INDEPENDENT MOVIE REVIEWS:
THE TELL TALE HEART

TRUE!---nervous----very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? THE TELL TALE HEART is an Edgar Allen Poe inspired tale from the story of the same name, however it follows the story very loosely and is a modern retelling of the madness and depravity in the mind and soul of the lead character.

The movie opens with Sally telling her uninterested therapist about killing someone. He doodles on paper and takes a phone call and ignores her completely. She is a functioning schizophrenic and tells her lover about her history of mental illness, but he has something to show her about himself... He comes into the kitchen dressed and made up completely in drag with a knife raised ready for the kill, but her shock is more so and she pummels him upside the head and kills him.

She takes care of her landlord and even collects the rent for him. His eyesight is going and he cannot see much except for an outline of her. After she collects the rent from the building tenants, she dares sneak a peak in on the sleeping man with a flashlight. No vulture eye to greet us, but her wheels are spinning... She cannot stop thinking about him and is trying to erase him from her thoughts. He is invading her mind and making her uncomfortable. She realizes she can do anything around him and he probably wouldn't know it.

Everytime she sees her therapist he gets on the phone and laughs annoyingly. All she wants is someone to see here and care about her. She wants a man in her life and she wants love. She meets a man and brings him all and is ready to sleep with him, but he wants to talk. Irritatingly, she goes ahead and talks with him, but learns there is more to him than just the sex. They speak about killing and his experience as a police officer and the time he had to kill someone. She thinks she loves him.

While lying in bed alone she has visions of killing the old man in a variety of ways and this excites her. She takes her medication and ventures another look see in on the old man with her flashlight, this time coming extremely close so as to be right next to him.

A plan is forming in her mind and she executes it with perfection. First step is dinner with her new boyfriend, where she slips something into his wine that leaves him knocked out on the floor. She sets him up in bed and pretends that they had a good night. He is none the wiser to her little deed. He loves her.

Next up, the old man is smothered and chopped up with a chainsaw. She tells her therapist who does not believe her. Her world is crumbling around her in varying levels of insanity. She is normal at times, and at others, she's gone.

As her and her boyfriend grow closer, her deeds begin to unravel. Their relationship deteriorates and when he is packing to leave her, she hears the old man's heart beating...which leads to a wild ending!!!

Production Notes

Director, Writer and Producer Dave Lawler serves up this wicked little movie from Damned Productions and Prankworks Limited.

Delivered entirely in black and white with an artsy edge throughout. The story worked on the art level, but did not hit me where I wanted. Inspired by the Poe tale, it did not hit the parts of the tale that I like best.

Nevertheless you have a solid tale that is very artistic and inspirational to get out there and do it! Some of the highlights are the camera angles and movements that take the movie into what I would deem the "art world" type of movie. We have camera set ups that look straight at the actors and get you into the madness of their minds.

Our favorite bit in the movie is a sequence where Dorothy recites lines from THE RAVEN with her boyfriend! A great and fun telling of the poem!

THE TELL TALE HEART! Check it out at:

http://www.telltaleheart.net

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