Masters of Horror episode review — 2.11 — The Black Cat

Original air date: January 19, 2007
Director: Stuart Gordon
Writers: Dennis Paoli and Stuart Gordon (short story by Edgar Allan Poe)

Rating: 7/10

I knew Jeffrey Combs has played Edgar Allan Poe on stage. I didn’t know he did on a television show as well. He looks perfect for the part, and he gives a strong performance.

It’s a fairly clever fictionalizes psychological portrait of Poe, drawing inspiration not just from “The Black Cat” but a few other Poe stories. He wants to write romantic poetry, but the only stuff he can make money off of are his stories of the macabre. And he takes inspiration for these from the fucked up events of his life.

A story like this works so well because Poe is largely quite mysterious. We know he was a drunk and we know a few other things about him, but not really where he got his inspiration, so this is pretty cool.

It’s one of the best episodes of the series, and easily the best of the somewhat weak season so far.