this was recommended by my friend Kevin, mainly because he's IN it! This is a low-budget production shot on tape in Baltimore, covering the mysterious last few days in the life of Edgar Allen Poe. He apparently fell victim to some unscrupulous people in Baltimore while trying to get funding for a magazine he wanted to start. It's unclear in the film if he was made mentally unstable by a beating, by exposure to the elements after the beating, or if he was nuts to begin with. The movie is shot in a way that suggests you're seeing things from Poe's mentally confused point of view - quick flashes forward and back, echoey voices from his past, mental flashes of the failures in his quest for funding and his mugging and brief abduction. It's shot in black and white, with the mental flashes and ghosts in color. It's quite an effective technique, with some quite poignent moments. The man who plays Poe is quite good, and I was pleased to see my friend Kevin in top form as well as the doctor who cared for Poe in the hospital. Kevin has been acting/directing in local theater and small film/video productions since I met him 30 years ago, and he's often been the most professional actor on the stage. The rest of the cast varies between very professional and high school theater, not unlike the several Trek fanfilms you can see on the internet. The overall effect of the piece is somewhere between well-done community theater and one of those video productions you'd see on PBS in the 70s, like Lathe of Heaven or Overdrawn at the Memory Bank. I'd definitely recommend a look if you're at all interested in Poe. Buy it HERE
