The Spectre of Edgar Allan Poe

The Spectre of Edgar Allan Poe is a fictional account of how the renowned writer came to be obsessed with death and the macabre.

According to this film, the young Poe (Robert Walker Jr.) was in love with a woman named Lenore (Mary Grover), who one day suddenly dropped dead, or so it seemed. At Lenore's funeral, Poe hears screams coming from the coffin and it is discovered that the young woman is still alive. In a catatonic state of shock, Lenore is admitted to a private asylum under the care of Dr. Grimaldi (Cesar Romero), who secretly conducts experiments on his patients and whose sister Lisa is a pychopathic killer. Poe becomes suspicious, and with help from his friend Dr. Adam Forrest (Tom Drake), he investigates.

I really like the idea of Edgar Allan Poe becoming involved in real-life mysteries, uncovering macabre happenings which would serve as inspiration for his stories -- it would make for a great TV series. This film, however, doesn't do the idea justice. The direction is pedestrian, the pace dreary, the acting barely passable, and the script mostly involves the characters wandering around the dark corridors of the asylum -- so dark that it is often hard to see what is happening. The chills and scares are strictly PG. On the plus side, Walker makes for an effective Poe, looking very much like the author.

The Spectre of Edgar Allan Poe ends with Lenore dying for real (hacked to death by the axe-wielding Lisa), leaving Poe grief stricken, at least until he marries his 13-year-old cousin -- the only genuinely shocking thing about the whole film.