The Raven

Joao Barbosa

at 4:53 am

A movie inspired on a popular narrative poem by the American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in January 1845. The movie itself as little to do with the poem, except the fact that Poe himself is presented as a good spirit, protecting Lenore, a supposed reincarnation of the character in the original poem.

One could say the movie has the merit of adapting one of Poe’s characters to actuality, at least trying to provoque the interest of the viewer on the author’s work, but to me there’s where the film’s interest ends. But I should begin to summarize the plot:

The movie tells us the story of a battle between two spirits for the body and soul of Lenore, a girl who grew up influenced by the works of Edgar Allan Poe. At some point in her youth, she was raped by a man, whom she killed. Now, the good spirit of Poe and the bad spirit of the man she killed are in a fight for her. Also, the bad spirit takes the life of her friends, torturing her to madness. In the end, evil is destroyed by good, turning Lenore into the character of Poe’s poem “The Raven”.

The story is told in an erratic way, lacking credibility, and confusing the viewer, as if everything happens in a dream. We soon realize that we are in the presence of a semi-amateur work, were the acting is bad, the script is poor at the best and the overall feeling is that the director could and should have done a much better work. I give two stars to the movie since I believe that nevertheless, is a (small) step forward from previous movies from director Ulli Lommel.

If you are into horror movies, you can definitly find better things to watch than this!
Rating: 2 / 5