I have to preface this by saying I’ve been a fan of Gothic Horror short stories since my early teen years.
I poured over Edgar Allan Poe, Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, Oscar Wilde, and Anne Rice’s works.
In fact, most of those anthologies, novels, and works of poetry are still in my personal library today.
So, to hear about “The Pale Blue Eye” and its use of Poe as a character I was naturally interested in seeing it.
Cue it dropping on Netflix last week and me watching it immediately!
Overall, the tone, setting, and filmography suit a Gothic Horror theme very well.
I just found the ending to be too weak and now that I know it’s based on a book I’m going to have to check it out of our local library to see how closely the two media are aligned.
After all, sometimes the book is just better than the movie, or vice versa.
Some folks might also have problems with how slowly the film builds up, too.
I just have to say stick it out all the way to the end!
The Pale Blue Eye is a mystery thriller film written and directed by Scott Cooper, adapted from the 2003 novel of the same name by Louis Bayard.
It features an ensemble cast including Christian Bale and Harry Melling as Landor and Poe, with Gillian Anderson, Lucy Boynton, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Toby Jones, Harry Lawtey, Simon McBurney, Timothy Spall, Hadley Robinson, Steven Maier, Fred Hechinger, Joey Brooks, and Robert Duvall.
The film clocks in at 128 minutes long and is rated R for some violent content and bloody images.
In 1830, retired veteran detective Augustus Landor (Bale) is asked by the military to investigate an incident at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York.
Landor is a widower who lives alone since his daughter Mathilde (Robinson) ‘ran off’ a couple of years previously.
A cadet, Leroy Fry (Maier), has been found hanged.
However, surprisingly, his heart was removed from his body as it lay in the morgue.
The senior officers at the Academy wish Landor to find out who did this and why.
Landor makes his way through the events of the night before, speaking to cadets along the way.
He even visits the tree where Fry was found hanging and tests the rope himself before exploring more tangents of the murder.
While personally examining the corpse, Landor finds a small fragment of a note clutched tightly in the hand of the dead cadet.
Also, marks on Fry’s neck and fingers suggest that he did not hang himself, but was murdered.
With the officers’ permission, Landor enlists the help of Edgar Allan Poe (Melling), another cadet at the academy who has expressed an interest in the case.
Poe and Landor deduce from the writing on the note fragment that it was summoning Fry to a secret meeting.
After a cow and a sheep are found in the area, butchered and with their hearts removed, it is deduced that the murder could be linked to black magic rituals.
Another cadet, Randolph Ballinger (Hechinger), goes missing and is later found hanged, with both his heart and his genitals removed.
Things turn desperate for Landor as his skills are called into question and he urges Poe to seek out occult practitioners in the academy.
Overall, the film does a nice job of building suspense with the slow layering of events and interactions, but the ending left me aggravated.
So, if you’re into period-piece murder mysteries then give this a watch.
If not, you aren’t missing out on much though.
