The Tomb DVD Movie Review
The Tomb DVD Movie Review
Tomb with a view.
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The Tomb, based on the Edgar Allen Poe work of fiction Ligeia, tells the twisted love story of hapless man Jonathan (Wes Bentley) and man-trap Ligeia (Sofya Skya). She's a succubus, and he's a sucker… they're a perfect match.
If you're familiar with the Roger Corman film The Tomb of Ligeia (starring Vincent Price and Elizabeth Shepherd), well… this is nothing like that. For one thing, Robert Towne didn't write the screenplay and for another this tale's tone is pinging all over the place. Some of the most major problems with The Tomb center around its turgid, wordy, flashback-heavy script and the seeming inability of first-time director Michael Staininger to pare it down and make it move along. The actors, a motley crew of the so-so to the sublime, all seem to be struggling at one time or another as their characterizations swing wildly from semi-comatose to histrionic. The editing is a mess.
On the plus side, the story itself is interesting (if you like these gothic-ghosty kinds of movies; I do), the actors are really easy on the eyes (Bentley and Skya of course, but also Kaitlin Doubleday, who plays Jonathan's jilted bride; as well as Christa Campbell, a cult screen-queen most of horror.com's readers know), and the locations and sets are sumptuous.
There are some good horror moments (especially when Ligeia is doing her black-magic voodoo by administering absinthe and trapping souls in her secret dungeon), but mostly the movie is talk, talk, sex, talk, talk.
But there was something just-compelling enough to keep me watching. Of course, in the end it wasn't worthwhile, but The Tomb is a good late-night-and-nothing-else-is-on kind of movie. It's one of those movies it would play a lot better at 2 a.m. than at happy hour. (And either way, don't forget the absinthe!)
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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson