NinjaAssassin

While the concept of a feature length adaptation of Edgar Allen Poe's poem "The Raven" sounds more suitable for an episode of the Simpsons than a feature film, you can rest assured knowing that James McTiegue, the man behind V for Vendetta and the forthcoming Ninja Assassin, will only borrow from elements to construct his own The Raven, an original story involving Poe himself.

McTeigue discussed his new film with ComingSoon.net, and is currently scouting for suitable locations to film his new thriller in Europe, which features, "...a serial killer loose in 1850's Baltimore and he's using Poe's stories as his methodology, so then he leaves clues at each murder and says it's up to Poe to find him before he kills (again)."

Sounds intriguing. For some odd reason I was immediately reminded of From Hell after reading the synopsis, and since I rather enjoyed that film, I have high hopes for this one. His decision to film in Europe as opposed to Baltimore itself is based around his idea of creating his own idea of Baltimore in the mid-eighteen hundreds.

"There's a European sensibility that could be cool. You could totally get into world creation where I can say, 'This is my version of 1850's Baltimore,' because the Poe film is a fictionalized account, his last five days. It's not real."

For fun, the audio of the poem recited by James Earl James and Homer Simpson can be found after the cut.

So Peter got all excited for the first wave of announced titles for Fantastic Fest, despite having never been before. Then Scott brought the love when it came to the second announcement, having been time and time before. And now it's my turn to assure you that, after having only attended last year, I really, truly can't wait for this year's festivities to kick off, and the most recent reveal of what's on the slate certainly didn't hurt my interest.

The controversial Antichrist will make its U.S. premiere, as will [REC] 2 (hec yeah!). The director of Ninja Assassin will be there with his film, the stars of Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant will be there with theirs (read: John C. Reilly), and the very clever Hirsute bodes well for the shorts program to boot. And there'll even be a couple of secret screenings that we can only hope our fellow Twitter types will have the courtesy not to spoil prior.

Check out the rest after the jump. 17 more days!