I’d only heard of this horror anthology film a few years back thanks to a friend who saw the restored final third and raved about it. Of course, I never got the chance to check that, nor the rest of this film out until recently when the movie popped up on TCM and after a sluggish first segment, had me glued to the couch taking in the assorted sights and sounds.

Spirits of the Dead (or Histoires extraordinaires if you happen to be French and want an alternate title) is an offbeat selection of three Edgar Allan Poe stories that’s best known today for its incredible (and completely bizarre) final chapter directed by the great Federico Fellini that has to be seen to be believed. I’ll get to that below, but I need to bury one corpse and beat a dead horse for a bit… Continue reading →