Poor Edgar Allen Poe. While many of his stories have been adapted to film, few of them have actually been all that good. Most of them manage to appeal to a cult audience, but it just doesn’t appear that it’s possible to stay true to Poe’s decaying landscape of mental instability on film.
Take the latest adaptation of Poe’s work: Tell-Tale. Departing from the story of a remarkably insane narrator who becomes obsessed with the murder of an old man (even after the old man is dead), the movie will tell the story of a single father who undergoes a heart transplant and then begins a hunt for the heart donor’s murderer, afraid the killer will be following the heart to a new victim (which, obviously, means coming after him). That story barely qualifies as being “inspired by” Poe’s classic tale.
Despite the differences, there is some hope for Tell-Tale. Actor Josh Lucas has signed on to play the lead in the film according to The Hollywood Reporter. Even in cheesy vehicles like Poseidon, Lucas has proven to be entertaining. If nothing else, it’ll be fun to see the actor play this part. For true Poe-fans, however, a change of title might be nice to avoid overly high expectations.
