Federico Fellini, Louis Malle and Roger Vadim adapt works by macabre author Edgar Allan Poe in the anthology film Spirits of the Dead (Histories Extraordinaries). Dealing with tormented characters experiencing a personal hell, filled with angst and delirium. Spirits of the Dead was a ground-breaking departure for the adoption of Poe in cinema. Vadim directs Jane Fonda as Countess Metzengerstein, a debauched Heiress leading a life Caligula would commend. The Countess becomes tormented by the denial of her incestuous desire for her cousin Baron Berlifitzing (fittingly played by her brother Peter Fonda). Malle directs Alain Delon as William Wilson, an Austrian soldier who is haunted by his doppelganger, tormenting him at times in his life where he is at his most cruel and sadistic. Fellini's famed segment sees terence stamp as Toby Dammit, an actor arriving in Rome to meet the producers of his new film, the first catholic western. drugged and drunk, Dammit is disturbed by the haunting image of the devil, which like mario bava's kill, baby... Kill! And Bunuel's Simon of the desert, is actually a young girl, ominously bouncing a ball.