Sunday, July 29, 2007

Masters of Horror: The Black Cat


"Re-Animator" director Stuart Gordon has made a career for himself by developing his cinematic versions of works from some of the all-time great science-fiction and horror authors. He's successfully adapted everything from H.P. Lovecraft ("From Beyond") to Edgar Allen Poe ("Pit and the Pendulum") to Ray Bradbury ("The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit"). Hell, Gordon even did a decent job bringing a David Mamet play ("Edmond") to the screen. Never fearful of revisiting familiar themes (he's done Lovecraft no less than four times), Gordon returns to the macabre world of Poe once again.

Gordon teamed up with frequent collaborator Dennis Paoli to craft yet another high mark for the generally uneven horror anthology show "Masters of Horror" that airs on Showtime. Poe's tale of murder, guilt, and felines has influenced numerous films, the most noticeable being 1934's "The Black Cat." To be fair, the Universal film is better known for being the first flick to pair up horror screen legends Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi than for its ties to Poe. In the seventy-plus years since Universal first attempted to bring "The Black Cat" to life, several more attempts were made. While they all shared the same name as the Poe tale and sited it as their inspiration, none, not even the Karloff and Lugosi vehicle, followed the author's original story. They all just featured, in one way or another, murder and a black cat.

Poe's short story about a man who murders his wife and cat, then conceals the body behind a newly built wall in his basement, is as familiar as "The Raven" to anyone who has ever walked past a library. The problem is that "The Black Cat," like most of Poe's works, is simply too short a tale to lend itself to a ninety-minute film. Perhaps the stunning job Gordon and company did with this sixty-minute episode will convince some cable television executive to cancel whatever horrible Stephen King miniseries they have planned for this Halloween and give Poe's works the treatment they deserve.

Paoli and Gordon's script doesn't simply retell the painfully familiar story; it fleshes out the story by making a pitifully drunk Poe the protagonist. It was a risky move, but one that paid off by casting beloved genre icon Jeffrey Combs as Poe, complete with a prosthetic nose and wig. The always dependable Combs gives a great performance as the notorious lush of a poet. As amazing and captivating as Combs' occasionally scenery-chewing performance is, the real star is David Pelletier's cinematography. The majority of the film uses consistent earth tones, so when the blood begins to flow or is simply coughed up by Poe's wife Virginia (Elyse Levesque), it has a major impact on the viewer. While the blood may not initially flow fast enough for some fans, they should all stay tuned for the final minutes of the film. Gordon, who has never been one to shy away from the gore, gives us the best axe wound ever shown on television.

"Re-Animator" director Stuart Gordon has made a career for himself by developing his cinematic versions of works from some of the all-time great science-fiction and horror authors. He's successfully adapted everything from H.P. Lovecraft ("From Beyond") to Edgar Allen Poe ("Pit and the Pendulum") to Ray Bradbury ("The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit"). Hell, Gordon even did a decent job bringing a David Mamet play ("Edmond") to the screen. Never fearful of revisiting familiar themes (he's done Lovecraft no less than four times), Gordon returns to the macabre world of Poe once again.

Gordon teamed up with frequent collaborator Dennis Paoli to craft yet another high mark for the generally uneven horror anthology show "Masters of Horror" that airs on Showtime. Poe's tale of murder, guilt, and felines has influenced numerous films, the most noticeable being 1934's "The Black Cat." To be fair, the Universal film is better known for being the first flick to pair up horror screen legends Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi than for its ties to Poe. In the seventy-plus years since Universal first attempted to bring "The Black Cat" to life, several more attempts were made. While they all shared the same name as the Poe tale and sited it as their inspiration, none, not even the Karloff and Lugosi vehicle, followed the author's original story. They all just featured, in one way or another, murder and a black cat.

Poe's short story about a man who murders his wife and cat, then conceals the body behind a newly built wall in his basement, is as familiar as "The Raven" to anyone who has ever walked past a library. The problem is that "The Black Cat," like most of Poe's works, is simply too short a tale to lend itself to a ninety-minute film. Perhaps the stunning job Gordon and company did with this sixty-minute episode will convince some cable television executive to cancel whatever horrible Stephen King miniseries they have planned for this Halloween and give Poe's works the treatment they deserve.

Paoli and Gordon's script doesn't simply retell the painfully familiar story; it fleshes out the story by making a pitifully drunk Poe the protagonist. It was a risky move, but one that paid off by casting beloved genre icon Jeffrey Combs as Poe, complete with a prosthetic nose and wig. The always dependable Combs gives a great performance as the notorious lush of a poet. As amazing and captivating as Combs' occasionally scenery-chewing performance is, the real star is David Pelletier's cinematography. The majority of the film uses consistent earth tones, so when the blood begins to flow or is simply coughed up by Poe's wife Virginia (Elyse Levesque), it has a major impact on the viewer. While the blood may not initially flow fast enough for some fans, they should all stay tuned for the final minutes of the film. Gordon, who has never been one to shy away from the gore, gives us the best axe wound ever shown on television.

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