The Tomb (AKA Ligeia)

The Tomb (2009)

The Tomb (AKA Legia), is a 2009 horror film that is "based on" the Edgar Allen Poe short story Legia.  I put based on quotes because, say that it is based on the short story is a far stretch, I'm not even sure if "inspired by" is the proper phrase for this film.  The Tomb is directed by Michael Staininger with a screenplay by John Shirley.  The movie was filmed primarily in the Russia and the Ukraine, as well as some scenes around St. Louis Missouri.   The film stars Wes Bently as a poet and professor named Johnathan, Kaitlin Doubleday plays Johnathan's girlfriend Rowena, Sofia Skya plays Ligea a mysterious and dark woman who steals the souls of people and steals Johnathan from Rowena, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa plays Len Burris who is a higher up at the university that Johnathan works at, Mackenzie Rosman plays Loreli who is a young girl who is the niece of the caretaker of Legia's castle in Russia.  The film also features film veterans Micheal Madsen and Eric Roberts in small roles.   

What this film does right:  This film is full of beautiful people, and beautiful sets, and has some wonderful artistic shots, and some beautiful costumes.   What this film does very wrong is almost everything else.  The story telling is boring, there is a lack of any type of action.   The story strays so far from the original concept of Poe's short story that it is unrecognizable, and brings nothing original or enjoyable to the story.  The story relies on sex and sexiness to sell the film, which works, but that doesn't make for a good film, it takes more than beautiful sets, beautiful art, and sexy women in sexy outfits to be a quality film, there MUST be a good story.  I appreciate that the director tries to tell the story through story rather than through action effects, but you must have a story that actually is worth telling.   This film has no real substance, and is just dull.   That being said some of the actors gave some decent performances, especially young Machenzie Rosman, and Kaitlin Doubleday.  Sofia Skya had moments when she was decent, but she didn't feel real or authentic, and felt fake and artificial.  Of the primary stars I feel like Wes Bently was absolutely terrible, he was unlikeable, he was wooden and lacking real human emotion and empathy.  He felt stiff and fake, and was just painful to watch. 

I like bad films, and honestly the film cover looked like it might be a fun bad film, but what this film lacked was the fun, even any sense of actual horror was lacking from this film.  The main actor was absolutely terrible, and story was long and drawn out with no suspense, no intrigue, nothing to create any sense of actual horror.  It also didn't bother to make up for it with gore or action or even gratuitous sex and nudity...nothing to actually make up for the doldrum of the film.  To sum up the film, it would be best to say pretty but absolutely boring.  I don't think that this is a film worth watching, even for those who love bad low budget films.   I know that this is Michael Staininger's first feature film that he directed, and I can only hope that from here on out he got better at directing.  I think I would rather have preferred to actually see a film adaptation of the Poe story, rather than...whatever this is.

So if you are looking for a good bad horror film, don't get tempted by this film, no matter how appealing the packaging might look.