The Tomb (2009)

**_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-