The Raven

I read and re-read the stories of Edgar Allen Poe well past my teenage years, fascinated with each macabre scenario and their meticulously described, often gruesome details. At the, um, heart of each story was an essay on man's sin, his avarice spread open wide. The victims were often innocent, yet, not. In the new film THE RAVEN, the fictionalized conceit is that Poe's tales inspire someone to follow to the letter the careful mechanics of the finer and more creative methods of killing. "If I had known my stories would cause this, I would've focused instead on erotica," he muses. 

The setting: 1800s Baltimore. Poe (John Cusack) is creatively spent, his classic writings well behind him. He is reduced to writing reviews (the horror!) and sparring with literary critics in the local papers. He, like many writers, is also a stumbling drunk and endeared to vials of tinctures. THE RAVEN does not explore the possibility that such poisons inspired his work. Instead, the screenplay settles in to a whodunnit, a procedural headed by Detective Emmett Fields (Luke Evans) who is able to discover after the first murder(s) how the killer escaped through a nailed shut window (has much to do with "Murders in the Rue Morgue"). The horrible deaths continue and mount, including one unfortunate, the aforementioned critic, who finds himself strapped to a table under a swinging battleax just like in "The Pit and the Pendulum". This scene is easily the goriest in the film, enough so to cause a young lady two seats down to cover her head and cry out, perhaps the response director James McTeigue would've wanted. Poe, too? I wonder if this poor girl had ever read the stories. 

The imagination is capable of so much worse, but why is it that when someone visualises things some filmgoers recoil and feel nauseous? Ask writers who've had their celebrated novels adapted, like William Peter Blatty. Or Stephen King, whose writings, like Poe's, often made me wonder if the author has to be a bit mad himself, just this side of acting on homicidal urges. But, THE RAVEN does not explore that idea, either. After being ruled out as a suspect, Poe is enlisted to help the police with post mortems and to anticipate the assailant's next move. Riddles printed in red ink are left upon each corpse. The killer seems to like a good game. Adding to the plot is a young lady named Emily Hamilton (Alice Eve), who Poe seeks to marry, who is kidnapped and threatened to be buried alive unless Poe begins writing daily entries for the newspaper that describe the murders and subsequent investigation, but with his own literary touches. This sickie is clearly a fan. 

The ideas of THE RAVEN aren't new. I thought back on THEATRE OF BLOOD, featuring a talentless, hammy stage actor played by Vincent Price who does in his critics in the manner of death scenes from Shakespearean tragedies. Uniike that film, this one plays it fairly straight, and I only recall one big unintentional guffaw, though it's a doozy. Screenwriters Ben Livingston and Hannah Shakespeare (yes, you read that correctly) nicely blend a fairly absorbing mystery with all sorts of fun allusions and references for Poe devotees. As Poe, Cusack is appealingly caustic and prone to outbursts, yet he never chews the scenery or seems too contemporary. I always imagined Poe had a relaxed attitude toward decorum, and Cusack seems to verify that notion with his portrayal. 

While I found THE RAVEN to be a generally well-paced, atmospheric (shot in Hungary), literate, and enjoyable chiller, far better than what I was expecting, the best that will probably come out of it is that many viewers may be spurred to seek out Edgar Allen Poe's works. Possibly those of Longfellow and Jules Verne, too.