The Raven

We've all seen murder mysteries before, but how many have we seen where you take a fictitious story and combine it with a fact-based person? Just thinking off the top of my head, I'd say none. This is probably the very thing that kept my interest with "The Raven".

In this whodunit set in the 19th century, a serial killer begins murdering victims using methods from Edgar Allan Poe's fictional stories. Poe (John Cusack) reluctantly teams up with a young Baltimore detective, Fields (Luke Evans) in order to get inside the murderer's mind and try to stop more of his fictional works becoming more gruesome fact. As the hunt intensifies, Poe's own love, Emily Hamilton (Alice Eve), becomes a target for the killer much to the chagrin of her father, Capt. Hamilton (Brendan Gleeson).

Others to round out the cast are Kevin McNally as Henry Maddux, Poe's editor at the newspaper, Oliver Jackson-Cohen as John Cantrell, one of the cops involved, Jimmy Yuill as Capt. Eldridge, the cop in charge, Sam Hazeldine as Ivan, and Pam Ferris as Mrs. Bradley.

This was directed with grittiness by James McTeigue ("V for Vendetta" '05, "Ninja Assassin" '09), and the way he could pull such pathos out of his characters, such as with Evans' Fields character was amazingly effective. This was equally well written by Ben Livingston and Hannah Shakespeare. As stated prior, the combination of a fictional story and a real person of history-- Poe, was certainly original. Cusack does give his usual power to the lead role as he does with just about any role he's done in the past.

The special makeup effects and visuals flowed like water, so the R rating was needed for some gruesome and violent scenes. But if you are the sort of person who likes this kind of fare, you'll revel, otherwise this may be a bit tough to watch.

Out of 4 stars: 3                       Rated: R                         111min.