Fright Night Friday Movie Review: The Raven

Hello everyone!

I hope all of you had a great week and are ready for the weekend!  I definitely am!  I will be reviewing this week's Fright Night Friday movie...one that I had been looking forward to seeing for over a year!  Here is my review of The Raven.

 

The Raven (2012)

I have been looking forward to seeing this movie since I first heard about it last year!  I am a huge John Cusack fan, have been for several years, so I knew the movie wouldn't disappoint!  I am also a huge Edgar Allan Poe fan.  I don't know when I first discovered him, but after seeing a live performance of The Tell-Tale Heart when I was in 7th grade, I became hooked!  Being such a huge fan of Poe, I knew I wanted to see this movie.  Here is a short synopsis from IMDb:

When a madman begins committing horrific murders inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's works, a young Baltimore detective joins forces with Poe to stop him from making his stories a reality. 

This concept that a madman takes Poe's stories and turns them into reality was interesting enough, but the fact that Poe himself is asked to help find the murderer was very intriguing to me.  Poe is asked to help because of his knowledge of what happens in the stories.  What started as one murder scenario escalates into a game of logic and basically a scavenger hunt...clues are left at the murder scenes which describe what will happen next.  I loved the way Poe's stories actually came to life in this movie and how the clues were pieced together from one scene to the next!  John Cusack, I felt, did a great job portraying Poe...I could actually imagine Poe having the personality and passion that John Cusack put forth into the character.

The costume work was great, I loved the period clothing and of course the cloaks that Poe wore in the movie.  The scenery in the movie was brilliant and really added to the "spookiness" of the movie.  One thing that I was wondering about was the fact that John Cusack wore a goatee instead of just a mustache in the film.  It was a great look for John, but I'm not sure if Poe ever wore a goatee?  It doesn't really matter to me, I'm not picking on the film, it just made me wonder!  I searched online and didn't find any pictures of Poe with a goatee.  Any thoughts on this?

This is not a movie for those of you who have weak stomachs!!!  There are a few gory scenes in the movie complete with lots of blood, so be warned!  Please note this is an "R" rated movie due to the gory scenes, some language, and "intense" or "scary" scenes.  Not something you would want to take your 5 year old to!!

My husband and I both enjoyed the movie and we are looking forward to it coming out on DVD already!  I'm giving "The Raven" 5 skulls!

If you have a movie you would like to review, please let me know!  We need more submissions!  Have a great weekend!