The Raven

For the last few years, I have used October to give myself a viewing assignment: a different horror film each day. Now that I have escaped the real life horror of New Zealand’s public service, I intend to write a piece inspired by each film.

My eleventh film is Roger Corman’s The Raven (1963).

The Raven had been described to me as the least of all Roger Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe adaptations, the silliest and the one that deviated most from the source material. I love the poem on which it’s based, immortalised in my mind by James Earl Jones’ narration on the first Simpsons Treehouse of Horror anthology. With all this in mind, I was fully ready to dislike this film…

…but I ended up having a lot of fun!

The film opens with Vincent Price reciting the poem. The man is a singular screen presence but his version cannot hold a candle to Jones’. However, like most of this series, Poe’s work serves partly as a branding exercise and partly as a jumping-off point for something completely different.

Price plays a magician in late Medieval England. The stately Raven who steps into his chamber “with many a flirt and flutter” is revealed to be a second magician cursed into bird form. Price uses magic to turn him back into a man (Peter Lorre) and the two join forces to confront a third magician (Boris Karloff). Tagging along for the ride is Price’s daughter (Olive Sturgess) and Lorre’s son (a young Jack Nicholson). The beloved Lenore (Hazel Court) turns out not to be lost but to have switched sides to serve Karloff.

The sorrow and dread of the poem is replaced by high camp with a handful of fun character actors facing down in a wizards’ dual that feels like Scanners by way of Looney Tunes. It’s goofy, with little to do with to the poem but it’s also kind of an appropriate approach for this particular cast. I struggle to take Price seriously as a screen presence at the best of times, especially when he’s playing a character who’s meant to be menacing or heterosexual, so I really enjoyed him getting a bit silly with it. During the scenes in which he interacts with the Raven, it’s clear that his more theatrical approach is straining under the circumstances but it’s also terribly endearing.

The Raven was reportedly the most expensive of these films, despite looking relatively cheap and recyling shots and sets from earlier entries—largely because of the cast’s salaries. I get why it might irk some people but I love to see Price, Lorre, Karloff and Nicholson goofing off. It’s not like any of Corman’s Poe adaptations are the high-art they pretend to be so there’s something more honest about this one.