Extraordinary Tales, 2013 (An Edgar Allen Poe adaptation)
I've already watched several Poe adaptations this month (
House of Usher, Masque of the Red Death, Pit and the Pendulum), so I was hoping for something different than the 60s-era films I've seen so far.
This film (which, thanks to my title blindness, I thought I'd seen because of its similarity to
Tale of Tales) is a collection of five animated short adaptations of Poe stories. Each short was created in different animation styles.
House of Usher: Elevated by a narration from Christopher Lee, this is a pretty straightforward telling of the story. I'm not the biggest fan of the 3D style animation used here.
Tell Tale Heart: I loved the style (rotoscoped, I think, and in stark black and white) and the narration from Bela Lugosi. A marvelous combination of visual and audio elements.
The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar: I also really, really enjoyed this short. It's a story I've seen before in
Tales of Terror, about a man who agrees to be hypnotized at the moment of death. It works . . . to horrible effect. This short was just incredibly visceral compared to the version I'd seen previously. I'm very sensitive to stories of abuse of power, and so watching the three doctors basically experimenting on this not-dead, powerless man was pretty horrifying.
The Pit and the Pendulum: Narrated by Guillermo del Toro, this was tied as my favorite short. The animation suits the story very well and the narration is also excellent. It's a story totally saturated in despair.
Masque of the Red Death: Maybe the least engaging for me. The animation looks great, but the characters just never made much of an impression.
I'd recommend this one. Just don't be put off by the framing device (a raven having a conversation with Death in a cemetery), in which the voice acting is medium and the animation style is a bit cheap looking.