AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Lela The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Candida It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Kirpianuscus it is strange to see a film ignoring its artistic virtues. because it is only a puzzle of directors and texts and actors and memories. a sort of experiment. seductive. and full of nostalgia. eccentric. and bizarre. stars, Romanticism, the shadow of Edgar Allen Poe and the mark of directors. it is strange to say what part is most remarkable. because, after the final credits , remains only the drawings in dust. and pieces of old velvet. a good kick to read Poe. again. because, maybe at the first sigh only, the film seems use his work only as pretext. but, like each part of film, it could be an impression.

GL84 A collection of three different Edgar Allen Poe tales by three different directors.The Good Stor(ies): Metzengerstein-Living a life of decadence and depravity, a sadistic baroness enjoys living alone in her castle watching her distant cousin carry on his life whilst ignoring her advances and existence. When word reaches her that he has perished in a deadly fire on his land, she becomes distraught and begins a fanatical obsession with restoring a tapestry depicting a fiery, wild horse he supposedly own by him, while carrying on an equally deadly obsession with a stray horse that appears shortly afterword that bears a striking resemblance to the individual in the cloth. Easily the best of the stories, with a rather impressive mixture of Gothic atmosphere here with it's crumbling castle setting, expansive layouts and decadence littering the entire area, which creates a visually haunting location to use here. As well, the lone action scene, the fire to the adjacent estate, is equally impressive with it's large-scale impact, noteworthy fire stunt and visual dynamics as this is usually the ending to many of these Gothic horrors with the burning-the-house-down finale here placed in the middle section, which is quite innovative, and with both of these segments meshing with her sense of sadism and depravity with humiliation games, orgies and other forms of entertainment overall create a rather impressive entry.William Wilson-Rushing into a church, a distraught man begs the local priest to hear his confession. Starting with his first introduction, he relates the story of a man who is his identical in every way, even sharing the same name as each other, and whenever he tries to entertain himself through his usual sense of depraved fun, his doppelganger appears to ruin it, and by the time it finally grows to a maddening scale, he engages his mysterious twin in a final game of fate. This here is certainly watchable enough as the depravity here is increased with games as the dunking into the rats, surgery on the nude woman and whipping the woman he won in the card game, which creates a rather creepy air when they're all interrupted and dropped with clever rationalizations. There's even a bloody sword-fight to give it some nice action as well. The only real flaw to this one is that the segment tends to meander from the same set-up to the next without any variation, really keeping this one from doing anything entertaining with it's premise. It does grow tiresome to know everything is going to keep repeating, regardless of what's going on, so it looses a little there but is overall quite enjoyable.The Bad Stor(ies): Toby Dammit-Arriving in Italy, a boozing, drugged actor is constantly shuffled around from one personal requested-appearance to the next without delay, causing him to sink deeper into his sense of personal despair. Finally arriving at a gala award show for his honor, he finds the locals gathered there far too much for his sanity to overcome, and when he begins to let his inhibitions loose to their fullest extent, finds himself in a deeper Hell than before. This was overall quite boring as the entire segment plays out as though it's an acid-trip nightmare. Sure, it's overtly weird and generally quite stylish visually, but that doesn't really make it scary. The drive through the deserted streets at night is about the only thing worthwhile here, as it's a lengthy, extended sequence that really gets far more enjoyable over time, though the majority of time taken up by the strange award ceremony rather than being scary really dooms this entry. Not enough for the movie overall, but just slightly.Today's Rating/R: Violence, Nudity and Language

davidphilbarbara This is the only movie with "Hanoi Jane" Fonda that I have in my movie library. One reason is that it's a damned good horror movie. The other reason is that Jane has a "happy ending" in this movie. See the movie and you will see what I mean! For some reason it is only on video in French language with English sub-titles. What happened to the English-dubbed version? All three stories are nice and creepy but "William Wilson" is my favorite. And Bridgett Bardot makes that story even better! "Hanoi Jane"'s story is pretty good too, though it's kinda weird to have her own brother, Peter, playing the man she wants! I won't even talk about the horse part! The last story is well done in Frederico Fellini's usual weird style. Sure worth watching if you like them scary!

Witchfinder General 666 Masters of cinema are not always necessarily masters of Horror, as "Histories Ordinaires" aka. "Spirits Of The Dead" of 1968 proves. This is Poe-based anthology of three parts, directed by Roger Vadim, Louis Malle and Frederico Fellini. All great directors of course, but for a Horror fan it becomes obvious immediately that they were way more biased on the introduction of imaginative artistic elements than on the development of eeriness and suspense. And while the film is certainly not bad, and doubtlessly has its great moments, it sadly lacks the creepy atmosphere and genuine scariness that made other Poe-adaptations, such as Roger Corman's films (starring Vincent Price) such a delight. It may result from ignorance towards the Horror genre, or have other reasons, but while "Spirits Of The Dead" looks good at first, it not a very good Horror film, first and foremost as it simply will not scare the viewer, and furthermore because the atmosphere is simply not eerie enough to do the writings of the great Edgar Allan Poe justice.The first story, "Metzengerstein", directed by Roger Vadim, stars young Jane Fonda as the beautiful, but cold-hearted Countess Frederica, who lives a life of decadence until she suddenly falls for her cousin, the nature-loving Baron Wilhelm (Peter Fonda). After refusing Frederica, Wilhelm accidentally dies in an arson ordered by her, leaving her devastated and strangely obsessed with a black stallion... The first chapter in the anthology offers some impressive photography, very good performances, and loads of sexual undertones. Yet it cannot fully convince, as the script is not very elaborate, and the whole thing makes little sense. Neither is there a real climax.The second story, "William Williamson", directed by Louis Malle, is quite a bit creepier, but, then again, it could have been even a lot better. Alain Delon plays William Williamson, a despicable and sadistic man, whose evil deeds are promptly uncovered by a masked Doppelgänger of the same name. Storywise, this second story, which also stars young Brigitte Bardot as a sexy gambling lady, is arguably the best of the three, and it is also very good in terms of photography. Still, it is not really scary.The third and last story, "Toby Dammit", directed by Frederico Fellini, is the most frequently praised of the three, and it is indeed recommendable, simply for Terence Stamp's terrific performance as the eponymous character. Stamp plays Toby Dammit, a celebrated British actor with a weakness for alcohol, cynicism ad scandals, who tormented by the recurring vision of an eerie girl. When he is invited to the 'Italian Oscars' as an honorary guest, his insanity overwhelms... The third story is primarily recommended for its leading man. Stamp is a brilliant actor, and he really proves his great talent here, as I can not imagine anybody else to fit the role as Stamp does. Stamp's performance, however, is the episode's saving grace, as the story makes little sense and has even less to do with Poe. Fellini was obviously more focused on accentuating his own visual and artistic talent rather than to focus on Poe's writings, eeriness or suspense. All three episodes are narrated in an eerie voice in the French language version, which I saw. Apparently the English language version is narrated by Vincent Price, which makes it interesting to me as Pice is my favorite actor.Overall, "Spirits Of The Dead" is certainly no bad film, and probably even something every true Horror fan should give a try at least, but it is neither a great Horror flick nor a great piece of art in other respects. Fellini, Malle and Vadim deserve their reputations as masters of cinema, yet one might argue that they should leave the Horror genre to the pros. If you want to see great Poe-based cinema I recommend films such as Roger Corman's entire brilliant Poe-cycle (starring Vincent Price) as well as Sergio Martino's Giallo-masterpiece "Your Vice Is A Locked Room And Only I Have The Key" instead. In terms of eerie Gothic atmosphere, even Fellini, Malle and Vadim can never reach the greatness of Horror masters such as Corman, Mario Bava or Antonio Margheriti. This "Spirits Of The Dead" is recommendable, but it is not great Gothic cinema, in my opinion.