Re-Animator star Jeffrey Combs assumes the guise of the most famous figure in gothic horror literature in director Stuart Gordon's adaptation of the classic Edgar Allan Poe story The Black Cat. It seems that as a literary figure, Poe is a man before his time, and when the dedicated writer fails to gain a following for his dark brand of poetry, his taste for spirits strengthens as his debts continue to mount. While his wife slowly succumbs to the wasting effects of consumption, her deranged pet feline bears witness to every excruciating moment, and Poe is soon driven to commit a grisly act of madness that will rival the darkest depths of even his most morbid prose.