Product Details

• Format: NTSC
• Region: All Regions
• Studio: Starfleet Productions, Inc.
• DVD Release Date: September 4, 2007
• Average Customer Review: 1.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000VPNQLE
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #118,196 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
True to the language of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell - Tale Heart" . Obession leads to madness. Madness leads to murder. Yet the killer feels he is quite sane.

You be the judge.

Scenes transition from glorious black and white to color in this interpretation of the macabre.

The integrity of Poe's verse is preserved and there is no visual depiction of graphic violence in this film festival favorite.

Buy this Edgar Allan Poe DVD here. View the Tell - Tale Heart DVD and learn about Great American Poets and Edgar Allan Poe stories now. The Tell - Tale Heart beats on!

This product is manufactured on demand using DVD-R recordable media. Amazon.com's standard return policy will apply.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Follows Poe for the most part in word but shows like low budget., December 31, 2007

By	Calinae (North of Denver) - See all my reviews

I am a Poe fan and was looking forward to this DVD hoping it might be a visual introduction for my children to the world of Poe. Upon previewing Mr. Collins' interpretation, I decided it did very little to intrigue the viewer to read and appreciate the works of Edgar Allan Poe. I would not pay money for this one. Maybe I set my expectations too high but with Mr. Poe's stories that IS where I start.

Warning this review could be a spoiler if you don't know the story!
I gave the DVD 2 stars because I believe this monologue was a difficult project otherwise I'd have planted but 1 star on the review. The filming, lighting and acting had to come together to set the stage for the doomed murderer to give himself away. Too many close ups of Mr. Collins and the bad make-up on the old man distracted us from the words of Mr. Poe.
The beginning shows the madman in a prison cell. So there will be no surprise at the end and thus no anticipation, no wondering the fate of the murderer.
As Mr. Collins is narrating, I become uncomfortable with repetitious facial expressions such as widening eyes and hand mannerisms. When describing the removal of the head, he adlibs a comical finger across the neck and makes the typical noise, "creechk", made when someone signals a death. That lost 2 stars then and there from me.
He paces the floor at one point and it seems as though he is looking for a mark on the floor to know when to stop and turn.
The setting is too modern for my interpretation. Either be true to the time or completely go modern and re-invent the story for today. This version got lost somewhere in the middle and lost its effectiveness.
Mr. Collins is obviously acting here, mostly overacting and is never in character. A perfect opportunity to show the madness would have been when the madman picked up the chair he was sitting on and scratches it on the planks above the old man's heart. Mr. Collins substitutes one of those round stools that spins to adjust the height and places it on a rug. To quote Poe's text "I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting, and grated it upon the boards..." The madman has anger tinged with frustration at the noise he cannot quiet but in Mr. Collins' interpretation I did not get the feeling that the madman wanted to cease the noises he heard from beneath the floor boards. That was the essence of "The TELLTale heart" and I emphasize TELL. I did get the feeling he did not want to dammage the floor of the house where this was filmed. There is no madness here.
To sum, Mr. Collins got lost somewhere between narrating and acting. He has a good voice but his mannerism and acting take away from the story.
When I read Mr. Poe's words, my heart beats with anticipation of the next move of madness. When I watched Mr. Collins, my heart ached with disappointment.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A Terrible Adaptation, October 22, 2008

By	D. Schmid "reviews for you" (New York) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This movie sucks. It strips all dignity, intrigue, and terror from the original tale and renders it laughable. The acting is absolutely horrible. The set is way too modern and untrue to the story. Why the narration is done from a prison cell and then (out of nowhere) in front of a piano in a parlor is beyond me....The narrator overacts everything and comes across as really annoying and goofy...The 'special effects' are terrible...really nothing more than bad Halloween costumes...Most of the interesting scenes are not even acted, it's just the narrator talking while in his prison cell...the occasional flashbacks seem to be chosen at random and aren't necessarily the suspenseful moments of the story...in fact the suspenseful moments are rarely acted out...I could have made this movie myself with a low grade camcorder and a make up kit....I don't know what else to say...I'm disappointed I spent my money on this and wish I hadn't. Don't pay for it. It's not worth it. By the way, the director/producer of the film also plays the narrator, and the old man (with a bad make up job) who the narrator kills....yeah, it's that kind of film.