#DennisPaoli

[markredfield]

Happy Birthday Dennis Paoli ! 3 September

An interview with writer Dennis Paoli.

We have a passionate, rollicking conversation about Edgar Allan Poe.

SoundCloud

https://on.soundcloud.com/dByd9qyKvCVkDooA6

This is one of my favorite interviews since we started the podcast. Dennis talks about his decades-long friendship and collaboration with director Stuart Gordon (August 11, 1947 – March 24, 2020) and actor Jeffrey Combs.

The three have collaborated on creating beloved films, such as “Re-Animator” (1985) and telefilms “The Black Cat” (2007), and plays “Nevermore - An Evening with Edgar Allan Poe”.

For film and theatre makers, for screenwriters, and for fans of Poe, a wonderful listen!

Listen on SoundCloud for free:

Or wherever you get your podcasts!

The Redfield Arts Audio Podcast resumes with new, weekly shows beginning Wednesday, 6 September, 2023.

[adamwatchesmovies]

The Black Cat (2007)

The Black Cat proves DVDs shouldn’t be judged by their cover - this time it’s for the better. I took one look and thought “well, this is going to suck”. How could I not after seeing that quill pen piercing an eyeball, with blood all over the place? I couldn’t imagine it having anything to do with the Edgar Allan Poe story, no matter what the packaging toted. I should’ve known to trust in director Stuart Gordon. This is an enjoyable little entry in the Masters of Horror series.

Alcoholic Edgar Allan Poe (Jeffrey Combs) is short on cash and desperate for money. Suffering from writer’s block as his wife’s tuberculosis worsens, he becomes unhinged when a black cat begins harassing him.

When I viewed Ghosts of Dickens’ Past a few months ago, I felt that it cheapened Charles Dickens' works by creating this fiction in which he didn’t invent A Christmas Carol and instead based it on real-life supernatural events that happened to him. I didn’t think I would ever see a fictional story in which a real author lives through an experience that ultimately "inspires" one of their works done well. Well, here we are. The key is the story and its already autobiographical feel. Poe saw several women he loved die, he did become an alcoholic, and I’m sure the pressure of being one of the first authors to earn a living through writing alone made him difficult, particularly when he scrambled to find inspiration. Obviously, Poe was fascinated with the ideas within this story (you see them again in The Telltale Heart). The film cleverly expands on the original story by inserting real-life events, some of which were indeed horrific.

The cast do well with the material, the way it interprets the familiar story makes it feel new. One thing that could be improved is the horror and the gore. There are some missed opportunities to make the story more frightening by pushing the idea of an unreliable narrator further. As for the gore, it's the opposite problem. There’s too much and the way it's handled clashes with the film's tone. You'd expect it to be ambiguous, or figments of the imagination but it's just there to be there. Too often, the film uses computer-generated blood in its violent scenes and they distract rather than frighten.

I suppose The Black Cat isn’t technically a movie, since it only clocks in at about an hour (and that’s with a long introduction). I didn’t know that when I purchased the DVD. I bet many others won’t either. This is not the definitive adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe story but it's cleverly done. If you're a fan of the author’s work (either Jeffrey Combs or Edgar Allan Poe), it's worth checking out. On your shelf, only the spine will face you and you'll easily be able to ignore that awful cover. This film is a lot better than it looks. (On DVD, April 27, 2016)

[adafine]

Figured now would be as good a time as any to watch this. RIP Stuart Gordon. #dagon #stuartgordon #dennispaoli #hplovecraft #vestronvideocollectorsseries #bluray #firsttimewatch (at El Apartamento De Sweeney) https://www.instagram.com/p/B-M9yNPgyiq/?igshid=spjl5kkda7ah

[vicsage-retroist]

"Before you came, there had been no sacrifices for a year. Dagon needs her." - Dagon (2001) #macarenagomez #ezragodden #stuartgordon #dennispaoli #hplovecraft #saturdayfrights #restinpeace #adaptation #horrorcommunity #ilovehorror https://www.instagram.com/p/B-J1hEmAe8Y/?igshid=6tc5pfxeeel6