Annabel Lee (DVD)

The first volume in Lurker Films' The Edgar Allan Poe Collection contains some arty adaptations of the seminal horror author's work, with George Higham's award winning stop-motion animation film inspired by the poem Annabel Lee, as its centerpiece.

I enjoyed the expressionist imagery of skulls, bones, rats, dark alleys and even an effigy of Poe himself in this cleverly rendered tale, but in my opinion, the reason you should buy this DVD is Peter Bradley's stirring short film, The Raven.

The Raven is a crisp black and white, live-action gothic-noir, voiced over by a deeply intoning Michael Sayers, acted out by a tortured Louis Morabito, and graced by an enigmatic Jenny Guy as the "lost" Lenore. This short takes the traditional, simple approach, thereby returning the power to the nakedly hair-raising words in Poe's poem and (for awhile) erasing memories of more bloated, irreverent takes (see: Roger Corman's The Raven).

The setting is simple: A man's shadowy, book-lined apartment which is adorned by nothing but a huge portrait of a raven-haired, beautiful woman. There's a tapping on the window, and in flies an accusing, silently mocking bird, staring at the man, forcing him to confront his inner-demons. The raven is all hard-edges, gleaming and bringing to mind a mechanical Maltese Falcon… but in reality, he was made of cardboard pizza boxes!

Yes, there is a featurette for The Raven included on the DVD, and it's a double-edged talon… it's fascinating to hear all about the fabricated set, the CGI finesses needed to animate the wall portrait of Lenore, how the screen actor mouthed the voice actor's words, and so on; but then again, it mars the magic. The story is so arresting and powerful, it's almost more fun to let yourself be drawn into the dark, troubled world and to believe, even for a few moments, that The Raven wasn't once the pepperoni and mushroom special.

There is one more short, The Tell-Tale Heart, a colorless affair directed by Alfonso S. Suarez. It's a pretty true retelling of the classic Poe pump-stopper, but the lackluster look of the film and the methodical storytelling style had me hitting the fast-forward button on my remote.

The Edgar Allan Poe Collection, Volume 1 contains featurettes on all the movies, interviews with the filmmakers, a Poe biography, an in-depth interview with a Poe expert and playwright named Paul Clemens, and more. The DVD packaging includes a handsome eight-page booklet with even more information about all three films. It really is a must-have for Poe fans.

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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson