It seems that no one involved really read any Poe, and possibly not the original novelist either. Of course if you dont' know Poe's work whill that bother you? I can't say, but I think the disjointed nature and mismatching of elements will still leave you feeling like it's a jumble.
It also goes on a bit long, with some additional killing thrown in more to keep the story going that develop the story itself and a whole Hammer Horror movie element suddenly emerging only to then, hopefully, be forgotten if we are to accept the ending.
So as a detective movie it kind of works for awhile, as a horror film it doesn't work, as a sort of Historical figure, Poe, brought to life it does succeed at times and that give the movie some heart--no pun intented given the nature of the story.
The acting is pretty good, though it does dip into the mumbling and face making that seems on the one hand to try to make it seem more natural and on the other hand to make sure we know it's a period piece. The sound mix is the type which has people turning on the subtitles to read what they can't hear--a trend that shows real disconnect in current habits of production and "consuming" of filmed shows and movies. No doubt this film was seen as having little or no commercial value as far as being released theatrically and so was sold to Netflix.
It's really Poe and Poe's character, very well acted, who is portrayed as a nerdy unattractive figure that give the film any weight, but then again with the Detective Bale plays being the main character, the film loses momentum when he is off screen especially in the kind of long middle section of the film which seems to want to explain Poe's fiction by creating a fictional real life encounter/romance/mystery element--for awhile.
I don't think screenwriter/director Cooper really has a feel for horror and perhaps not really for period this time around.
Gillian Anderson is mostly wasted and a bit, though appropriately, wasted looking in the film. Howard Shore's score doesn't add much in the way of propelling the story or binding the elements together, it seems to play briefly once in awhile to let us know we are transitioning from one scene to another one.
The look of the film is one of those bluish not much color affairs, though feels big budget and pretty authentic to locations and the time period. Like the film itself it's slick without having much personality though it doesn't try to be too hip either visually.
Any detective story will shift gears and the fun is either liking that or feeling ultimately cheated once you know the whole story. This one it feels a bit like a cheat but the issue is it's long and one of those shift in gears doesn't really work and makes no sense at all.
It also goes on a bit long, with some additional killing thrown in more to keep the story going that develop the story itself and a whole Hammer Horror movie element suddenly emerging only to then, hopefully, be forgotten if we are to accept the ending.
So as a detective movie it kind of works for awhile, as a horror film it doesn't work, as a sort of Historical figure, Poe, brought to life it does succeed at times and that give the movie some heart--no pun intented given the nature of the story.
The acting is pretty good, though it does dip into the mumbling and face making that seems on the one hand to try to make it seem more natural and on the other hand to make sure we know it's a period piece. The sound mix is the type which has people turning on the subtitles to read what they can't hear--a trend that shows real disconnect in current habits of production and "consuming" of filmed shows and movies. No doubt this film was seen as having little or no commercial value as far as being released theatrically and so was sold to Netflix.
It's really Poe and Poe's character, very well acted, who is portrayed as a nerdy unattractive figure that give the film any weight, but then again with the Detective Bale plays being the main character, the film loses momentum when he is off screen especially in the kind of long middle section of the film which seems to want to explain Poe's fiction by creating a fictional real life encounter/romance/mystery element--for awhile.
I don't think screenwriter/director Cooper really has a feel for horror and perhaps not really for period this time around.
Gillian Anderson is mostly wasted and a bit, though appropriately, wasted looking in the film. Howard Shore's score doesn't add much in the way of propelling the story or binding the elements together, it seems to play briefly once in awhile to let us know we are transitioning from one scene to another one.
The look of the film is one of those bluish not much color affairs, though feels big budget and pretty authentic to locations and the time period. Like the film itself it's slick without having much personality though it doesn't try to be too hip either visually.
Any detective story will shift gears and the fun is either liking that or feeling ultimately cheated once you know the whole story. This one it feels a bit like a cheat but the issue is it's long and one of those shift in gears doesn't really work and makes no sense at all.