The Raven Movie Review

I am a huge Edgar Allan Poe fan to put it mildly. I have read his collected works multiple times since my Dad introduced me to him when I was ten years old. Cask of Amontillado and Tell-Tale Heart are two of my favourite of his stories, he was an amazing author with a great talent. If you haven't read any of his stories, do so, it will be an adventure you will not soon forget.


Today I went to go see the film The Raven starring John Cusak, Luke Evans, Alice Eve, and Brendan Gleeson. Cusak plays Edgar Allan Poe who gets brought into an investigation of a serial killer who's killings all have themes from Poe's stories and poems. The killer takes his fiancee, Emily, during a party and tells Poe that he will leave him clues as to her location at each murder he commits and after each crime Poe must write an article for the local paper that is part fictional and part truth about the situation between him, Poe, and his fiancee; if the articles are not published then Emily will be killed.

They way they opened up the movie was a really interesting, they started it saying that hours before Poe died he was found on a park bench not in a good state. The then show Poe sitting at that bench they then pan up to the sky and show the moon in very little light then transitions into the moon in complete night and jump back to where the murders began. There were two major things I enjoyed about this movie, first being that it was interesting seeing a theory about what happened during Poe's last days, it was really fun to see how they thought it happened. Second thing was it was really fun watching the murders, as morbid as that sounds, and figuring out which of Poe's stories the murderer was bringing into these killings. Nothing was too blatant about telling which story it was unless it was said so by Poe himself.

I know that this movie was set during the 1840's but some of the costumes looked really corny, the firemen's outfits were very over the top, but the clothing during the Costume Ball was really well done, other then the firemen and a few other costumes they were all done really well. There is not too much that I did not enjoy about this movie, those few costumes were really the only thing that bothered me.

My love for Edgar Allan Poe may be clouding over my better judgment, I haven't really talked to anyone else about the movie so I don't know other people's reactions but mine is a pretty solid score of:

8/10

So what should you take from this review? Check out the movie and Poe's works if you have the chance.

As always, follow me on Twitter @Nait93