The Raven - Prophet of the Devil

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Movie
German title The Raven - Prophet of the Devil
Original title The Raven
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 2012
length 111 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director James McTeigue
script Ben Livingston
Hannah Shakespeare
production Marc D Evans
Trevor Macy
Aaron Ryder
music Lucas Vidal
camera Danny Ruhlmann
cut Niven Howie
occupation

The Raven - Prophet of the devil (German: The Raven ) is an American thriller from director James McTeigue from the year 2012 with John Cusack in the lead role.

In the fictional film adaptation of the last days of the writer Edgar Allan Poe , the latter follows a serial killer whose murders reflect Poe's stories.

The film title was derived from Poe's poem Der Raven (English: The Raven ).

action

The action begins in Baltimore in 1849 with police officers rushing to the apartment of a screaming woman. When the police arrive there, they can still hear noises as the door is locked from the inside. In the end, the police can only find the woman's body on the floor. However, there is no trace of the perpetrator. Detective Emmett Fields, who was called in to investigate the case, noticed the analogy to Poe's story The Double Murder on Rue Morgue .

The unsuccessful writer Edgar Allan Poe has just got engaged to the young Emily Hamilton, against the wishes of her rich and influential father. Poe is being questioned by Fields when he is notified of another murder. Poe volunteers to help investigate the murder and finds that this murder of his competitor Ludwig Griswold corresponds to his own narrative, The Pit and the Pendulum . By a reference from the murderer to The Mask of the Red Death , they conclude that the perpetrator will strike again at Captain Hamilton's masked ball. Despite the appropriate preparations, the perpetrator succeeds in kidnapping Poe's fiancée and the captain's daughter, Emily Hamilton.

The perpetrator sends Poe a message, in which he claims to commit further murders and to leave clues about Emily's whereabouts. However, he will kill Emily unless Emily makes new publications. Another victim follows, this time based on The Secret of Marie Rogêt , who takes Poe and Fields to a theater in which the victim worked. Although a performance is on, one of the stage assistants is missing, a seaman who came to Baltimore on a ship called Fortunato . Poe concludes that the next murder will have The Barrel Amontillado as a model. Poe and Fields look for a possible hiding place in the Baltimore sewers and find the body of the missing stage helper. A pocket watch and a tattoo of the seaman lead the investigators to an island, the name of which leads them to a church called the Holy Cross . Since they suspect Emily is there, the police rush to the church. While they are looking for a way inside, one of the police officers is overwhelmed and killed by the killer. Shortly afterwards, Fields is hit by a shot by the murderer. Poe pursues the perpetrator, but loses him in the forest. At the church they can only find an empty grave marked with a cross with Emily's name on it and the following day as the date of death. Fearing for the life of his lover, Poe finally makes his final publication offering his life for Emily's.

Because Poe's house is willfully burned down, he stays at Fields. The next morning the maid hands Poe the newspaper and a note from the murderer. Because the note was obliterated by the rain that night, but the morning newspaper is dry, Poe concludes that the perpetrator must have known the newspaper's content before it was published. Poe therefore suspects that the publisher was the culprit and hurries to the publishing house. Fields also independently comes to the conclusion that the perpetrator had to work for the newspaper when he accidentally finds out that the ink used by the perpetrator is magnetic, as is the case with printing ink. Poe is the publisher dead in the publishing house, "Getting warm" with the note (German: It is getting warmer ) between the severed hands of the publisher. Ivan, the publisher's typesetter and long-time admirer of Poe, congratulates Poe on finding the perpetrator and tells him that he committed the murders to get Poe to get new publications.

When Poe finally threatens Ivan with a gun, the latter advises him that Emily would die if Poe shot him. Poe therefore gives him the gun on the condition that he releases Emily. Ivan then asks Poe to drink a glass of poison and thus fulfill the offer to exchange his life for Emily's. When Poe is too weak to get help, Ivan tells him that he will move to Paris. He leaves the room with a reference to The Treacherous Heart . Poe realizes that Emily must be buried under him. Through a hatch in the floor he gets into the basement, where he frees Emily from her grave. The police arrive and Emily is taken away in an ambulance. After Emily is freed, Poe retires to a lonely park bench. When a passerby approaches him, he asks him to tell Fields that "his last name is Reynolds". Fields is told of this incident when he finally examines Poe's body in the hospital.

In the final scene, Detective Fields awaits Ivan Reynolds, who has escaped from Baltimore, when he arrives in Paris. The film ends when a shot fires from Fields' gun.

background

The film was shot on various locations in Serbia and Hungary . In Germany the film was only released on DVD and Blu-Ray and is distributed by Universum Film . On July 14, 2014, there was also an evening broadcast on ZDF. Nothing is known about the actual death of Poe. Poe was found outside a bar in Baltimore on October 3, 1849. He is said to have mentioned the name "Reynolds" several times, but it is unknown who this person was. He died shortly afterwards in a hospital.

In addition to ravens that appear again and again in the film, there are two other references to the eponymous poem The Raven . 1. The scene of a reading of Poe to the ladies of Baltimore Society begins with Poe finishing a reading of the poem. You can hear him say the final sentence. 2. At the beginning of the film, Poe puts the guests to the test in a tavern by asking them to complete the sentence “Spoke the raven ...”. In fact, a French guest knows the poem and rightly calls out “nevermore”.

Poe claims in the film to have been honorably discharged from West Point. That is not the case with the historical Poe.

reception

Robert Cherkowski from Filmstarts describes the “idea of ​​combining a film biography with an artist's work show and a crime thriller in a historical setting” as “very promising” , but this mixture “did not turn out so well” with The Raven . He criticizes the splatter effects, which are unnecessary, and describes the individual parts of the film as inconsistent. John Cusack also appears in the role of Poe "sometimes a little over-motivated" , while Luke Evans , Brendan Gleeson and Alice Eve seem "rather hypothermic" . In conclusion, he draws that The Raven is “just a lukewarm genre mix” , “but at least the lead actor John Cusack as Edgar Allan Poe, who is crazy about the film, provides entertainment and is worth a look” .

Even with Oliver Armknecht from film-rezensions.de, the verdict is mixed. The actors are convincing, but some sections are “ too far-fetched and the resolution is too constructed in the end ”. All in all, The Raven is a rock-solid thriller that “wo n't go down in history itself, but offers enough entertainment for at least two hours. "

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for The Raven - Prophet of the Devil . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , July 2012 (PDF; test number: 133 991 V).
  2. ↑ Locations according to the Internet Movie Database
  3. ↑ http://www.universumfilm.de/filme/124912/the-raven-prophet-des-teufels.html
  4. ↑ Film starts : film review , Robert Cherkowski
  5. ↑ Oliver Armknecht: The Raven - Prophet of the Devil on www.film-rezensions.de