John Cusack takes on the role as Edgar Allen Poe when our story opens in a Baltimore pub.  He’s broke, he wants booze and the locals don’t consider him a serious writer.  Poe desperately wants his stories read but even the local newspaper keeps pushing him off to the back burner for better headlines. But alas, apparently SOMEBODY – a serial killer – is reading Poe’s work and doing a series of Murders (Se7en style) by reenacting his prose.  Suddenly Poe’s taken very seriously and he helps the law seek the killer who’s next victim will be the love of his life, Emily (Alice Eve.)

What strikes me as odd in this disjointed script, is that not only the killer has time to work, not one but two jobs, (spoiler alert) but he also has time to read!

Even stranger is that Poe’s so hell bent on fighting the crime, he forgets that he has alcoholism, and never goes back to say “Told you so” at the pub, or even buy the next round. 

Some of the casket and raven cinematography are gorgeous and some are unnecessarily gory.

Poe was my favorite high school subject in Honors English Class… Fall of the House of Usher and all of that, so the premise is smart, but the one-dimensional and not very sexy Cusack doesn’t cut it.  Where is Robert Downey Jr when we really need him?  Oh, yes, he’s that other detective. Sherlock Holmes. Two tiaras