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| Topics related to |
| Edgar Allan Poe |
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| In popular culture |
| In music |
| In television and film |
| Dark Romanticism |
| Edgar Awards |
| Death |
| Bibliography |
American poet and short story writer Edgar Allan Poe has had significant influence in television and film. Many are adaptations of Poe's work, others merely reference it.
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For his influence on other media:
For his appearances as a fictional character:
"The Black Cat" is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe. It was first published in the August 19, 1843, edition of The Saturday Evening Post. In the story, an unnamed narrator has a strong affection for pets until he perversely turns to abusing them. His favorite, a pet black cat, bites him one night and the narrator punishes it by cutting its eye out and then hanging it from a tree. The home burns down but one remaining wall shows a burned outline of a cat hanging from a noose. He soon finds another black cat, similar to the first except for a white mark on its chest, but he develops a hatred for it as well. He attempts to kill the cat with an axe but his wife stops him; instead, the narrator murders his wife. He conceals the body behind a brick wall in his basement. The police soon come and, after the narrator's tapping on the wall is met with a shrieking sound, they find not only the wife's corpse but also the black cat that had been accidentally walled in with the body and alerted them with its cry.
"The Pit and the Pendulum" is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe and first published in 1842 in the literary annual The Gift: A Christmas and New Year's Present for 1843. The story is about the torments endured by a prisoner of the Spanish Inquisition, though Poe skews historical facts. The narrator of the story describes his experience of being tortured. The story is especially effective at inspiring fear in the reader because of its heavy focus on the senses, such as sound, emphasizing its reality, unlike many of Poe's stories which are aided by the supernatural. The traditional elements established in popular horror tales at the time are followed, but critical reception has been mixed. The tale has been adapted to film several times.
"The Tell-Tale Heart" is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1843. It is told by an unnamed narrator who endeavors to convince the reader of the narrator's sanity while simultaneously describing a murder the narrator committed. The victim was an old man with a filmy pale blue "vulture-eye", as the narrator calls it. The narrator emphasizes the careful calculation of the murder, attempting the perfect crime, complete with dismembering the body in the bathtub and hiding it under the floorboards. Ultimately, the narrator's actions result in hearing a thumping sound, which the narrator interprets as the dead man's beating heart.
"The Cask of Amontillado" is a short story by the American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in the November 1846 issue of Godey's Lady's Book. The story, set in an unnamed Italian city at carnival time, is about a man taking fatal revenge on a friend who, he believes, has insulted him. Like several of Poe's stories, and in keeping with the 19th-century fascination with the subject, the narrative follows a person being buried alive – in this case, by immurement. As in "The Black Cat" and "The Tell-Tale Heart", Poe conveys the story from the murderer's perspective.
"The Fall of the House of Usher" is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1839 in Burton's Gentleman's Magazine, then included in the collection Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque in 1840. The short story, a work of Gothic fiction, includes themes of madness, family, isolation, and metaphysical identities.
The Raven is the nineteenth solo studio album by American rock musician Lou Reed, released on January 28, 2003 by Sire Records. It is a concept album, recounting the short stories and poems of Edgar Allan Poe through word and song, and was based on his 2000 opera co-written with Robert Wilson, POEtry.
An Evening of Edgar Allan Poe is a 1970 film which features Vincent Price reciting four of Edgar Allan Poe's stories, directed by Kenneth Johnson, with music by Les Baxter.
"The Premature Burial" is a horror short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, published in 1844 in The Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper. Its main character expresses concern about being buried alive. This fear was common in this period and Poe was taking advantage of the public interest. The story has been adapted to a film.
Edgar Allan Poe's poem "The Raven" has been frequently referenced and parodied in contemporary culture. Immediately popular after the poem's publication in 1845, it quickly became a cultural phenomenon. Some consider it the best poem ever written. As such, modern references to the poem continue to appear in popular culture.
The Pit and the Pendulum is a 1961 horror film directed by Roger Corman, starring Vincent Price, Barbara Steele, John Kerr, and Luana Anders. The screenplay by Richard Matheson was loosely inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's 1842 short story of the same name. Set in sixteenth-century Spain, the story is about a young Englishman who visits a forbidding castle to investigate his sister's mysterious death. After a series of horrific revelations, apparently ghostly appearances and violent deaths, the young man becomes strapped to the titular torture device by his lunatic brother-in-law during the film's climactic sequence.
Murders in the Rue Morgue is a 1932 American horror film directed by Robert Florey, based on Edgar Allan Poe's 1841 short story "The Murders in the Rue Morgue". The plot is about Doctor Mirakle, a carnival sideshow entertainer and scientist who kidnaps Parisian women to mix their blood with that of his gorilla, Erik. As his experiments fail because of the quality of his victims' blood, Mirakle meets with Camille L'Espanye, and has her kidnapped and her mother murdered, leading to suspicion falling on Camille's fiance, Pierre Dupin, a medical student who has already become interested in the earlier murders.
"Hop-Frog" is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1849. The title character, a person with dwarfism taken from his homeland, becomes the jester of a king particularly fond of practical jokes. Taking revenge on the king and his cabinet for the king's striking of his friend and fellow dwarf Trippetta, he dresses the king and his cabinet as orangutans for a masquerade. In front of the king's guests, Hop-Frog murders them all by setting their costumes on fire before escaping with Trippetta.
Edgar Allan Poe has appeared in popular culture as a character in books, comics, film, and other media. Besides his works, the legend of Poe himself has fascinated people for generations. His appearances in popular culture often envision him as a sort of "mad genius" or "tormented artist", exploiting his personal struggles. Many depictions of Poe interweave elements of his life with his works, in part due to Poe's frequent use of first-person narrators, suggesting an erroneous assumption that Poe and his characters are identical.
Shadow of the Raven is the eighth album by gothic duo Nox Arcana. This time the composers Joseph Vargo and William Piotrowski honor Edgar Allan Poe, the author of "The Masque of the Red Death", "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", "The Fall of the House of Usher, "The Tell-Tale Heart" and other tales of suspense and horror, as well as the famous poem "The Raven". Nox Arcana's Shadow of the Raven was cited in the academic book Handbook of Intermediality: Literature - Image - Sound - Music in reference to the vast legacy of Poe's works in music.
Tales of Mystery & Imagination is a popular title for posthumous compilations of writings by American author, essayist and poet Edgar Allan Poe and was the first complete collection of his works specifically restricting itself to his suspenseful and related tales.
Edgar Allan Poe's 1842 short story "The Masque of the Red Death" has been depicted and referenced numerous times in popular culture.
The Raven is a 2012 American crime thriller film directed by James McTeigue, produced by Marc D. Evans, Trevor Macy and Aaron Ryder and written by Ben Livingston and Hannah Shakespeare. Set in 1849, it is a fictionalized account detailing the last days of Edgar Allan Poe's life, in which the poet and author helps the police pursue a serial killer, whose murders mirror those in his stories. While the plot of the film is fictional, the writers based it on some accounts of real situations surrounding Edgar Allan Poe's mysterious death. Poe is said to have repeatedly called out the name "Reynolds" on the night before his death, though it is unclear to whom he was referring. The film stars John Cusack, Alice Eve, Brendan Gleeson and Luke Evans. Its title derives from Poe's 1845 poem "The Raven", in a similar manner to the earlier unrelated 1935 and 1963 films.
Tales of Poe is a 2014 anthology film directed by independent filmmakers Bart Mastronardi and Alan Rowe Kelly. As of February 2019, the film has grossed over $5k from video sales.
A Midnight Visit is an Australian multi-sensory immersive theatre experience based upon the works of Edgar Allan Poe. The audience walks at their own pace through a variety of theatrically designed rooms featuring adult concepts, uneven floors, small and large spaces, and low-level lighting. Finding themselves as co-creators of their own experience, audiences are transported into a macabre dream world, and negotiate encounters with peculiar characters who sing, act, dance and even perform circus aerials.
The Fall of the House of Usher is an American gothic horror drama television miniseries created by Mike Flanagan. All eight episodes were released on Netflix on October 12, 2023, each directed by either Flanagan or Michael Fimognari, with the latter also acting as cinematographer for the entire series.