Review of Spirits of the Dead (1968) by Tim S — 03 Nov 2008

Not quite a horror film, Spirits of the Dead is an anthology of Poe stories with unsettling supernatural elements. The first, "Metzengerstein", features Jane Fonda as a cruel, depraved countess who falls in love with her cousin (played by Peter Fonda in a bit of interesting casting). After he spurns her, she inadvertently kills him when she orders a stooge to burn down his barn. Soon after, a mysterious black stallion shows up and the countess becomes fatally obsessed. Directed by Fonda's then husband, Roger Vadim, this segment is basically a travelogue of her body (like Barbarella) as she flounces about in revealing outfits (like Barbarella). It is enjoyable though, but a pity in a story involving horseback riding that Fonda is unable to ride - all that awkward sitting trot looks really painful!

Louis Malle directs the second segment, "William Wilson". Wilson, played by Alain Delon, tells his story in the confessional box to a reluctant priest: all his life, he, William Wilson, has been haunted by another William Wilson, almost his twin, who has foiled him at every step of his life. This sounds bad, but William Wilson, the protagonist, is a cruel monster - a sadistic sociopath - whose every evil act has been stopped by his doppelganger. Brigitte Bardot appears as a mysterious card player who humiliates Wilson until he turns the table by cheating. I love those gambling scenes in films - like in James Bond - where you haven't the faintest idea what the rules of the game are. (It's interesting to note that in the Austrian army it was okay to flog a woman, but a disgrace to cheat at cards.) Eventually, Wilson kills his twin - with curiousl results.

Although Vadim and Malle's segments are good, they lack the fever dream style of Poe's writing, whose stories were often told in the first person by an unreliable, and sometimes frankly insane, narrator. Fellini's "Toby Dammit", based on Poe's "Never Bet the Devil Your Head" comes closest to that style using Fellini's trademark throw everything in the blender mix of religion and pop culture references. In the original story, a carefree young man bets a stranger he can jump over a turnstile on a covered bridge. Despite his friend's warning, he does jump the turnstile, but there is a sharp metal bar at neck height above it. The stranger leaves with Toby Dammit's head.

Fellini's adaptation is loose at best. His Toby Dammit, played wonderfully by a gaunt, haunted-eyed Terrence Stamp, is a British actor, lately more often crawling into a bottle than treading the boards, who is hired to play Jesus Christ in a spaghetti western with the bait of a free Ferrari. Unlike in the story, Dammit already seems to know the Devil - who appears to him in the guise of a young girl, dressed all in white, playing with a white ball - but it is never explained how. The ending is similar, but different in motive. Actually, two of the segments change the death of their protagonists from mysterious accident to something more like suicide (I guess that's progress). The cinematography of this segment is mind-blowingly good and, alas, completely unique. Nino Rota's score is also excellent.