Popular reviews

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  Review by Chip ★★★★ 1

  Part 1: Jane Fonda orgasms on a horse that may the reincarnated spirit of her brother while in the middle of a fire caused by lightning.

  Part 2: Alain Delon sword fights with himself (not a euphemism).

  Part 3: Terrence Stamp gets fucking shit faced in a Fellini movie.

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  Review by Richard Chandler ★★★★ 12

  "It's the first Catholic Western, Christ's return to the bleak, desolate prairie."

  I don't have much experience when it comes to omnibus films, nor am I particularly versed in the tradition of American International Pictures (though I've read a little bit about Roger Corman). It's fair to say I'm also not the world's biggest Edgar Allan Poe fan. Nonetheless I've long wanted to catch up with AIP's post-Corman-Poe cycle cash grab Spirits of the Dead as part of my piecemeal effort to become a Louis Malle completist. Moreover, I'd heard (from Vincent Canby—but still) that Federico Fellini's segment was a major work unto itself, and I could get a taste of Roger Vadim without having to sit through one of…

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  Review by cuckoochanel ★★★★ 8

  SHOCKtober Day 16 of 31

  The three-part omnibus film, Spirits of the Dead, directed in succession by Roger Vadim, Louis Malle and Federico Fellini is a collection of shorts adapted from three stories in Edgar Allan Poe’s first collection (though none of the directors actually tackle the titular tale).

  METZENGERSTEIN- dir. Roger Vadim

  Jane Fonda shocks and seduces as the debauched nymphomaniac Metzengerstein, who inherits her noble family’s fortune and estates—quickly thereafter hosting lavish, lascivious orgies and feasts reminiscent of a medieval forerunner to Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, stalking about the castle in sexy bodysuits and pubis-high boots with her leopard cub, and by turns tormenting and obsessively loving her contemplative, dignified cousin who shuns her frivolous existence.…

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  Review by eely ★★ 2

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

  don’t you hate it when you fuck your cousin and he turns out to be a horse

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  Review by Finny! ★★★★★ 32

  ''Do you consider yourself neurotic?''

  Roger Vadim uses a leopard to show the passage of time.

  Louis Malle invents a ridiculous card game.

  Then Fellini just comes out of nowhere with Toby Dammit.
  A film in which a perpetually drunk Terrance Stamp stumbles around looking at pretty people, hallucinating little girls, and complaining about being rich and famous.
  Lurid colours, baroque lighting, and pure gothic attitude.
  A wild, decadent, gloriously excessive piece of pulp.
  It's a ridiculous, gorgeous masterpiece.

  Yes, another one.

  Does Fellini make anything but?

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  Review by Dr. Ethan Lyon ★★★ 4

  2nd Roger Vadim (after Blood and Roses), 3rd Louis Malle (after Elevator to the Gallows and Lacombe, Lucien), 7th Federico Fellini (after Amarcord, 8 1/2, La Dolce Vita, Juliet of the Spirits, The White Sheik and Ginger & Fred)

  Three stars are not a representation of the quality of individual segments. Two of these are pretty average. One is a bona fide masterpiece. Rare have I found the disparity between separate sections as wide as here. Spirits... is adapted from three Edgar Allen Poe stories by three different directors and with three different casts:

  'Metzengerstein': Roger Vadim's entry is a rather lacklustre affair that fails because Jane Fonda tries to play a sexy evil countess. Jane Fonda can be very sexy.…

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  Review by threepenny ★★½ 3

  Three of Edgar Allen Poe's lesser known stories brought to some kind of shambling form of half life! For one thing, I don't believe these are Poe stories at all, because if they were, where is Vincent Price? So clearly, suspect right out of the gate. And then there's the stories:

  1. I'm pretty sure Roger Vadim's short is adapted from Poe's "Black Beauty is my Brother". Don't quote me on this. I'm just grateful that Vadim's hot wife kink where you can almost see his hand from off screen pushing Jane Fonda into various threesomes didn't extend to her straddling her brother Peter, at least not until he turned into a ghost horse. The Fondas were at their peak…

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  Review by nobunobu

  I wanna live in a world where Alain Delon exists twice.

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  Review by Graham ★★★½ 2

  Tour de France Challenge - 33. Brigitte Bardot

  In which Edgar Allan Poe's Tales of Mystery and Imagination is used as the creative soup for a bevy of all-timer directors to illustrate the frightening beauty of Terence Stamp, Brigitte Bardot, Jane Fonda and Alain Delon.

  Tales of mystic debauchery, medieval madness and men in tights abound and all the while, masters of their craft dress the screen in ethereal visions of wonderment. Bold costumery and colour-soaked sets come together in a film that often feels more 70s than 60s with its leopards and parrots, daggers and ghostly premonitions. A smorgasbord of stylistic choices and visual stimulation vying for attention result in an uneven set of films that weirdly, just really…

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  Review by noir1946 ★★

  The verdict on Spirits of the Dead has been nearly unanimous since its release. It’s one-third spirited and two-thirds deadly.

  From my one previous viewing, I remember Vadim’s “Metzengerstein” being the weakest of the three, but it’s more boring and sillier than I recalled. Countessa Frederique de Metzengerstein (Jane Fonda) is a reckless decadent. Then she causes something really bad to happen and becomes obsessed with a horse. Then she is punished in a that’s-it? conclusion. A better punishment might have been to have her write her name on the blackboard a hundred times, given its length. A touch of kink is added to the kinky goings-on by having Jane’s bro Pete play the cousin with whom Freddi becomes obsessed.…

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  Review by Tom Morton ★★★★½ 2

  Three Poe adaptations and no premature burials? That's unpossible! This is one of those films that I've let linger on my shelves for years because I never really felt in the mood for it, but to my surprise it's actually of the most unusual, consistent and best anthology films I've seen so far - all three directors do great work with their (increasingly tenuous) Poe adaptations and the end result is a real treat.

  Roger Vadim's opening segment is all style and no substance, but Jane Fonda's ridiculous outfits and the presence of some kind of adorable leopard kitten make the absence of any real plot a formality. Federico Fellini's gloriously strange closing segment is almost entirely disinterested in adapting…

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  Review by Filipe Furtado ★★★

  Toby Dammitt remains a fascinating descente from the gutter of popular cinema towards a very subjective hell. Almost as well imagined than the one in This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse. Some of Rotunno's best work. The less said about the other two movies the better.