Horrorfest 2023: The Raven

The Raven

Screenplay by Richard Matheson

Based on the poem by Edgar Allan Poe

Directed by Roger Corman

Starring Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Boris Karloff, Hazel Court, Olive Sturgess and Jack Nicholson

USA, 1963

I try not to go an entire October without at least one Vincent Price movie, so this year it's THE RAVEN, which I've sort of seen parts of before but never really sat down to appreciate from beginning to end. As a bonus, it also stars horror heroes Peter Lorre and Boris Karloff, as well as Jack Nicholson. And as a bonus bonus, it's a Roger Corman flick!

Not to be confused with the other THE RAVEN also starring Boris Karloff (and Bela Lugosi!) that I checked out in the very first Horrorfest way back in 2009, this one is also "based" on the Edgar Allan Poe poem in only the loosest sense. This time around Peter Lorre has been transformed into the titular bird by an evil wizard (Boris Karloff) and enlists the help of another wizard (Vincent Price) to not only return to human form but also exact his revenge. Price is reluctant to help (even is dead father's corpse warns him not to) but ends up coming along when he finds out his beloved Lenore (from the poem! get it?) (Hazel Court) is not dead but instead inexplicably in the clutches of Karloff. Jack Nicholson and Olive Sturgess round out the cast as Lorre and Price's kids, respectively.

THE RAVEN is only a horror movie in its trappings: big cobweb-filled houses, old imposing castles, crypts, laboratories, dead bodies, axe-wielding henchmen, thunder and lightning crashes... all that stuff is here, and more, but it's all in the service of what turns out to be a farcical comedy. That's to the movie's strength because, played straight, I don't think there's enough going on here to keep anyone's attention. But played for laughs, it's an amusing distraction.

All the leads are great as always with Price standing out specifically as an ultra-polite gentleman with a distaste for mixing macabre elixirs, but who does it anyway, in a pinch. Lorre's in full harassed mode, which his his best mode, and Karloff is aloof and above everything, playing it as straight as he can as a passive aggressively evil wizard. Really, just having the chance to see all three of these guys on screen playing off of each other is worth it.