A gothic crime thriller set in the snowbound Hudson valley in 1830, and featuring macabre, ritually violated corpses and a supporting role for the young Edgar Allan Poe (Harry Melling): on paper, The Pale Blue Eye has much to recommend it. And for the first hour or so it’s a deliciously morbid mystery, meticulously unpicked by Christian Bale’s jaded detective and let down only by some slightly ropey American accents from the predominantly British supporting cast. Melling brings an intense oddball energy to his portrayal of Poe, and Gillian Anderson makes the most of a minor supporting role with a collection of genuinely bizarre line readings that, if they don’t quite add up to a fully fleshed character, certainly make an impact.
But while the picture looks wonderfully atmospheric throughout, with its frostbitten monochromes and consumptive colour palette, the story disintegrates into a lurid and rather silly final act. Not content with this, the writer and director Scott Cooper (Crazy Heart) tacks on a superfluous and cumbersome coda in which characters leave lengthy, tortured gaps in their dialogue, the better to hear the despairing howl of the wind.
