Format: DVD from Sycamore Public Library on the new portable.
While I like a lot of modern horror movies (when they aren’t just gratuitously gory), there’s a part of me that truly loves the old school stuff. The Raven is from 1935 and features both Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff, so it’s very much in that wheelhouse. It’s also a movie that manages to offer only a very tangential connection to its source material. The connections are that one character likes Poe a lot and at one point there is an interpretive dance while someone reads the poem. No, really.
We start with a car accident. Jean Thatcher (Irene Ware) crashes her car and lies at the brink of death. Her father (Samuel S. Hinds) pleads with noted but retired doctor Richard Vollin (Bela Lugosi) to come out of retirement to save his daughter. Vollin is eventually persuaded to do so, and naturally his skill is what pulls Jean through. Shortly thereafter, Jean performs the aforementioned interpretive Raven dance.
