Watch: Federico Fellini’s Playful Yet Nightmarish Edgar Allen Poe Short Film 'Toby Dammit'

If you even wondered what it would look like if one of the greatest auteurs in film history directed an episode of “Tales From The Crypt," look no further than Federico Fellini’s absurdist short “Toby Dammit,” based on a relatively obscure Edgar Allen Poe story titled “Never Bet The Devil Your Head."

The quickest way to describe “Toby Dammit” would be as “8½ in Hell." Firmly planted in Fellini’s late '60s narcissistically colorful, exuberant dream-reality period, “Toby Dammit” represented one-third of an anthology feature consisting of three Poe adaptations from three of the most revered filmmakers at the time: Fellini, Louis Malle, and Roger Vadim (perhaps “tolerated” instead of “revered” is a better description for Vadim).

The feature is called “Spirits of the Dead,” and even though Fellini received a considerable amount of praise for his segment, the other two shorts failed to impress. Eventually, critics and audiences discarded...