Extraordinary Tales Review (Film, 2013)

Content warning: blood, gore, nudity, sexual content, grieving, mental wellness

Extraordinary Tales is an animated anthology horror film adapted from the work of Edgar Alan Poe. Featuring a distinctive paperfold-inspired animation style as a framing device, director Raul Garcia’s vision for Poe focuses on the obsession behind the stories. A raven visiting a graveyard turns out to be Edgar Alan Poe himself, confronted with the role of women and grief in his stories. It’s a fascinating conceit to connect the range of stories in the anthology.

The individual stories are adapted straight from Poe’s language. The beauty of his prose and haunting exploration of madness are major factors in the continued legacy of his stories and poetry. There is only one issue created with this approach: the original framing. Garcia’s screenplay is well-balanced, especially for an anthology film, but his attempt to capture the contemplative poeticism of Poe’s writing demonstrates just how unique Poe’s voice is. 

The first segment is “The Fall of the House of Usher,” narrated by Christopher Lee. This is one of Poe’s most tragic tales. A young man visits his long-ago childhood friend Rodrick Usher in his remote manor. He and his sister Madeline are the last surviving members of the Usher family, and Madeline has fallen gravely ill. The narrator tries to support his friend while he spirals into paranoia and grief.

Garcia makes masterful use of texture in Extraordinary tales. Where the framing device is folded paper, the style of “The Fall of the House of Usher” is carved wood. We see the groves and knots of every element of the story. It’s  aperfect visual metaphor for Rodrick’s obsession with the world he knew falling apart through the inescapable forces of death.

The second segment is “The Tell-Tale Heart,” with archival narration from Bela Lugosi. Told in inky black and white style, this adaptation forces you to confront how wrong the eye is. The color palette itself makes you question your perception of the story, as the artwork is 3D but flattened to highlight and shadow by the lack of color. It’s the scariest segment in the film by far.

The third segment is “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemer,” narrated by Julian Sands. This is one of Edgar Alan Poe’s strangest stories, which says a lot considering all of the strange and wondrous stories he wrote. A man becomes obsessed with mesmerism on the brink of death. He convinces his dying friend Ernest Valdemer to be hypnotized so that the effects of the emerging science can be studied on the brink of death for the first time.

This segment is animated in the style of 1960s horror comics like Creepy and Eerie, a very if you know you know framing for a pure horror story. These characters often found themselves in horrifying situations caused by their own follies. The shifting color palettes enhance the transformations in the dying man’s condition, confronting the audience with the true extent of the narrator’s obsession.

The fourth segment is “The Pit and the Pendulum,” narrated by Guillermo del Toro. A man is sentenced to death during the Spanish Inquisition. His torment is extended time and again as the method of his execution is delayed and changed time and time again. The animation here is the most realistic, shifting between different perspectives of the same sequence to show the vast enterprise at play in the narrator’s punishment. It’s an effective conceit for a story often reduced to the imagery of the razor-sharp pendulum slowly descending from the ceiling.

The fifth segment is “The Masque of Red Death,” with voiceover by Roger Corman, the master of the Edgar Alan Poe adaptation. This story locks in the thesis of Extraordinary Tales with Poe’s clearest tale of fighting to avoid death and loss of legacy at any cost. Prince Prospero hosts a massive masquerade ball while isolating himself and his court from the threat of the plague outside the castle walls. In attempting to protect himself from death, he dooms his entire community to isolation from the outside world and constant contact with the people around them.

In a wonderful creative decision, “The Masque of Red Death” is the only segment without a narrator. We are the adjudicator of what happens. We are the witness to death itself. Roger Corman delivers the iconic line, “Who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery?” The rest is a cacophony of celebration and terror as the party faces its inevitable decline.

The animation style is quite beautiful, filled with vibrant watercolor blends that look like paintings brought to life. The flamboyance of the party and its colorful chambers provides great contrast to the growing reminders of death lurking at every corner. If any tale could convince Poe himself to accept the inevitability of death, it would be this one.

Extraordinary Tales is a fascinating animated film for adults. Fans of Edgar Alan Poe will find quite a lot of value in its short 72 minute runtime.

Extraordinary Tales was accessed through Kanopy.