When The Raven opens with a shot of Edgar Allen Poe reading from his famous poem, intercut with a flash-cut violation scene in black and white, you know you're in for another Ulli Lommel masterpiece… or, a piece of something.
I must confess though — The Raven is Lommel's best work to date. Like his previous films it still alternates between grating/mystifying/boring and it's definitely direct-to-disk in quality, but this time around the cinematography is tolerable (longtime collaborator Bianco Pacelli must have been brushing up between flicks) and the acting isn't entirely atrocious (the cast are still obvious novices but they seem to be ad-libbing, which is a good thing when it comes to Lommel's scripts).
The story centers on an orphan named Lenore (Jillian Swanson) who's obsessed with Edgar Allen Poe (Michael Barbour), thanks to the scary stories her adoptive Grandpa (Lommel) used to tell her at naptime. While there are flashbacks to childhood, and some dream sequences involving a ravenous bird pecking at her reclining body on a bed of black roses, Lenore is, throughout most of the film, a Goth chick in a Goth band (an early scene in a recording studio goes on endlessly).
It seems the vocal vixen has become the target of a supernatural serial killer called The Raven (Carsten Frank) — a walking fashion-disaster who plucks Lenore's friends and bandmates from her, one-by-one. The only way she can save herself is to enter a shadowy dream-world with Poe, where they hope to vanquish The Raven once and for all.
The Raven couldn't give you change for a dollar (because it makes no sense), but I can recommend it to fans of flash-cuts, rape-scenes, and movies with nuns/schoolgirls in horror situations. Poe aficionados need not whip out their rental cards… you've already gotten two fantastic Poe-related gifts in the past six months, so be grateful (The Poe Collection DVD, and The Black Cat Masters of Horror episode).
Fortunately, there were no special features for me to review. (Unless you count theatrical trailers for other movies as "extras".)
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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson