“The Raven”
re-animated

Horror icons Stuart Gordon and Jeffrey
Combs bring a one-man Poe show and an
uncut Re-Animator to Fantasia

APPETITE FOR SELF-DESTRUCTION: Combs as Edgar Allan Poe

by ERIK LEIJON

Longtime film and TV collaborators Stuart Gordon and Jeffrey Combs (the director and star, respectively, of horror cult classic Re-Animator) were adapting American writer Edgar Allan Poe’s macabre short story “The Black Cat” for the television series Masters of Horror in 2007 when Gordon found inspiration for a new pet project. Having hooked up 25 years ago for Re-Animator, the duo had done just about everything imaginable in show business together except for theatre, which, oddly enough, is where both men started their careers.

Now, a year after its original run in Los Angeles, Nevermore: An Evening With Edgar Allan Poe was conceived as a vehicle for Combs’ frighteningly spot-on portrayal of the famously short-lived and hard-luck author. The one-man play was also designed to shed light on the still misunderstood legend, precisely two centuries after his birth.

“Jeffrey refers to him as the American Van Gogh,” says Gordon, who, along with Combs and screenplay writer Dennis Paoli (also of Re-Animator fame), exhaustively went over Poe’s personal letters, literary criticisms and even reviews of his recitals—the format Nevermore is based on. “His life was so tragic: his mother died when he was two, he married his 13-year-old first cousin and she died a similar way to his mother. He was disowned by his stepfather and basically lived in abject poverty his whole life. He was a brilliant guy who couldn’t catch a break.”

“He was a very complex guy, and all most people get is the ghoulish stuff,” Combs adds. “Poe in his own life wanted to be known first and foremost as a poet, and he was really just writing stories to get by. I think after a while someone famous like that becomes more of a caricature than a person, and hopefully with Nevermore, we can put some colour back into him.”

STILL SHOCKING: Combs in Re-Animator

HARD OUT THERE FOR AN IMP

Nevermore is hardly a museum piece, they point out. Combs might be a dead ringer and Poe’s most famous works, “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Raven” are recited, but not unlike Poe’s actual live appearances before his mysterious death in 1849, Combs says Nevermore uncomfortably includes Poe’s tendency “to self-destruct on stage.” He was a wretched alcoholic, and even the old reviews of Poe’s performances were contradictory, leading Gordon and Combs to believe his on-stage behaviour was pretty erratic.

“Some articles said he was very soft-spoken, others said he was like an actor declaiming in a very theatrical way,” says Gordon. “There are also stories of him lighting a single candle and being the only illumination for his reading, which we’ve incorporated.” In keeping with authenticity, Combs performs the 90-minute play without interruption and sometimes interacts with the audience.

“Poe once wrote about the Imp of the Perverse, the tendency when things are going well to do something to screw it all up, and that really is what happens over the evening,” the 55-year-old actor says.

In honour of Re-Animator’s 25th anniversary, Fantasia will be hosting a midnight screening of the uncut version with both men and Paoli in attendance. Gordon and Combs are delighted that Re-Animator—in which Combs plays a scientist who brings back humans from the dead with horrific consequences—remains such a cult favourite with horror fans, even as more violent and gory movies hit silver screens. Gordon is especially proud his film is still considered shocking and has attracted an influx of new fans, too young to remember the film’s original theatrical run. They’ve both witnessed their horror fans make the transition with them to theatre, leading to Nevermore crowds that Gordon says combine “blue-haired ladies of the theatre with tattooed and pierced young men in black t-shirts.”

Last January, Combs had the honour of performing Nevermore in Baltimore, at the chapel of the graveyard where Poe is buried. It was there that Combs had an unforgettable experience that Gordon insists led to perhaps his friend’s greatest acting performance yet. Combs recalls: “To get from dressing room to backstage, I had to walk by his grave. Going to the stage, I stopped in front of it, and I swear I heard in my head, ‘Do it for Virginia’—his wife.”

SEE NEVERMORE AT THE RIALTO
THEATRE ON SATURDAY, JULY 17 OR
SUNDAY, JULY 18, 8 P.M., $15. RE-ANIMATOR
SCREENS AT THE HALL THEATRE
ON FRIDAY, JULY 16, MIDNIGHT, $8.
INFO: FANTASIAFESTIVAL.COM.