★★★★☆

Those who know me know I’m a fairly big John Cusack fan. Well, big in that I tend to like movies he has a role in. I only own a couple and as of yet The Raven isn’t one. Has nothing to do with the quality of the movie and more to do with having most of the shelves full in an antique China hutch. I must say the critics were far too vicious when they emptied their colons on this flick.  Quite honestly I considered this an homage to Vincent Price.

Vincent Price

Those of you too young to remember black and white television, let alone black and white films probably don’t remember a time when B-grade horror movies turned the classics into things the masses enjoyed.  Yes, we had to read “some” of these stories while attending school, but, most of us growing up in the blue collar world were not “well read” even if we read all of the time.  We preferred stories which handed out violence and gave us something to anticipate.  The next “Mike Hammer” story or the next volume of “The Executioner”.

Back there and back then, the master at raising our brow was Vincent Price.  Oh, the film industry emptied their colons on his work time and time again, yet TV stations replayed his movies along with others during “shows” which catered to the genre.  There were many names, “Creature Features”, “Son of Svengoolie”, and many others.  Usually on Sunday afternoons when the station didn’t have any sports to run or late on either Friday or Saturday evenings.  Low budget stations and low budget movies went hand in hand.

Strength of Character

What was magic about these movies wasn’t the hokey special effects and cheap costumes.  It was the strength of the characters, not in the script, but the way the actors threw themselves into the part.  Vincent Price was the master of these low budget darlings.  He both let us in on the joke and took us along for the ride.  We would work late the day before or get up early to finish all of our chores so we could watch one of his movies when it came on.  It was a time when TV Guide dictated our schedules.  Quite honestly I know some people who actually read these classics because they watched a Vincent Price movie based on them.

For those who know nothing about The Raven, John Cusack plays Edgar Allen Poe. In true modern day fashion a serial killer decides to honor him by killing people in the same manner as they die in his writings. To me, “The Raven” is a tribute to that time when dark and grainy film allowed the audience to join the experience in a way HD/3D/Ultra cannot. You couldn’t really see or hear it all. Your mind had to fill in what wasn’t there once it bought into the premise of the story. It was a far better way of engaging the audience. Today’s comic book movies do not engage the audience, they put on a spectacle for the audience. There is a difference. Perhaps critics got so used to the latter they forgot how good things used to be?

Old Time Radio Classics

If you want to understand a little of what I am trying to share, find a radio station which runs old time radio classics.  There are still a few out there.  Listen to shows like “Jack Benny”, “The Lone Ranger” and others of that era.  Then, bring up your movie rental Web page and find all of the Vincent Price black and white movies you can.  Find or rent a room with a fireplace and a television on a cold winter day and watch them back to back.  Get in touch with what we who grew up in a time when most people didn’t go to college found compelling about these treasures.

To those who put together The Raven I say thank you.  It was a trip down memory lane and those memories were good.

For more movie rental ideas please see list one and list two.