Edgar Allan Poe’s Horror Tales Inspire Real Murders in “The Raven”

The macabre and lurid tales of Edgar Allan Poe are vividly brought to life – and death – in Intrepid Pictures’ new stylish, gothic thriller “The Raven” starring John Cusack as the infamous author. The film will be shown soon exclusively at Ayala Malls Cinemas (Glorietta 4, Greenbelt 3 and Trinoma).

When a madman begins committing horrific murders inspired by Poe’s darkest works, a young Baltimore detective (Luke Evans) joins forces with Poe in a quest to get inside the killer’s mind in order to stop him from making every one of Poe’s brutal stories a blood chilling reality. A deadly game of cat and mouse ensues, which escalates when Poe’s love (Alice Eve) becomes the next target.

Also starring Brendan Gleeson and Oliver Jackson-Cohen, “The Raven” is directed by James McTeigue (“V For Vendetta”) from a screenplay by Hannah Shakespeare & Ben Livingston.

When a mother and daughter are found brutally murdered in 19th century Baltimore, Detective Emmett Fields 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.

James McTeigue immediately gravitated towards “The Raven’s” script when it was brought to him by producer Aaron Ryder who previously worked on similar psychological thrillers as “Memento,” “The Prestige” and “Donnie Darko.” “I knew a little about Edgar Allan Poe, but not massive amounts. I really dug the concept, which was a melding of fact and fiction, with Poe in the middle of his own story. The conceit of the movie is what really attracted me to it.”

The director adds, “We’ve always the desire to humanize Poe. You don’t want an unsympathetic lead character because then no one can get into the film. Having said that, I didn’t want him to be a choirboy either. Part of the reason to cast John Cusack in it, was because he has a great empathy with audiences. I thought we could show the less desirable aspects of Poe, but still not have the audiences turned off. You can’t really make a film about Poe and not show these demons, which ultimately created all of the great work that he did.”