The Purloined Letter

A short film adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's "Cask of Amontillado," in which a man recounts taking revenge upon an old friend by using the lure of a rare wine. It is a dark thriller exploring the shift in power between friends.

The Black Cat intensifies the series’ horror bent: this chapter zeroes in on the violent, disturbing aspects of Poe’s “The Black Cat,” interpreted by three directors with a more graphic, visceral approach than prior entries.

After a road accident in Hungary, the American honeymooners Joan and Peter and the enigmatic Dr. Werdegast find refuge in the house of the famed architect Hjalmar Poelzig, who shares a dark past with the doctor.

Edgar Allan Poe’s ill-fated hero meets his double.

A man takes up residence with a mysterious marquis and is soon persuaded to enter into an asylum for preventative therapy. Things are not what they seem, and the marquis may be even more sinister than what the young man might have predicted.

Convinced that his family is tainted by generations of evil, Roderick Usher is hellbent on stopping his sister Madeline’s wedding to prevent the cursed Usher bloodline from expanding. When her fiancé Philip Winthrop arrives at the crumbling estate to claim his bride, Roderick goes to ruthless—even deadly—lengths to keep them apart.

A European prince terrorizes the local peasantry while using his castle as a refuge against the "Red Death" plague that stalks the land.

Go back to the place where it all began, in the midst of a dreary night -- the kind the ghosts of our past (that come back to haunt us) find irresistible. Relive this poetic, frightening, and sad tale of love and soul forever lost in a charming, new light.

When several women are found mutilated and murdered, the Paris police are baffled as to who the killer may be. All evidence points to Dupin, but soon it becomes apparent that it is someone (or something) stronger and deadlier than a human.

When a cynical journalist accepts a wager that he won't survive the night in a haunted castle, it unlocks an odyssey of sexual torment, undead vengeance, and a dark seductress who surrenders the gravest of pleasures.

Anthology film from three European directors based on stories by Edgar Allan Poe: a cruel countess haunted by a ghostly horse, a sadistic young man haunted by his double, and an alcoholic actor haunted by the Devil.

Nine tales of human cruelty, nine tales of human depravity, nine tales of true horror

Upon arriving at the dilapidated estate of his mentor, Dr. Harker finds his former professor, Dr. Usher, radically changed. Instead of the reasoned scholar he once knew, a paranoid man is in his place and he's spiraling into madness.

Verden Fell is shattered after the death of his lovely wife. But, after an unexpected encounter with Lady Rowena Trevanion, Fell soon finds himself married again. Nevertheless, his late wife's spirit seems to hang over the dilapidated abbey that Fell shares with his new bride. Lady Rowena senses that something is amiss and, when she investigates, makes a horrifying discovery -- learning that Fell's dead wife is closer than she ever imagined possible.

A mentally unbalanced man is obsessed with the idea that a black cat is possessed. He tortures and kills it. Later, he comes to believe that the cat has returned from the dead to kill him.

The Black Cat, set in 1840 Philadelphia, has the great writer Edgar Allan Poe, struggling with alcoholism, writers block, as well as being out of ideas, short on cash, and tormented by his wife Virginia's black cat that will either destroy his life or inspire him to write one of his most famous stories.

Disturbing circumstances surrounding a portrait in a chateau

A song cycle about love, death, and whiskey. A camera breaks and four friends drink in an interwoven tale spanning seven centuries, with a murderous sister, a treehouse astronomer, a bear, a subway, and the ghost of Thelonious Monk.

For the past 40 years, Jan Svankmajer (Faust, Conspirators of Pleasure) has been hailed as one of cinema's most consistently surprising, wildly imaginative, and remarkable surrealists of our time. Utilizing a delirious combination of puppets, humans, stop-motion animation, and live action, Svankmajer's films conjure up a dreamlike universe that is at once dark, macabre, witty, and perversely visceral. KimStim (and Kino) is proud to to offer this collection of remarkable short works from an artist that has mesmerized audiences the world over and has inspired filmmakers from the Brothers Quay to Tim Burton and Terry Gilliam.

Descend into the dark world and tragic life of the melancholy author who is the uncontested master of the macabre, and hear excerpts from his famous works.