The Raven

The Raven is a 2012 American psychological thriller drama film directed by James McTeigue, produced by Marc D. Evans, Trevor Macy and Aaron Ryder and written by Ben Livingston and Hannah Shakespeare. It stars John Cusack, Alice Eve, Brendan Gleeson and Luke Evans. Set in 1849, it is a fictionalized account of the last days of Edgar Allan Poe's life, in which the poet and author pursues a serial killer whose murders mirror those in Poe's stories. While the plot of the film is fictional, the writers based it on some accounts of real situations surrounding Edgar Allan Poe's mysterious death. Poe is said to have repeatedly called out the name "Reynolds" on the night before his death, though it is unclear to whom he was referring. The title derives from Poe's poem "The Raven", in the similar manner of the earlier unrelated 1935 and 1963 films. It was released in Canada, Ireland, and the United Kingdom on March 9, 2012 and in the United States on April 27, 2012. It was a moderate commercial success, receiving $1.7 million more than its budget, but garnering near-negative reviews, with the visual effects and score by Lucas Vidal praised, but the performances and plot twists criticized.