Though there have been spy shots circulating for some time the first official still from James McTeigue's The Raven has just been released. John Cusack plays Edgar Allan Poe in the period thriller that also stars Luke Evans, Brendan Gleeson and Alice Eve. And, clearly, Poe needs some clean pants.
Bluntly, I'd be far more interested in this if it was someone other than McTeigue directing - memories of Ninja Assassin still leave a foul taste in my mouth - but Cusack is always solid, the support cast is strong and the premise quite interesting. Thoughts?In this gritty thriller, Edgar Allan Poe (John Cusack, Being John Malkovich) joins forces with a young Baltimore detective (Luke Evans, Immortals) to hunt down a mad serial killer who's using Poe's own works as the basis in a string of brutal murders. Directed by James McTeigue (V for Vendetta), the film also stars Alice Eve (Sex and the City 2), Brendan Gleeson (In Bruges) and Oliver Jackson-Cohen (Faster).
When a mother and daughter are found brutally murdered in 19th century Baltimore, Detective Emmett Fields (Luke Evans) makes a startling discovery: the crime resembles a fictional murder described in gory detail in the local newspaper--part of a collection of stories penned by struggling writer and social pariah Edgar Allan Poe. But even as Poe is questioned by police, another grisly murder occurs, also inspired by a popular Poe story.
Realizing a serial killer is on the loose using Poe's writings as the backdrop for his bloody rampage, Fields enlists the author's help in stopping the attacks. But when it appears someone close to Poe may become the murderer's next victim, the stakes become even higher and the inventor of the detective story calls on his own powers of deduction to try to solve the case before it's too late.