Twice-Told Tales
3 horror stories based on the writings of Nathaniel Hawthorne. In the 1st story titled "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment", Heidegger attempts to restore the youth of three elderly friends. In "Rappaccini's Daughter", a demented father is innoculating his daughter with poison so she may never leave her garden of poisonous plants. In the final story "The House of the Seven Gables", The Pyncheon family suffers from a hundred year old curse and while in the midst of arguing over inheritance, a stranger arrives.
Why it matters
A gothic anthology that melds classic American literature with early ’60s atmospheric horror, Twice-Told Tales serves up three moody morality plays drenched in decay and dread.
- Pre-dates the ’60s boom in literary horror adaptations, connecting Hawthorne’s dark Romanticism to genre cinema’s evolving taste for psychological and supernatural unease.
- Practical set design and period detail evoke a creeping claustrophobia that enhances the tales’ themes of vanity, poison, and ancestral doom.
- For fans of portmanteau horror and literary source material, it’s a rare American cousin to British anthology staples like Dead of Night.
- Not high on jump scares or gore, but rich in brooding atmosphere and moral complexity—perfect for those who appreciate horror’s classic, gothic lineage.
Director
2 horror films in catalog
Cast
Horror DNA
Gore
14
Slow Burn
17
Psychological
43
Supernatural
20
Creature
55
Disturbing
50
Fun Factor
33
Cerebral
14
Survival
33
Anthology
