Extraordinary Tales

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If you happen to find yourself in a "spooky" mood, this one can be found on Netflix (Canada) and will give you a healthy dose of Halloween-like atmosphere, as it recaps some of Edgar Allen Poe's best tales. If you happen to be the Gothic-type, it's a nice anthology that was seemingly made special for you. Kinda like 'The Nightmare Before Christmas', although that's a title that totally predates the whole goth thing.

This series of tales is done with different and creative styles of animation, and narrated by a variety of voices who lend themselves to this dark and dreary format.

​Christopher Lee, Bela Lugosi, Julian Sands, and Guillermo del Toro all lend their voices as narrators for 'The Fall of the House of Usher', 'The Telltale Heart', 'The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar', and 'The Pit and the Pendulum', respectively. Roger Corman also lends his voice as Prince Prospero in 'The Masque of the Red Death'.

So perhaps the neatest thing about it, is that it ends up being a bit of an all-star voice cast, ranging from fresh narration to old, recorded narration (at least in the case of Lugosi) adding a whole new level of creepiness to things with its record scratches. That might sound strange, but trust me, there's something about Lugosi's telling of 'The Telltale Heart' that sounds quite chilling.

It's padded by the relatively unknown Steven Hughes, voicing a raven, representative of Poe, himself. He visits and talks with Death, herself (Cornelia Funke), as she recaps his greatest stories before he moves on to the other side. This sort of allows the whole 'Raven' thing to be a part of it all, but without recapping what is probably his most famous poem, since it's the one we all know and love. I mean, when you think "Poe", odds are our mind will jump to 'The Raven'. and although some viewers will indefinitely miss that story, I have to admire the fact that it wants to get some of his lesser known stories out into the open.

In it's entirety, it's really something to be admired, especially if you're a fan of old school, Gothic horror. There's nothing particularly scary about it, but it's a nice little jaunt of creepiness, all the same, if you're on the lookout for something a little darker. However, let's not forget that this is also something to watch if you want something a bit more cultured as well. It's a nice steer away from the ordinary, thus lending itself to it's title.

​4/5

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