An homage to Edgar Allan Poe
New thriller with John Cusack borrows heavily from the stories of America’s horror-tale master
Starring: John Cusack, Luke Evans,
and Brendan Gleeson Playing at: Angrignon, Banque Scotia, Cavendish, Colossus, Côte des Neiges, Kirkland, Lacordaire,
Marché Central, Sources, Sphèretech and Taschereau
cinemas Parents’ guide: violence, torture,
not suitable for children There’s a scene in the unhinged Edgar Allan Poe thriller, The Raven – and it’s not too soon, I don’t think, to say “Nevermore” – when a man is strapped to a table by a mysterious assassin. The killer then turns on a bit of ancient machinery that starts a deadly pendulum, a swinging axe that slowly lowers until it cuts the man in half.
“But I’m only a critic,” he shouts, just before his death, a bit of proactive revenge for what this film is about to endure.
The means of death, of course, is from The Pit and the Pendulum, one of several Poe tales that are being used by a “serial killer” – a term The Raven seems to think was in common use in 1849 – who is terrorizing 19th-century Baltimore. Just like in Poe stories, people are buried alive (The Cask of Amontillado) or left in an empty room with no means of escape (The Murders in the Rue Morgue). In this version, Poe, who invented the detective story, is brought aboard by the police as an expert consultant.
The Raven thus joins the 1973 horror spoof, Theatre of Blood (Vincent Price as a Shakespearean actor who kills theatre critics using methods described in the Bard’s plays), in a small but loopy genre of self-referential murder tales. Both are filled with inside jokes – the critic killed by the pendulum is called Griswold, the name of a real-life rival who had a feud with Poe – but The Raven is a lot less campy fun.
Maybe that’s because Poe himself wasn’t exactly a laugh riot: Not only were his stories dark tales of revenge and death, but he was a depressed alcoholic who was frequently penniless. Eventually, he apparently lost his mind. A few days before his death, he was found sitting on a park bench muttering the name “Reynolds,” a mystery The Raven attempts to explain by postulating that he was off chasing serial killers.
The film, which is haunted by stylized images of ravens forever cawing in the foggy Baltimore sky, stars John Cusack as a Poe who is alternately defeated and brimming with self-love. Scenes of him lurking in doorways or chasing through tunnels with a loaded pistol give The Raven an air of grim absurdity.
The other characters don’t fare any better. Luke Evans is Detective Fields, a chiselled police investigator who discovers two corpses and notes that the elements are reminiscent of those in a Poe story. He contacts the writer, and together they set out to solve the crime, even as the killer taunts them with more murders and clues that are taken from literature.
The hunt grows more desperate when the madman abducts Emily (Alice Eve), Poe’s girlfriend and daughter of an angry rich man (Brendan Gleeson) who despises Poe for being what he is – i.e., a depressed alcoholic who was frequently penniless. Gleeson fulminates authentically, but Eve seems to have sprung from one of the more modern horror films – Se7en or Saw – that The Raven hints at. The treatment of Emily is particularly sadistic.
It’s a violent narrative, and it comes with a solution that’s half insane homage and half plagiarism. Like most serial-killer stories, it also seems like way too much trouble, even for a psychopath. But I’m only a critic.