Horror

The Tomb

Jeff Most Productions

Lamplight Films

Poe Vision

Yalta Film Studio

Ukraine

United States of America

English

Wes Bentley

Kaitlin Doubleday

Sofya Skya

Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa

Mackenzie Rosman

Joel Lewis

Christa Campbell

Michael Madsen

Eric Roberts

Lydia Hull

Stephanie Reuter

Jessica Graves Davis

Meredith Byrd

Jessica Kunze

Tina Morrison

Ashley Vazquez

Anastasia Belyaeva

Jamie Zamudio

Yekaterina Fedorchenko

Ashley Salazar

Scott Stoltz

Josh Faulkner

Jeff Most

Joe Hanrahan

Michael Staininger

Shannon Makhanian

Rosemary Welden

Patrick Cassidy

Danny Saphire

Michal Shemesh

Cat Dawson

Jim Tudor

Mandi Line

Lisa Brockman-Kalz

Marie Fink

Edgar Allan Poe

Anthony E. Cabral

Randall Emmett

John Shirley

Tim Stephens

Nicholas Gartner

Paolo Cascio

John Sennott

Richard Speed

Chris Benson

Elena Antzon

Greg Goad

David A. Davidson

Brian S.M. Wroth

Frazier Eades

Rick Owens

Steven Avila

Peter D. Lago

Alexander Pugh

Jason Shaffer

Trip Brock

Andrey Novikov

**_Eerie cinematic style and beauty with Wes Bentley_**

An engaged professor at Washington University in eastern Missouri (Bentley) finds himself attracted to a mysterious woman of dark beauty (Sofya Skya) as the shadowy events wind up near the Black Sea.   

“The Tomb” (2009), also known as “Edgar Allan Poe's Ligeia,” is loosely based on Poe’s macabre short story from 1838. It transfers the characters to the modern day while switching the locations from England (as well as the Rhine in the heart of Europe) to greater St. Louis in middle America and Ukraine on the Black Sea.

If you want gory horror, I’d give this a pass. It’s more artistic and Gothic in the manner of “Bram Stoker’s Dracula,” “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein,” “THE ETERNAL Kiss of the Mummy” (1998) and Coppola’s later “B’Twixt Now and Sunrise” (aka “Twixt”). Costing $8.8 million, it lacks the blockbuster budget of the first two, but it had a little more money to work with compared to the latter two, which cost $4 million and $7 million respectively (not factoring inflation).

Like those four films, the sumptuous Gothic ambiance is worth the price of admission. There's a dark, mysterious beauty to the proceedings, which makes the flick a pleasure to watch even if the story is confusing, dreary or dull, as some criticize. It’s clear that the writer & director were aiming for art more than common horror thrills.
 
Blonde beauty Kaitlin Doubleday is a highlight as Rowena, as is petite brunette Mackenzie Rosman as Lorelei. While the latter might look 15-16 years-old, she was actually almost 19 during shooting. Raven-haired Sofya is yet another highlight, of course.

Lastly, Wes reads Poe’s poem “The Conqueror Worm” during the end credits, which is a nice touch. It’s followed by the quality song “Ligeia’s Bed” by Jon Kahn and star Sofya Skya.

The film runs 1 hour, 28 minutes, and was shot in the St. Louis area of Missouri (Washington University, University City, Kirkwood and Maplewood), as well as Crimea, Ukraine, which is the peninsula on the north-central coast of the Black Sea.

GRADE: B/B-

The Tomb (US release) previously Ligeia Trailer HD

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