Popular reviews

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  Review by Paul (Douglas Reese) ★★★★★ 3

  Based on Edgar Allan Poe’s story “Never Bet the Devil Your Head”, Fellini drowns the frames in overblown sepia and underwhelming blues; bouncing back and forth within a juxtaposition of unconventional edits. Dialogue comes and goes; and it’s often not even narratively relevant. We witness a man and his fame, the downfall, and other Fellini staples before we meet the devil herself in the form of a Mario Bava-influenced little girl holding a ball. Oddly funny, feverish, thought-provoking.

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  Review by Joshua Dysart ★★★½ 11

  How much Fellini could a Fellini Fellini if a Fellini could Fellini?

  Or... the Fellinist Fellini that Fellini ever Fellinied.

  This absolutely does not capture any of the essence of the Edgar Allan Poe story on which it’s based, but I love its pure distillation of the theatrical chaos and artistic self-effacement (but really self aggrandizement) that is the essence of Fellini’s entire body of work. The best movie Wes Anderson ever saw.

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  Review by Tyler ★★★★★

  Purgatorial reflections, screeching down the mangled road toward hell in a Ferrari. Life is but a walking shadow and here we finally find the poor player, strutting and fretting his hour upon the stage, until he is heard no more. Toby Dammit, the pale and gaunt, haunted and disturbed British actor trapped in a nightmarish vision of Rome, a vision that is unrelenting in its rewards, praises, and exaltations, all merely smoothing the passage to an eternal inferno. This is absolutely brilliant, Fellini at his most terse and demented, with Stamp perhaps reflecting Poe’s own delirious end in an Italian Fever of surrealism and horror. Holy hell — literally.

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  Review by Edith ★★★★½ 3

  Fellini's Faustian portrayal on Poe's short story titled, "Never Bet the Devil Your Head " is exactly what I need in my surrealism. If Poe wanted to dismantle the moral tale, then Fellini wants to dismantle modern culture. I can't always get behind his self-involved characters, but it translates to American culture so fluidly here, the emptiness and strange peculiarities of being a famous person having to take the pageantry seriously while not taking responsibility for your own act in the circus. It's all kind of a game, a dance with the devil, passed around like a commodity. You don't need to have a real audience to be admired. The allure is in the immortalization of fame for those who are already dead or want to be, trapped like waiting patrons in the opening scene at the airport; a disconnection with reality. Fellini at his finest.

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  Review by elle ★★★★ 2

  i’m anxious but also kinda turned on

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  Review by Allison M. 🌱

  Answers the question: what if Deathproof didn't have a conscience?

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  Review by dankwit

  does not depart from the uncanny valley for a split second of its runtime. top tier fellini, for me at least

  that part about the "first catholic western" had me rolling 🤣🤣

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  Review by paige ★★★★★

  the horror isn’t supernatural or the evil of man or whatever, it’s the unknowable nature of reality & the overwhelming feeling of chaotic directionlessness & the fundamental lack of control over your world or yourself.

  what would be the threat in another film is here a means of escape from the nightmare of conscious existence.

  pretty wild.

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  Review by Deckk ★★

  100-word review: My first introduction to renowned Italian filmmaker Fellini comes in the form of this short, experimental Edgar Allan Poe adaptation, which is tagged 'horror', but isn't very horrifying, nor as great as I expected given the positive average rating, though part of that is because I continue to get lured into these kinda films with great anticipation, only to find out time and again that they aren't really for me. Haven't read much Poe, but if he's indeed the O.G. emo boy, than this has his mark on it indeed. I did like individual stretches, like the TV interview.

  Part of the September & October 2022 Hooptober 9.0 challenge; 25th out of 31 films.

  6 countries [Italy] (6/6)
  8…

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  Review by PopcornIdeology ★★★½ 1

  Fellini + Edgar Allen Poe = Cool

  
  7.0 / 10

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  Review by saint judas fonda ★★★★½ 1

  Bleach blonde gay alcoholic satanist representation.

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  Review by dmartsfilm ★★★

  Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
  Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
  To the last syllable of recorded time;
  And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
  The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
  Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
  That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
  And then is heard no more. It is a tale
  Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
  Signifying nothing.
   
  2nd Fellini film! It’s a hallucinatory journey to Fellini’s hell basically. Chaotic and haunting all the same.