Goofs

Poe places his lantern on the table before pushing it over, lantern and all, to reveal the trapdoor. He then picks the lantern up from the floor, upright and still lit.

When Detective Fields is chasing Reynolds in the tunnels, at one point he blows out the lantern. In the next scene we can see him running with the lantern still lit.

In the pendulum scenes, the victim spits up lots of blood all around his face, chin, and neck. In the flyover shot after the pendulum stops, there is no blood.

When Poe is punched in the face by Captain Hamilton, Poe slowly brings a handkerchief to his face. After a few seconds of screen time with Detective Fields and Captain Hamilton, Poe is once again shown raising the handkerchief to his face. It looked exactly as he had been doing it the first time (same motion as before, same blood position as before).

Towards the end of the film, Detective Fields knocks over an ink bottle and empties the desk's contents haphazardly. The ink bottle lid and magnet change position between shots.

Poe is asked if he had written anything about a sailor, and responds "No." In truth, Poe had written quite a few stories about sailors, including "MS. Found in a Bottle," "A Descent into the Maelstrom," "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," and "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym," among others (including "King Pest" and a brief sequence in "The Premature Burial").

In the opening scene of the movie, it says Edgar Allan Poe was found near death on a park bench in Baltimore, Maryland on October 7, 1849. However, it is known he was hospitalized days before on October 3, 1849, and did not die until the seventh of October.

The fire marshal's hat and coat have the common misspelling "FIRE MARSHALL."

Numerous times in the movie, Poe refers to himself as Edgar Allan Poe, but in fact he didn't like being called Edgar Allan Poe and called himself E.A. Poe or Edgar A. Poe.

Poe didn't actually own a racoon as a pet. In real life, though, he had a fondness for cats - clearly some good in the man.

When Poe is moving the table after he has drunk the poison, he leans against a "stone" wall to move it with his feet, and the wall shakes as he leans against it.

Although many other contributors have noted the pistols used by the police appear to Colt 1851 Navy's (and they may be), they actually appear to be the Colt 1849 Dragoon Pocket.

When Poe recites The Raven to the crowd he says "...and the lamp-light o'er him steaming..." This is a misquote, it should be "lamp-light o'er him streaming".

Ivan, the typesetter, tells Poe that he is the writer's biggest fan. The word "fan" (short for "fanatic") would not be used in this sense until the late 1880s.

Both Emily and Poe used the phrase, "Ok" several times. "Ok" in the 1800's was a colloquial phrase meaning "oll korrect" (all correct), not an indication of assent (as used by Emily) or reassurance (as used by Poe.)

In one scene, a newspaper is seen with a headline containing the phrase "Serial Killer." While the film is set in 1849, the term "Serial Killer" did not exist until well into the 20th century. Various sources state that the term was coined in either the 1960s or 1970s.

At the end, Ivan says he is off to do the same to Jules Verne. However, in 1849, when the film is set, Verne had not published any writing and was absolutely un-heard of. Verne's first published work was 'Cinq Semaines en ballon' in 1863, 14 years after Poe's death. His first well, known work 'Voyage au centre de la Terre' was not published until 1864.

The detective tells Poe that the victim had her throat cut with a "straight razor". A straight razor was just called a razor until the invention of the safety razor many years later.

The construction of the pendulum would have been a massive project, requiring many workers and a great deal of money, and would have been very conspicuous, with the neighbors and the builders asking many questions. The man who commissioned the project would have been the chief suspect. Yet the police never seem to look into the matter.