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Independently rich college professor Jonathan's (Wes Bentley) eventual
marriage to Rowena (Kaitlin Doubleday) seems to be almost set into
stone, and even her dad (Michael Madsen) has become mighty friendly with
Jonathan (and his money) ... when he meets Ligeia (Sofya Skya), a
beautiful yet mysterious student of his, who has no problems seducing him
and eventually uses a hypnotic spell to make Jonathan hers. The two soon
marry and move to her ancestors home by the Black Sea, which he buys back
from whoever just to accomodate her. Ligeia has a dark secret though:
She is terminally ill, and now she has to kill people and collect their
souls to stay alive. And she hopes to transfer her own soul into another
body to remain young forever. As Ligeia gets worse, her control over
Jonathan weakens, and eventually, he reestablishes contact with Rowena,
who's of course still in love with him. Then he finds out what Ligeia is
doing, and is appalled, while she offers him to live an eternal life with
her via body-hopping. When he flees in panic though, she kills herself -
but somehow has her soul preserved. With Ligeia gone, Rowena and her dad
come to live with Jonathan at his Black Sea estate. However, Ligeia's
spirit has since taken possession of Lorelei (Mackenzie Rosman), the
daughter of the place's caretaker (Eric Roberts), and as Lorelei, Ligeia
soon kills the caretaker and Rowena's dad, then takes possession of Rowena
... but now Rowena's soul has taken possession of Lorelei, and it all
culminates in a big fight that pits Ligeia as Rowena against Rowena as
Lorelei and Jonathan as himself, and somehow, in the end, Ligeia is
defeated and every soul is in
its right body again, and Jonathan and Rowena decide to adopt Lorelei ...
but wait, could it be she's still possessed? Why this film
claims to be based on Edgar Allan Poe's Ligeia is beyond me: It
share's no more than a few names and very basic plot elements with Poe's
short story, but wanders off into silly dark fantasy territory where Poe
veered off into madness. Furthermore, Ligeia the film has very
little to do with the spirit of Poe, who was never much of a fan of
supernatural mumbo-jumbo as such, and I doubt he would have approved of
the romance elements and the happy ending of the film. That all said,
not being good at adapting Poe does not necessarily lead to a bad film -
but unfortunately, Ligeia is, it's little more than a wannabe cute yet
pointless supernatural lovestory that invariably shies away from exploring
the darker aspects of its plot, instead goes for a boringly
straightforward approach. And another thing: Why hire two great
character actors like Michael Madsen and Eric Roberts and then give them
probably the dullest roles of their careers?
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find Ligeia at adultvideouniverse.com
