Every Clue Augustus Landor Was The Pale Blue Eye's Killer After recovering from the ritual, Edgar Allan Poe confronts Augustus in his cabin. Edgar has figured out that it was truly Augustus who committed the murders, as vengeance for the cadets raping his daughter Mattie (Hadley Robinson), who later committed suicide.
Two years earlier, Landor's daughter Mattie was raped by Fry, Ballinger, and Stoddard after attending her first ball. Traumatized, she killed herself by jumping off a cliff. Landor pretended that she ran away. Distraught, he set out to avenge his daughter.
What happened to Landor's daughter in The Pale Blue Eye?
Landor's daughter Mattie (played by Hadley Robinson and glimpsed only in flashback) is recently deceased. Meanwhile, at the film's conclusion, Poe uncovers the truth: that Mattie committed suicide after West Point cadets brutally attacked and raped her.
While the movie ends there on an ambiguous note, it teases he's contemplating suicide -- a tragic, yet understandable decision given all the physical and mental games he played.
In the end, Poe has the opportunity to turn Landor in and send him to the gallows, but instead decides the detective has suffered enough and burns the evidence.
A retired policeman, Landor's daughter Mathilde, nicknamed Mattie, was raped by three West Point cadets. Landor identified one as Leroy Fry from dog tags that Mattie snatched from him. Mattie committed suicide shortly after by jumping off a cliff and Landor swore to avenge her.
Unfortunately, The Pale Blue Eye isn't based on a true story, despite Poe's presence. Instead, it's an adaptation of Louis Bayard's novel of the same name, but Bayard did take inspiration from Poe's life for the tale.
Why did Edgar Allan Poe burn the letter at the end of The Pale Blue Eye? It seems that Edgar Allan Poe's connection to Augustus Landor saw him grant him mercy despite the guilt that the investigator clearly had.
'The Pale Blue Eye' Makes Direct Reference to "The Premature Burial" During the opening credits of The Pale Blue Eye, an excerpt from Poe's short story "The Premature Burial" is featured on the screen. This particular part of the story talks about the vagueness of the boundaries between life and death.
Though it's based on a book by Louis Bayard, the narrative is not a true story. However, in Scott Cooper's movie adaptation, which has landed on Netflix, there are elements of truth, notably around the young man who assists Landor at the military academy he is investigating—one Edgar Allan Poe.
However the Edgar Allen Poe did attend the West Point Military Academy, the setting for the film. He was kicked out within seven months of his admission to the prestigious school, leaving in January 1831.
The biggest clue towards Augustus Landor's identity as the killer was a scrap of paper removed from Leroy's hand during the autopsy. Edgar Allan Poe later realized it was part of a letter written in Augustus' handwriting.
What movie is about Edgar Allan Poe at West Point?
A retired detective recruits an astute West Point cadet named Edgar Allan Poe to help him solve a grisly murder mystery at the U.S. Military Academy. Watch all you want. Christian Bale stars with Harry Melling in Scott Cooper's gothic thriller based on the bestselling novel by Louis Bayard.
No, Edgar Allan Poe never had any children with his wife Virginia, or any illegitimate children that we know of. It's impossible to know exactly why Edgar and Virginia didn't have kids, but a number of possible reasons spring to mind: They may have had some knowledge of birth control.
In the hospital, Poe continued to drift in and out of consciousness, hallucinating and speaking nonsense when he was awake. On October 7 he died. A Baltimore newspaper reported enigmatically that the cause had been “congestion of the brain.”
Throughout his life, Edgar Allan Poe lost the women he loved, including his mother, adoptive mother and wife, many to tuberculosis. Their absence played a huge role in his writing.
Edgar Allan Poe's cause of death was recorded as “succumbing to phrenitis,” or congestion of the brain, which was also often employed to suggest a drug- or alcohol-related death.
Poe is widely credited with creating the detective story—his character, C. Auguste Dupin, who appears in the short story "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," is thought to be the first fictional detective. Therefore, the fictional Detective Landor is following in the footsteps of the genre Poe created.
The Pale Blue Eye was filmed in Allegheny Cemetery, Compass Inn Museum, Davis Hollow Cabin, Hartwood Acres Mansion, Hartwood Acres Stables, Lake Arthur, Laughlintown, McConnells Mill State Park, Moraine State Park, Old Economy Village, Penguin Court, Pittsburgh and Westminster College.
It is revealed in "The Why of Fry" that the shadow belongs to Nibbler, who intentionally pushes Fry into the freezer as part of a complex plan to save Earth from the Brainspawn in the future.
