lor_ Francis Coppola comes nearly full circle in his career with this embarrassing, juvenile horror pastiche, analogous to porn-parody in its mainstream pastiche of the genre. After breaking into show biz with soft porn, he first garnered attention 50 years ago with "Dementia 13" for Roger Corman, and unlike Corman's classic Poe adaptations of that era, Coppola's Poe pastiche here is terrible.Main failing is a complete lack of self-awareness, which often besets artists full of themselves. As indicated in the dreadful "Making of" short subject directed by his grand-daughter Gia, Francis is caught up in the craft of filmmaking, including dabbling with that ever-trendy (and pointless) gimmick 3-D, oblivious to the silliness of his script and the lousy scenes printed. Clearly living in the past of his successes, married with an ill-advised affinity for independent (and amateurish) modern filmmaking, he seems to lack the necessary self- criticism that helped him fashion classic work 40 years back.Similarly, his lead Val Kilmer is also a has-been, content with underplaying most scenes and overacting crucial emotional ones, when not indulging in idiotic impressions (the Kevin Spacey syndrome), as when egged on by Coppola to "do Mark Twain". Apparently both star and director expect to earn brownie points for not caring one whit whether they make fools of themselves.Early in the film I sensed a promising return to a type of fantasy and horror that once gave birth to the seminal classic "Lemora" starring Rainbeaux Smith, beloved by connoisseurs if not the general public. Its director Richard Blackburn was a one-hit wonder, or perhaps less since this was not a hit but more of a cult classic.But to paraphrase Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, as applied not to Dan Quayle in the political arena, but to leading lady Elle Fanning, "You're no Rainbeaux Smith". A talented young actress, Fanning is a dead space on screen here in the crucial part of the mysterious undead girl who lures Val into the story. Besides soft porn roots, Coppola in the '80s was famously a hanger-on to the Adult industry, attending annual AVN awards dinners and hob-nobbing with sexy XXX starlets. Had he chosen porn rather than horror for this 2011 backsliding exercise, he could have cast the perfect young beauty Elsa Jean or even fulfilled by dream of giving current jail-bait superstar Piper Perri a chance to show her acting chops in Elle's role.Storyline of has-been, bargain-basement Stephen King horror writer Val (character name: Hall) ordered by his publisher to come up with a "bulletproof" ending for his new novel, or else, it was sad to see how perfunctory and dissatisfying an ending triple-threat Coppola concocted for this movie. The tongue-in-cheek performances (especially by Bruce Dern as sheriff and transparent bad guy, another Corman graduate) and series of stupid scenes included a rather lame in-joke of Val's nasty and venal wife played by his real wife Joanne Whalley (ex hyphenate Kilmer in her stage name). I would have preferred Nastassja Kinski doing a snake dance. Similarly, the handling of the red-herring goth cult of youngsters dangled for us was pure cliché and even less believable than such filler as presented in '60s softcore movies.The acid test for this junker is how it would have been greeted had it not borne the prestigious Coppola name in its credits. Perhaps critics and audiences would have felt sorry for an unknown filmmaker breaking in with a failed but technically adept genre piece. But for an all-time great wasting his time and intelligence on such crap -unforgivable.

nmn34 The plot is a complete mess, I'll just get that out there immediately. At times its slow, other times silly, but it is always incoherent. Characters talk in metaphors without the audience being privy to them until ten minutes later or about technical subjects that seem irrelevant to the central plot. I still don't quite know what set up the clock tower scene myself. But I still can't bring myself to hate this movie.The reason being that so much care went into every other aspect. The art direction is first class, the ghostly dream world with its bluish gray with sharp red and yellow accents is down right beautiful. The setting is great, each location is recognizable and interesting from the vampire camp ground to the sheriff's bird house cluttered home. And in spite of having nowhere to go, so much care was put into the characters. The ghostly pallor of the dead girl drives home what she is long before the writing with just enough color to give her a somber beauty. And while the plot leaves much to be desired, the writing is excellent. The characters were written with such life in their dialogue and the narration perfectly balances being informative and entertaining. Character tropes like the drunk writer and the lazy deputy are used well, the drunken writer and the lazy deputy feel fresh where a lesser writer would make them cliché and tired.The flaw of the film was the way it handled the theme. Coppola got so caught up in his theme that the story comes off as an afterthought. As result, it takes great leaps in the hopes that you share his mindset when he is writing it. The mind set of a writer which is not a particularly common thought process. There is so much good I can't help but like the movie on some level, it just feels like that good doesn't go anywhere.And I would read the hell out of The Vampire Executioner.

alex-moreton Very strange the reviews I am reading about this film, and the harsh criticism towards the director Francis Ford Coppola. I believe they are not happy with his change of genre, it was a very unlike Francis Ford Coppola type film but also a brilliant debut in the Horror/Thriller category for him.The acting was brilliant, a return to form for Val Kilmer, a typical reliable performance from Bruce Dern as the small town Sheriff and a good performance by Ben Chaplin as Edgar Allen Poe. Also narrated by Tom Waites.The music was haunting and the dream sequences were very well done.One I would deffinatley watch again.

scarredpariah An author (Val Kilmer) known for his stories about witches, visits a creepy little town and is inspired by a quirky local sheriff (Bruce Dern) to embark on writing a tale about vampires.As far as genre and publicity goes, this movie is a misfire. It's not a horror. I'm not sure where the R-rating came from, other than a dark theme, some suggestive shots and some blood. It's not really a thriller, either. It toys with being a murder mystery, but doesn't hold up. As is often the case, the first half was fairly strong, demonstrating some great cinematography, and building some mystery, suspense, and humour, but it rapidly lost momentum. Weaving plot threads from present day, the 1950's, and the life of Poe, it fails to deliver anything really solid in any of them. It's a pastiche of Gothic horror cliché. But I hope that was the point, and I'll give it the benefit of the doubt.I interpreted the film as being an insight into the creative process of the writer rather than being confined to the expected structure of a horror/ thriller. The title suggests an in-between place that the protagonist inhabits, betwixt the inspiring images of his dream-world and the generic, lacklustre result of his attempts to bring it to life on the page. But that could be a tough sell to anyone not already familiar with that struggle.