Undescribable Perfection

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

I really enjoyed this. The style of the animation varied in each tale but had in common an antiquated look and feel which I'm guessing was intentional to fit the period and mood of these five great tales by Edgar Allan Poe. Everything from scenes incorporating amazing background colors, textures and layering to the stark 2D black-and-white presentation of The Tell-Tale Heart. Pretty decent soundtrack too.The five adapted stories were: The Fall Of The House Of Usher (narrated by Christopher Lee); The Tell-Tale Heart (narrated by Bela Lugosi); The Facts In The Case Of M. Valdemar (narrated by Julian Sands); The Pit And The Pendulum (narrated by Guillermo Del Toro); and The Masque Of The Red Death (with Roger Corman in the role of Prince Prospero).One of Poe's most famous tales, The Raven, was not included but in between each tale were short segments featuring a raven embodied by the still living spirit of Poe who has conversations with a non- traditional manifestation of Death. All of which added up to a very enjoyable side story that also set the mood nicely throughout.You would almost expect a film like this to have come up with some way to include Vincent Price as one of the narrators...it doesn't and yet his likeness was used as a character in one of the stories and I thought that was a nice touch.This is one I'll be revisiting.

Not sure why the average ratings ... I found this quite beautiful.Its only flaw is how short it is, however its gorgeous visuals, voice acting and symphonic music more than atone. The final short did not need narrating because its clear what the message is. I loved how different they all were, intententinaly so, and believe it or not voice matters. The first short was Gothic perfection! The second not my favorite, but it was good. The Third and Fourth had some suspense and horror in it and the final one had an excellent theme. There is not much to say about an animated tribute to EAP work summed up in 117 minutes or so, but this came close enough to say plenty. Final Grade -A

The works of Edgar Allan Poe are nothing if not macabre. In his work, one finds an element of romance and fantasy, almost a love letter to the release of grief that death provides. This is the connecting thread with which writer/director Raul Garcia (The Missing Lynx, Animarathon) ties together five short animated adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe short stories in the new(ish) film Extraordinary Tales. Each short film is stunningly realized in a different aesthetic and each is deserving of high praise. In putting them together as a collection though, to be experienced concurrently, Garcia has attempted to unite the tales with a superficial thread that falls short of being much more than an interruption of each disparate but beautiful love letter to Poe's work. Extraordinary Tales opens on a collection of statues in a cemetery in a style that seems to be a thrilling symbiosis of painted backdrop and stop motion papier mâché animation. A raven, serving as Poe himself and voiced by Stephen Hughes, enters the scene only to be confronted by...

I'm an unashamed fan of Edgar Allan Poe ... I admit it freely. I've visited every one of his houses in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Richmond, and I have a huge collection of audio readings and film adaptations of his work. When I first got wind of this film and some of the voices connected with it (Sir Christopher Lee and, joy of unexpected joys! Bela Lugosi), I couldn't wait until the release date.Now it is here.Now I've seen it ... and I'm very pleased.Not delighted or overjoyed, but pleased.I have to admit that compared with other animated versions of Poe's work "Extraordinary Tales" is a little lightweight. I was surprised to see quite a lot of kids in the audience of the showing I went to (it took me quite a while to find a theater in my home city where it was showing since the film is currently in limited release), but after having seen the film I can honestly say that this is a great way to expose kids to Poe for the first time. I was prepared for the different animation styles of each of the five stories included in the film, but I was pleasantly surprised that the stories are enclosed by a pastel-animated framing story involving a talking raven (voiced by Stephen Hughes, and I won't tell you who the raven really is!) and the unseen voice of Death (wonderfully performed by Cornelia Funke).As to the stories themselves, here they are in my order of preference: 1) "The Tell-Tale Heart" (narrated by Bela Lugosi); 2) "The Masque of the Red Death" (no narrator); 3) "The Pit and the Pendulum" (narrated by Guillermo del Toro); 4) "The Fall of the House of Usher" (narrated by Sir Christopher Lee); 5) "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" (narrated by Julian Sands)I chose "Tell-Tale Heart" as Number One not only because of Lugosi's wonderful narration but also because of the black-and-white animation style used. "Masque of the Red Death" has no narration (except for one line delivered by the famous director of Poe films Roger Corman), but the animation style used here reminds me a lot of Ralph Bakshi's style in his film version of "The Lord of the Rings", very beautiful and flowing. I don't know if "Pit and the Pendulum" is actually CGI, but it seemed that way to me, and del Toro's narration has a wonderful velvety gruffness that makes the listener believe that the narrator is an old man remembering his experience (and I was intrigued by the twist given to the story). The highlight of "House of Usher" is, of course, the wonderful narration done by Sir Christopher Lee and the house and background are beautifully chilling, but the animation of the characters is a little too reminiscent of Minecraft figures and the story is a little too abbreviated (but this too has a wonderful and shocking twist!). As for "Valdemar", the animation is a little too comic-book-like for me, but the on-screen character of the narrator has (to my delight) more than a slight resemblance to Vincent Price!I will definitely add "Extraordinary Tales" to my collection should it ever be released on DVD, and I also definitely recommend it to other Poe admirers and to parents who want to introduce their kids to Poe ... there'll be plenty of time for them to become truly addicted (as I was and am) to the unabridged and more horrific versions ... if they (and you) dare!