran from 1960 to 1964, fascinated by the psychological aspects of Poe’s work and seeking to adapt public domain literature, Corman gave us House of Usher, Pit and Pendulum, Horror Tales, Premature Burial, Raven, Haunted Palace, Red Death Mask, and Tomb of Ligeia.
All eight of these films not only share common source material, but seven of them share a common star in the incredibly enigmatic and charismatic Prince of Horror, Vincent Price. He bleached his hair to play Roderick Ussher, he was both Prince Prospero and the Red Death, and has played so many of the iconic Edgar Allan Poe characters that it’s a crime that he didn’t play the man himself.
Each movie in this series is laced with the high gothic melodrama needed for a great adaptation of Poe, with sumptuous dark sets and costumes, Price reworks it all delightfully and creates what I personally consider American Hammer films, screaming Technicolor, gore and horror. , and fantastic intrigue.
Edgar Allan Poe on the small screen
While there are many theatrical biographies and adaptations on the big screen with varying degrees of authenticity, television versions of Edgar Allan Poe are much more…varied. Legendary soap opera dark shadows included “Premature Burial”, “Revealing Heart”, “Keg of Amontillado”, and Pit and pendulum into his wild story. The ghost of Edgar Allan Poe appeared in one of the episodes South Park, surpassing their Goth Kids in the fight against emo. And lest we forget the incredible Treehouse of horror segment on The Simpsons, which perfectly echoes The Raven. Poe’s stories have been referenced and shortened in the show from sponge Bob Square Pantsto time cop, and most recently Netflix’s Nevermore Academy Wednesday.
However, mainly because the author will use literally any pretext to talk about Stuart Gordon and Geoffrey Combs, the best of Poe-related television is from the 2005–2007 anthology series. Masters of Horror. Episode of the second season Black cat, directed by Gordon, follows Edgar Allan Poe (Combs) in a semi-biographical, semi-adaptation of the story as he struggles with money, his sick wife, and his alcoholism as he is tormented by a cat that could inspire one of his greatest tales. Combs is completely fading into his role and it won’t be the last time he plays it for Gordon as he will be playing Edgar in a one-man show.
What’s new for Edgar Allan Poe?
If we move to an even smaller screen, laptop or phone, we’re seeing the best and brightest internet comedies and Poe-related media of the last couple of years. Shipwreck Comedy, a production company led by Sean and Sinead Perso, Mary Kate Wilesand Sarah Grace Hart, created a beloved version of Poe and the lore surrounding it, including the greatest minds in literature. Sean Perso plays Edgar Allan Poe, who is portrayed in several miniseries and specials as a highly socially awkward, tortured poet, longing for the good-hearted Annabelle Lee (Wyles) and tormented by the impudent ghost of Lenore (Sinead Perso). Their biggest project is a detective mini-series in which the greatest writers, Hemingway, Shelley, Bronte, Wilde and more, are tracked down one by one at Edgar’s dinner party. Their biggest projects have been successfully crowdfunded, incredibly fun, and free to watch on YouTube.
That’s not all for Edgar Allan Poe lately. We got a few adaptations Fall of the House of Usher, Bloodhound, released in 2020, which was a hidden gem whose momentum was stifled by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the upcoming Netflix series is set to adapt it and many of Poe’s other stories, which ended production in July 2022. While we wait for this to be released, Netflix should be released Pale blue eye to its streaming service on January 6 after a limited release on December 23. A gothic mystery in which Edgar Allan Poe, who is played here Henry Melling, acting as young Watson for August Landor (Christian Bale) as they uncover a series of gruesome murders at the United States Military Academy circa 1830. It’s amazing to see how this side of Poe’s past is portrayed, he actually served in the army when he was a teenager, which is why we see Poe as a young cadet and not the tortured writer Poe.
Edgar Allan Poe is one of those writers whose works are likely to be filmed for decades to come. While someone like Jane Austen taps into the bizarre farces of love, relationships, and society, Poe has a knack for tapping into the much darker side of the human mind. In one form or another, we’ve all felt the fear, the loneliness, and the loss of control that he writes about, the feeling within us all that something is fundamentally broken. He writes about how trauma and loss can affect our lives, and while he perpetuates some rather unhealthy stereotypes of genius and madness, he is an iconic figure whose name will remain in the hearts and minds of horror fans indefinitely.
Source: Collider
