It only runs to 747 words, slightly fewer than there are in this review. The Lighthouse is a fragment of a story that Poe left unfinished when he died – even the title was only something added by the publisher when the piece was eventually printed in 1909. Lighthouse Keeper is based on the least known of all Poe’s stories. There were assorted adaptations throughout the 1980s and 90s but interest in Poe appears to have dropped off in the 2000s with adaptations being thin on the ground – apart from Ligeia (2009), the animated Poe anthology Extraordinary Tales (2015) and a handful of softcore gay adaptations from David De Coteau with The Raven (2007), House of Usher (2008) and The Pit & the Pendulum (2009) – although there was The Raven (2012), a murder mystery set during the last weeks of Poe’s life. Poe reached a popularity during the 1960s with the string of adaptations from Roger Corman beginning with The House of Usher (1960), which was followed by a host of other filmmakers climbing aboard the trend with other adaptations or spuriously Poe-connected titles.

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-49) has a long history on film going back to the early silent era – the first adaptation appeared in 1909 and the IMDB lists over 340 others since then.

The lighthouse keeper short story