The Raven(2012) Film Review

 

Rating: 2 Stars Out of 4, Thumbs Down.

Rated R For Bloody Violence And Grisly Images.

1hr 50min/110min.

20 Uses of the F-Word.

 

Day 3 Of My 31 Days Of Horror 3

 

Edgar Allen Poe: "Take this kiss upon the brow!/And, in parting from you now/ Thus much let me avow/You are not wrong, who deem/All that we see or seem/Is but a dream within a dream."

 

Just like V/H/S, The Raven is another movie that is highly disappointing. But, this film has, again, one of the best premises, to a film that I have seen in a long time. A murder mystery, with Edgar Allen Poe as the main character, is ripe for horror material, and they somehow manage to make it so underwhelming. Way to go.

The year is 1849. A man is running around murdering people in the vein of Sir Edgar Allen Poe's(John Cusak) poems and stories such as The Raven(obviously), The Pit And The Pendulm and The Black Cat. Deciding to take matters into his own hands, Poe, with gun in hand, Hunts down the killer, before he starts killing the people that he knows.

How excellent of a premise is that?! However, it doesn't carry through. John Cusak gives a terrific performance as Edgar Allen Poe, taking the darkness of this man into full effect. The death scenes are really inventive, with the violence is in full force, but it's done in a tasteful way, and the gothic scenery is rightfully fitting of the time period. The cinematography by Danny Ruhlmann takes great advantage of the locale, making the proceedings incredibly unsettling and the film does have a great soundtrack.

But, then comes the other half of the film. The film moves at incredibly slow pace which makes the 110 minute running time feel the length of 1984's Once Upon A Time In America(229 minutes). Most of the side characters render pointless, and are completely unnessacary. The dialouge exchanges between characters feels stilted and some scenes feel like they should be in another film(The mask party brings up Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece Eyes Wide Shut for me).

Where there is good, ther is evil. This can describe The Raven perfectly. Half of the film works perfectly whereas the other half doesn't. I have read some of poes stories(oddly enough the three I mentioned above I have read) and they are rightfully creepy. The film version of Poes life should have gone under some careful treatment, in order to rightfully capture the man's legacy.