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Movies / On DVD / Spirits of the Dead
Spirits of the Dead

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Spirits of the Dead (1969)

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Reviews Counted:16

Fresh:14

Rotten:2

Average Rating:6.5/10

Runtime: 2 hrs 1 min

Genre: Foreign Films

Synopsis: With SPIRITS OF THE DEAD, three titans of European cinema--Roger Vadim, Louis Malle, and Federico Fellini--team up for a stylish film based on the works of macabre author Edgar Allan Poe. Vadim... With SPIRITS OF THE DEAD, three titans of European cinema--Roger Vadim, Louis Malle, and Federico Fellini--team up for a stylish film based on the works of macabre author Edgar Allan Poe. Vadim directs the first segment, METZENGERSTEIN, with Jane Fonda portraying the spoiled, vicious Frederique. When she finally meets her neighbor, Baron Wilhelm (played by her brother Peter), her advances toward him are met with rejection. Humiliated, she takes matters into her own hands, leading her into a downward spiral with a tragic ending. Malle takes the middle slot with WILLIAM WILSON, featuring Alain Delon as the troubled hero, a man who has been haunted since childhood by a man with his exact name. After torturing a gorgeous woman (Brigitte Bardot), a final duel brings William's ghosts home once and for all. Last but not least is Fellini's segment, a story set in the 1970s entitled TOBY DAMMIT, which stars Terence Stamp as a spacey English actor who travels to Rome in order to play Christ in a New Testament Western. When he gets the keys to a brand-new Ferrari, he embarks on a dangerous drive that just might cost him his life. SPIRITS OF THE DEAD is a real gem for those who enjoy the surreal and grotesque. [More]

Starring: Brigitte Bardot, Jane Fonda, Terence Stamp, Peter Fonda

Starring: Brigitte Bardot, Jane Fonda, Terence Stamp, Peter Fonda, Alain Delon

Director: Federico Fellini, Louis Malle, Roger Vadim

Director: Federico Fellini, Louis Malle, Roger Vadim
Story: Edgar Allan Poe
Composer: Nino Rota

[See More Credits]

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Release:

Jul 21, 1998

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Reviews for Spirits of the Dead

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1 - 17 (sorted by date)
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None of the three European director's stories catches the macabre flavor of Poe.

Full Review Source: Ozus' World Movie Reviews | comment Comment
01/05/09
Dennis Schwartz
Dennis Schwartz
Ozus' World Movie Reviews
N/R

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Combustible Celluloid | comment Comment
07/28/08
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Combustible Celluloid

Intriguing and mostly successful.

Full Review Source: Empire Magazine | comment Comment
09/25/07
Empire Magazine

If the other two stories had also been done by Fellini, the whole offering might have been much better.

Full Review Source: TV Guide's Movie Guide | comment Comment
08/29/06
TV Guide's Movie Guide

Episode 3, however -- this is the one people talk about when they talk about Spirits of the Dead. Federico Fellini's 'Toby Dammit' stars Terence Stamp in a piece that's a Fellini film festival in miniature.

Full Review Source: DVDJournal.com | comment Comment
04/05/06
Mark Bourne
Mark Bourne
DVDJournal.com

Only Fellini (Toby Dammit) really manages to make much of his source.

Full Review Source: Time Out | comment Comment
02/09/06
Time Out

No review available.

comment Comment
06/19/05
Emanuel Levy
Emanuel Levy
EmanuelLevy.Com

[Toby Dammit] is marvelous: a short movie but a major one. The Vadim is as overdecorated and shrill as a drag ball, but still quite fun, and the Malle, based on one of Poe's best stories, is simply tedious.

Full Review Source: New York Times | comment Comment
05/09/05
Vincent Canby
Vincent Canby
New York Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

No review available.

comment Comment
01/14/05
Daniel M. Kimmel
Daniel M. Kimmel
Worcester Telegram & Gazette

Horrific? Not really. But interesting to watch.

comment Comment
07/02/04
Widgett Walls
Widgett Walls
Needcoffee.com

See it for Fellini's hilarious "Toby Dammit" sequence. (Elsewhere Jane and Peter Fonda play lovers...)

comment Comment
03/10/04
Jake Euker
Jake Euker
F5 (Wichita, KS)

The Fellini part is brilliant. The rest is not.

comment Comment
10/01/03
Ken Hanke
Ken Hanke
Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC)

It offers pleasures above and beyond its status as a relic of a groovier and exponentially more swinging era.

Full Review Source: AV Club | comment Comment
03/19/03
Nathan Rabin
Nathan Rabin
AV Club

While Spirits of the Dead doesn’t do much justice to Poe’s source material, fans of bizarre French cinema should have a pretty good time.

Full Review Source: Apollo Guide | comment Comment
05/08/02
Scott Weinberg
Scott Weinberg
Apollo Guide

As far as psychological horror goes, the films work well, and that they realize Poe’s stories were mainly internalized distortions of the world works to their advantage, even as they approach the material in vastly different ways.

Full Review Source: MovieMartyr.com | comment Comment
03/05/02
Jeremy Heilman
Jeremy Heilman
MovieMartyr.com

more of an interesting exercise in literary adaptation than a fully satisfying work of art

Full Review Source: Q Network Film Desk | comment Comment
12/02/01
James Kendrick
James Kendrick
Q Network Film Desk

Not what I would have expected... but hey, we are defined by our contradictions, no?

Full Review Source: Filmcritic.com | comment Comment
11/26/01
Christopher Null
Christopher Null
Filmcritic.com
 
 
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