The Crow (1994): With its macabre atmosphere and tragic backstory, the first entry in the gothic franchise is still a worthy watch

Christian’s Grade: C+

It’s important to remember that in the 90s, the landscape for pop culture was very different than it is today. Comic books weren’t cool, animation was still aimed primarily at kids, being goth made you an outcast, graphic novel movie adaptations were rare, and superhero/comic book movies were not a genre unto themselves. So back then, when the geek underground received a gift in the form of a mainstream movie that came from a celebrated and cult-favorite graphic novel, it made waves. In 1994 that gift was The Crow.

I completely understand that watching The Crow today for the first time will be a very different experience than it was in 1994, and I’ll admit it doesn’t get better with age. Keep in mind, this was 16 years after Superman (1978), five years after Batman (1989), two years after Batman Returns (1992), Blade wouldn’t happen until 1998, X-Men came out in 2000, and Spider-Man hit in 2002. So, the broad acceptance of superhero movies was still in its infancy, and the path leading to the birth of the Marvel Cinematic Universe was still being paved. But there are things about this movie that still resonate.

The story is set on Halloween night, also known as Devils Night, to the locals of a non-descript gothic cityscape because of the arson spree that spreads across the city every year. It opens on a crime scene swarmed by cops and paramedics. Shelly and her fiancé Eric have been attacked by a local street gang which ends up costing both of them their lives. As we learn from the opening narration, there is a legend that if a soul can’t rest due to a violent death, sometimes a crow will bring the soul back to life to get its revenge before finding peace. One year later, a crow brings Eric back to life and is his spirit guide to getting revenge on each gang member responsible for his and Shelly’s murder. In the beginning, his memory of the events are fuzzy, and he’s not sure how or why he’s back. As he follows the crow and makes his way through the city, hunting down each perpetrator, he pieces together more of what happened to them, why they were targeted, and who was really behind all of it.

It all plays out as less of a mystery and more of a justifiable and sympathetic, blood-soaked revenge action drama. The comic book side of it comes out as Eric discovers that as a resurrected dead man, he can’t be stopped by blades or bullets. He’s a vengeful spirit brought to life. But only as long as his spirit guide, the crow, is with him. Without it, he becomes mortal and susceptible to a second death.

The plot is a well-trod classic, not unlike Death Wish (1974) or Kill Bill (2003), but with a supernatural twist. Taking cues from Tim Burton’s Batman, The Crow leans heavily into the gothic sensibilities of the setting, making this city dark, dirty, and dangerous. The city mirrors the hero and the villains, as has become standard for most superhero movies. But The Crow borrowed from Batman in other ways too. There was extensive use of model sets used for shots of the city, particularly aerial shots where we see from the crow’s perspective. However, here the models look more obvious than they did in Batman, and this is one of those areas where the film’s age really shows. But some slack has to be given when The Crow is made with a budget of about $23 million, and Batman had about $35 million to work with.

Director Alex Proyas ended up crafting a very stylized and interesting gothic fairy tale with The Crow, his first feature film. The film was dripping with goth influence. From the cinematography, costumes, set design, and soundtrack, to a main character who’s an avenging angel in the form of a musician, dressed all in black, wearing black & white stage makeup modeled after a tragedy mask, who will not bend to the will of those who try to intimidate him, The Crow connected with a lot of 90’s kids, goth or not. 

Music was a noticeable component of the graphic novel in as much as lyrics from goth rock band Joy Division were sprinkled throughout, providing insight into Eric’s state of mind. The character of Eric was a musician, so the film’s director coming out of the music video world was very appropriate. Proyas updated the musical inspiration by filling the soundtrack with modern bands of the time, like The Cure, The Jesus & Mary Chain, Violent Femmes, and Nine InchNails. Some of whom can also be said to have been influenced by Joy Division. 

The acting is where this film really loses its footing. It’s very uneven. Star Brandon Lee as Eric seemed to be extremely well suited for the physicality of the role. But when it came to the dialog, there were times he seemed like he wasn’t very comfortable with his own lines. Other times it seemed like he was trying too hard to push an emotional moment that ends up feeling awkward. But on the other hand, there were also moments where he just seemed to effortlessly embody this character and speak from a truly emotional part of himself.

The character of Sarah (Rochelle Davis), who is both the narrator of the story and a young girl, neglected by an absentee drug-addicted single mother, but loved and cared for by Shelly and Eric, seems out of place throughout most of the story. When you see her, she doesn’t do much. She gets kidnapped at the end, and Eric needs to save her. But a skillful writer could find another mechanism to get Eric from A to B, and Sarah could simply disappear. Even with the narration, young Rochelle Davis wasn’t selling it. It sounded like she was reading lines instead of performing a monologue. 

I’ll give the cast credit. The dialog in that script wasn’t easy to pull off in a natural-sounding way. But much of the supporting cast did the best they could with what they were given. Michael Wincott and David Patrick Kelly were fun to watch here, and both brought a unique tone to their characters. But honestly, the scenes where the actors had something physical to do is where this film really shined. The action sequences were outstanding. The shootout during the big boss meeting where Eric takes on about 20 guys to get to the last surviving gang member was like something out of John Wick (2014), except that The Crow did it 20 years earlier.

And that brings me to the saddest part. Ultimately, what this movie is remembered for is not the charisma, physicality, and skill of Brandon Lee, son of Bruce Lee. And it’s not how a fresh director introduced the world to a cool character out of a graphic novel that was not published by DC or Marvel. Or that it was made at a time when very few people were given the chance to do a movie about a comic book character at all. The Crow will always be haunted by the on-set death of Brandon Lee due to a gun prop accident where he was shot and killed during a scene. Then there were the nonsensical stories of a Lee family curse that also took his father at a young age. And the controversy of digitally putting Brandon’s face over other actors to finish the filming. It’s such a shame that shadow hangs over the legacy of an actor that clearly had more to give if only he’d had more time.

If any kind of curse can be connected to this film, the only evidence of it is that The Crow as a franchise resulted in such unremarkable sequels.