Build a movie plot around this: What happens to Poe's lodgings ? People on Baltimore area burn down his home
The film opens in 19th century Maryland where several Baltimore policemen are chasing after the screams of a woman in an apartment. The police arrive at the apartment in time only to discover a woman (Jasmina Ilic) sprawled on the floor with her throat sliced open and the corpse of her daughter (Teodora Uveric) stuffed in the chimney. Detective Emmett Fields (Luke Evans) is called to assist in the investigation and discovers that the crime resembles a fictional murder in the short story The Murders in the Rue Morgue, which is part of a collection of stories penned by the writer Edgar Allan Poe (John Cusak).Poe has become a social pariah and penniless drunkard whose stories have not been circulated for some time. He has fallen in love with the beautiful young Emily Hamilton (Alice Eve) and desires to marry her but faces opposition from her father Captain Charles Hamilton (Brendan Gleeson), a military man who loathes Poe and goes to the length of threatening physical violence. Poe is brought to see Fields for questioning and is horrified to learn someone is using his stories as the backdrop for a series of murders. Fields then proposes that Poe volunteer his services to help the police catch the killer and Poe agrees to the task.The two men are called to investigate the murder of literary critic Rufus Griswold (John Warnaby), the man who became Poe's rival after a feud that was published in the Baltimore newspapers. Poe realizes the gruesome crime resembles a scene from The Pit and the Pendulum as Fields notices a red demon mask near the corpse. The two then deduce that the scene of the next crime will take place at Captain Hamilton's annual masquerade ball a scene that will resemble the Masked Ball in The Masque of the Red Death.Fields assigns several members of the Baltimore Police to go undercover as guests at the Masked Ball. Sometime before midnight, at the height of the festivities, a man on horseback dressed in a skeleton costume appears. Fields shoots the man only to learn he was an actor hired for...