31 Days of Horror – Movie 20: The Crow

So, why am I including The Crow as a horror you say? Well first reason is I want to write a review of it and another reason is the remake news is annoying me. This will for the most part though be a review of the original and best version of The Crow.

In a city controlled by gangs of thugs and killers, Eric Draven and Shelley Webster never stood a chance. After being brutally killed it would take a whole year before Eric rose from his grave looking for revenge with the help of a Crow who awakens him to bring about the death of the people who caused the death of both him and his fiancée.

This movie is about revenge, despair and love, the truest form of love that there can be. Eric comes back from the dead to avenge his and his fiancée’s death and when he does that he’ll return to his grave to join her in heaven (not saying I believe in heaven I’m just putting the romantic slant into the review). In revenge and despair we see the violence he enacts on the killers, something they have had coming ever since that night.

Having seen the movie before I read the graphical novel I was very surprised at his this movie had been changed from the original source. The graphical novel plays on the themes that affect Eric a lot more, and really push the reader to feel Eric’s angst at what has happened and why he has returned. We also get more of an explanation as to what the Crow is and why it has brought Eric back. The movie does just enough to help the viewer work out what is going on. The Crow is Eric’s guide to who he must kill, who he must get his vengeance on to fully get the revenge that is needed. The crow is the spirit that has brought Eric back from the grave, it is Eric’s eyes and it is also his downfall. There is also a deleted scene from the movie that further pushes the whole theme of vengeance at the watcher as the skeleton cowboy appears to push Eric onto his goal. This is at a point when Eric is at his lowest and feels he cannot go on. The Cowboy is there to tell Eric he must proceed to finally be at peace.

When talking about the acting in this movie you always have to talk about Brandon Lee. His death while making this movie was a true tragedy and I always believed that had he lived this would be the movie that would have pushed him onto bigger things, this was his breakthrough movie. He plays the role of Eric Draven perfectly, showing the conflict he has between anger and love. You can feel his love for Shelly pushes him on towards his ultimate goal which in the end is to return to her and be free of the torment of being without her.

So, now for the major rant (people knew this was coming right?) why remake this movie? If you’ve seen the other Crow movies you know that each one is a new Crow, and each one is a separate story from the original so why not just make another sequel. Yeah, Wicked Prayer sucked badly and probably made it so no movie maker would touch the franchise at all but the point is there is no real need to remake this movie at all. If the unconfirmed rumour that Mark Wahlberg is to play Eric Draven then it gets even worse. Don’t get me wrong, Wahlberg can act he’s proven that before, but I do not believe this is the role for him. I just feel this could turn into another Max Payne and we don’t need that at all.

I’d say I’d rather see some respect from movie makers and think that the original movie that still holds up now as a good movie should be left alone. Don’t remake it, just leave it as a tribute to Brandon Lee and make a hell of a lot of fans really happy.

The only way a remake would work is if they took the original graphical novel and made the movie from that (if it is possible as it is quite a unique piece of work in itself). It would be more emotional, darker and strangely enough for the subject matter it would be less violent. I can’t honestly see Hollywood going down that road though as they need yet another action movie with big bangs and lots of guns. One can wish though I guess? We shall see.

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