Review: Raven’s Hollow (2022)
As a literary figure, Edgar Allan Poe works have been a popular source for film adaptations for nearly a century, but what about films about the man himself? Raven’s Hollow, which landed last week on Shudder, attempts to mine a part of Edgar Allan Poe’s biography for a fantasy horror film.
Does this Shudder Original evoke the master of suspense and horror, or does it end up lacking?
Raven’s Hollow (2022)
The 2022 horror thriller, Raven’s Hollow, follows a group of West Point cadets, including a young Edgar Allan Poe, who find a dying man lashed up in a field during a routine training exercise, leading them to the secretive and dready community of Raven’s Hollow. Soon they will find themselves involved in a mystery that threatens to take out every cadet.
Raven’s Hollow is the directorial effort of Christopher Hatton who co-wrote the story with Chuck Reeves, loosely adapted from Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven and elements of Poe’s biography. The film stars William Mosely as Poe, with Melanie Zanetti, David Hayman, Kate Dickie, and Oberon K.A. Adjepong.
What Worked with Raven’s Hollow
The film in concept seemed interesting, but the execution was lacking. The idea of a young Edgar Allan Poe as a West Point cadet engaged in some mystery that resulted in his being thrown out of the army is an interesting one, but the film didn’t quite stick the landing. With that said, there are a couple of bright spots.
While the cast as a whole is fine, the real standouts are Kate Dickie (Game of Thrones) who plays Elizabet Ingram and Oberon K.A. Adjepong (The Many Saints of Newark) as Usher. They have the more interesting roles as the secondary cast and their performances feel appropriately grounded for the situation. I should also mention the rather over-the-top characterisation of Dr. Garret, as played by David Hayman. Hayman plays Garret as a broader figure, but it suits the tone, reminding me of the tone of Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow.
What About Poe, Though?
As for the lead, William Mosely (The Royals), I found him effective. I suppose. The Edgar Allan Poe of this film has no real character beyond that of protagonist. He doesn’t have much to work with, and the fact he keeps getting called Poe, when historically his army surname was Perry, indicates the film is trying to brute-force the idea he is Edgar Allan Poe into viewer’s minds without showing the traits that actually made the man who he was. It also didn’t help that the West Point cadets as a whole kind of ran together and at times I lost track of who was who as a few of them have striking similarity to one another in looks and about one personality stretched across four men.
Visually, some of the scenery of Latvia, where most of the location shoot took place, can be quite nice, and I found most of Michael Rizzi’s cinematography to be good. It’s just a shame that the color grading and lighting just made everything look flat, cold, and grey.
What Didn’t Work
I have a number of problems with the film that can probably be classified into three camps: accuracy, aesthetics, and storytelling, and I found significant issues in all three areas.
Raven’s Hollow is a fantasy film that tries to forge an event in the life of it’s version of Poe that would inspire him to take up the pen later in life. I don’t have an issue with that, either. It can be a fun storytelling conceit, but the films tone doesn’t really evoke Poes writings at all, and there are some elements of his biography that go ignored to service the story. Such references grow doubly-insulting when the film’s references to his eventual canon are ham-handed.
The film is also dreary to look at. For something gothic that would make sense, but this film is so grey and flatly lit that it is visually exhausting. The film’s best, most colorful moment comes from a splash of blood on a glass window that actually provides some thematic color to a scene. That was the only time this happened, however leaving the majority of the runtime a tiring grey and black screen. Poe can be visually interesting… look at any of Vincent Price‘s Poe films.
Lastly, the story is a mess. The central mystery is non-sensical and doesn’t offer many shocks as people are picked off in a creepy village that exists solely to whittle down the cast. The legend that comprises the entity at the center of the film also has seemingly nonsensical and the resolution is dramatically inert.
Final Impressions of Raven’s Hollow
Raven’s Hollow didn’t work for me for a few reasons, namely how little I cared for the story and the connections to the works of Edgar Allan Poe feel so cursory and lacking any depth. In truth, there seemed little connection to the West Point cadet of the film and the man who would come to write some of America’s greatest gothic literature. The film is also overly drab and offers a bizaar and nonsensical series of events it presents as a “mystery.”
I cannot recommend Shudder‘s Raven’s Hollow at all, even for the very few interesting moments that pop up in the film’s 1 hour 38 minute runtime.
(1.5 / 5)
Want A Better Slice of Poe? (Sponsored)
If you are looking for a better Edgar Allan Poe experience overall, might we suggest a copy of 1961’s The Pit and the Pendulum with Vincent Price? it’s a wonderful adaptation of Poe’s story directed by Roger Corman. Snatch a blu-ray for yourself and use our sponsored link to help support Haunted MTL.
To a lot of fans, this is the film that killed the franchise. It says a lot that the next installment is yet another retcon. Halloween VI: The Curse of Michael Myers attempts to explain Michael’s unrelenting evil, which lead to mixed opinions from longtime fans. There are two cuts of the film, theatrical vs producer’s. For a lot of people, the latter is the only one worth mentioning. Aiming to be as accurate as possible, I will be talking about the producer’s cut. Let’s begin!
Plot
We start Halloween VI with a six-year time jump from part five. Jamie is now barefoot and recently pregnant, running away from Michael as he wants her baby. While she manages to hide the little one away, Michael finally gets his hunger satiated by killing her. The moment is one of the most brutal ways in the franchise up until that point. Rest in peace, Jamie, you held your ground for as long as you could, the sequels were just too relentless.
The movie then cuts to a whole different scene going on. We have a new family living in the Myers house and their youngest child is hearing voices telling him to kill his loved ones. Tommy Lloyd is watching the family, played by none other than Paul Rudd in his first-ever theatrical role. Tommy still carries trauma from the events all those years ago when Laurie Strode was babysitting him. So when he finds Jamie’s baby, his part in the story becomes even more essential.
Dr Loomis also stars in what was Donald Pleasance’s final role before his passing. He and Tommy try to stop Michael once and for all before the cycle can repeat itself. As it turns out, Michael is a victim of a druid cult which makes him want to kill his family members every Halloween. Thorn, the cult in question, thinks they can control Michael and make him do their bidding. This results in catastrophe and Michael goes berzerk and kills all the cult members. Once again, it’s one of the most gruesome montages for the franchise up until that point.
Tommy and Kara are left to face Michael on their own which they manage to do with some corrosive liquid and good luck. However, nothing stays dead in this franchise as it’s soon revealed Michael somehow escaped and this time Dr Loomis might not be so lucky…
Overall thoughts
I would say for me personally Halloween VI definitely ranks somewhere near the bottom. The whole point of Michael is that there is no rhyme or reason to his killings and this film tries to go against that. I am glad the mistake was rectified by the upcoming installment. There were still some good things about it, such as Paul Rudd’s acting that reveals some raw talent as far as I’m concerned, as well as some direction choices and musical score. However, I also think it absolutely deserves all the criticism that it gets.
(2.5 / 5)
We’ve reached the final episode of American Horror Stories, season three. After the ups and downs of the season, I didn’t know what to expect. I felt that we were due a big finish, Killer Queens. But I feared we were in for a big letdown.
As it turns out, The Thing Under The Bed was neither.
The story
We begin our story with a little girl named Mary, who is scared of something under her bed. She sneaks out of her room, only to be caught by her father and sent back to sleep. And of course, there is something horrible waiting for her under her bed.
This scene cuts away to a woman named Jillian. She has strange dreams, including one about Mary. But her husband, Mark, doesn’t want to hear about it. He’s only interested in a little lovemaking because he wants a baby. Jillian doesn’t, which makes total sense because she’s already married to one. But her irritation with her childish husband goes away when he goes away. And by goes away, I mean he’s sloppily devoured by something vicious under their bed.
What worked
In short, this episode just worked. The acting was professional and believable. The cinematography and lighting work were wonderful, adding spooky effects and startling moments without impairing visibility.
Best of all, the story was solid. There were no plotholes to be found. Our main character, Jillian, was relatable and sympathetic.
This was maybe my favorite part of the story. I thought Jillian was a remarkably sympathetic character. She was dealt a hand she never asked for, having her husband slaughtered in their bedroom. I don’t think she missed him, so much as she was afraid of the legal ramifications of being caught with literal blood on her hands.
Then, when it would have been safest for her to just lay low and save up for a good defense attorney, she instead goes into unlikely hero mode. She does her best to save people, putting herself in legal and physical danger. It’s hard not to root for her.
It’s also a little hard not to root for the antagonist, too. I don’t want to ruin the twist for you, so I’m going to tread lightly here. But it’s great when you have an antagonist who might be off their rocker, but also maybe has a point.
What didn’t work
I can only really think of one complaint with this episode. And that is how frequently one character says the word Chickadee. And if you’ve seen the episode, you know what I am talking about.
I get it, he has a pet name for his daughter. It’s adorable. It’s meant to convey that the two of them have a healthy loving relationship and I get it. We all get it. Blind monks get it. But the fact remains that no parent on Earth calls their kid by their pet name every single time they speak an individual sentence to them. It was just too damn much.
All in all, this was a good episode. It was a classic story, turned on its head, told by professionals from start to finish. And I hope that if there is another season, we see more stories like this one. But after the efforts put into this season at large, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the last we see of American Horror Stories.
(4 / 5)
If you’ve watched enough short-form horror anthology shows, you’ll notice that some stories are mainstays. Each show seems to put on the same sort of episodes, with the occasional surprising storyline that we’ve never (or at least rarely) seen before.
Leprechaun was an example of a repeated story—the story of a greedy thief whose punishment far outweighs the crime.
The story
We begin our story in 1841, with a drunk man leaving the bar one late night. He’s distracted by something glowing at the end of the well. When he reaches down for the glowing thing, he falls in. Moments later, he screams.
We then cut to the modern day. The well is still there, and now it’s surrounded by a dying town. In this town lives a young man named Colin. He’s married, his wife is pregnant, and he’s out of work. Like many of his friends.
Desperate for cash, Colin and his friends decide to rob a bank. They put together an Equate version of Ocean’s Eleven, and break in one night. But, of course, they find that the gold is nothing more than bait. And the creature waiting for them is something they never expected.
What worked
The first thing I want to point out is how real this episode felt. At least to anyone currently living in the same small town they grew up in. These characters felt like guys I went to school with. Guys I would see at the bar.
I appreciated the real anger and frustration these characters are feeling. Especially Colin. He’s bitter, and maybe he has a right to be. He did exactly what he was supposed to do to succeed. He went to school and invested in his career, and yet now he’s out of work and struggling to support his family. I probably don’t need to tell you how that feels. Because of this, we can all kind of understand why he was tempted to rob a bank.
I also want to talk about the fact that this was, as I said, an often-explored story. That can be a bad thing, but it can also be a good thing. This story is told over and over because it’s a good story. A relatable story. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
What didn’t work
That being said, this version didn’t try to do much to break out of the mold.
Because we have seen this story so many times, most of us could tell the story themselves. I would have expected something new, or some twist. But, in the end, the story didn’t bring anything new to the discussion.
Maybe because of this, the ending left a lot to be desired. Trapped in the basement of the bank, everyone just sort of stares at everyone else, until the thieves give up. And that’s it. The ending wasn’t scary, shocking, or funny. It was just sad, on multiple levels.
Overall, this was an okay story. It was entertaining, if not surprising. I would compare this episode to homemade macaroni and cheese. Everyone’s got their own version, they’re all pretty good, and none of them are exciting.
There’s just one episode left in this season of American Horror Stories. Let’s hope they’ve saved the best for last.
(3.5 / 5)
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