With Halloween lurking around the corner planning your fright night festivities is a must. From questionable costumes to ghoulish mazes, you need to be scared! But can you believe that reading a book could easily scare the hell out of you?
Well, thanks to legendary short story writer Edgar Allan Poe, it can. Recognized as the master of horror, the king of mystery and the ruler of terror, Poe’s chilling dark tales come to life with a new hands-on app.
“iPoe 1,” the interactive and illustrated Edgar Allan Poe collection, was introduced to iPhone and iPad users last fall by the Barcelona based company, Play Creatividad. This new app revolutionizes the typical reading experience by allowing you, the student, to visualize all of Poe’s tortured characters.
In “iPoe 1,” a stream of classical eerie music plays in the background, here you choose from three short stories and one poem, “The Oval Portrait,” “the Tell-Tale Heart,” “Annabel Lee” and “The Masque of the Red Death.” After picking your heart-pounding tale this is when the horrific fun ensues.
Accompanied with menacing graphics by illustrator, David Garcia Fores, Poe’s stories literally come to life with a flick of your finger. Touch one and you’ll be terrorized with live images of a beating heart, a walking grim reaper and a dying bride. The app actively uses sound effects throughout the stories to enhance your fright levels so if you really want to get scared turn off the lights, closed the door and turn up the volume.
The app has won awards for the Best Fiction App at the Publishing Innovation Awards 2012 and with good reason. In a world where classic literature has taken a nose dive, this innovative approach revives a lost art and introduces it to tech savvy students.
How many times have you been in class forced to read some ancient literary writing that you had absolutely have no interest in? Though Poe has been recognized as one of the country’s most brilliant horror writers, his stories can be daunting to read for a busy CSUN student, so the next time your professor assigns you to read Edgar Allan Poe don’t waste your money on a plain black and white book, download iPoe and be scared stiff as you learn.
Currently iPoe is only available for iPhones, iPads and iPods who carry iOS 5 or later. The app costs $3.99 but you may be able to get it for free by downloading AppsGonefree. As of Sept. 27, iPoe 2 is available in the itunes app store featuring stories like “The Raven” and “The Black Cat.”
