The raven
Year of release : 2012
Run time : 1h51m
Genre : Thriller / Mystery
Cast : John Cusack, Luke Evans, Alice Eve
The movie is a work of fiction depicting the last days in the life of Edgar Allan Poe, based on real situations involving him, as , apparently, Poe really said the name Reynolds on the night of his death, being found dead on a bench under mysterious circumstances.
The title of the movie comes from Poe’s famous 1845 poem, “The raven”.
It’s 1849,Baltimore, and the police hurry to a murder scene. A woman is screaming as they climb to the 4th floor, and when they get in she’s dead, and nobody else is inside, the room being completely locked from the inside,the window being nailed shut. Checking the chimney ,her 12 year old daughter is stuck in it.
Detective Fields comes to the scene, and looking at the window, he opens it pressing a spring, as it’s like in a story he read “The murders in the Rue Morgue” by Edgar Allan Poe.
Edgar Allan Poe walks the streets checking the dead animals, and drinking a lot. He enters a tavern, asking for alcohol, although he doesn’t have money to pay for it, and already owes the owner money for it. He’s asking the man to give him a drink on credit, for the newspaper will publish his new story the next day, but the man refuses.
The next day he finds out his story is not in the newspaper.
Poe is in love with Emily Hamilton, and wants to marry her, but her father hates him.
A man is tied down under a device looking like the one from Poe’s story “The pit and the pendulum”.
Although Emily pretends not to like Poe in front of her father, she visits him in the evening, as he gave her the Annabel Lee poem and she loves it.
The police bring Poe to the station, to talk to Fields, as they realize whoever is k1lling the people, they do it like in Poe’s writings.
As Fields talks to Poe, he is notified of another murder, the one inspired by “The pit and the pendulum”, and they realize the man who was murdered was Poe’s critic, with whom he’s been battling in papers, as they didn’t like each other’s work, but Poe didn’t know the man personally, and had no idea how he looked like.
Fiels tells him the dead man’s face was covered in a red mask, and Poe recognizes it from his story “The mask of the Red Death”. Poe tells him Prospero, the character in his story who was wearing such a mask, held a ball defying death, to which death came and k1lled him and his guests. He tells Fields Hamilton is holding a ball the next evening at the museum for his daughter’s birthday.
Hamilton doesn’t want to cancel the event, and tells him if the police want to come they have to blend in, as in wear costumes, as it’s a masked ball.Just like in the story.
At the masked ball, a man dressed as death riding a horse rides into the museum, and when caught by the police he says someone paid him to do it. Reading the note he was given for them, they realize the k1ller kidnapped Emily, who was right next to Poe before they were separated in the commotion.
The k1ller puts Emily in a box and buries her in a room.
He challenges Poe to write a series of stories to appear in the newspaper, inspired by the kidnapping. He also notes that he’ll leave clues on his next victims’ bodies about where Emily is.
Poe starts getting involved in the case, working with the police to find Emily and the k1ller.
I personally enjoyed the movie. I liked the world they created, the set design, the costumes. The movie was smart, the dialogue was good.
Edgar Allan Poe is one of my favorite writers, I love his poems and stories, so I enjoyed hearing some of my favorite poems, like The Raven and Annabel Lee.
The actors were good.
The soundtrack was good.
The movie received critics reviews under 50% with a bit higher audience reviews, and grossed only 29.7 million dollars at the box office, against a budget of 26 million dollars.
Cinema Score audiences graded it a B.
You can watch the movie for free on the Dailymotion platform.
Rating : Worth a watch !