31 Days of Horror: The Crow

Horror isn’t just a genre; it’s an amalgamation of pop culture, cozy traditions, and things that go bump in the night. This year, we're taking our 31 Days of Horror across the entire cultural spectrum. We’ll be taking a look at movies that scare us, games that kept us paranoid, scary books we cozy up with under blankets, music that sets that spooky tone and seasonal food we’re craving–or strange food you’d have to tie us up and force feed us. Whether you’re looking for something truly terrifying or a cozy autumn haunt, come back every day this month for a new bite-sized review or spooky adjacent list.

Horror and Halloween aren’t entirely about just scaring yourself silly. They’re a tapestry of emotions carefully seeded across a landscape of the dark and macabre. Thirty-two years ago, despite the tragic death of Brandon Lee on set during filming, The Crow hit theaters.

It’s dark and it’s bleak, but it’s also sleek film noir that to this day, feels like putting on a well-worn but well-kept leather jacket. It’s a graphic novel come to life on the big screen that tells a familiar and haunting story of love, loss, revenge, and ultimately, resting in peace.

Rock star Eric Draven (Brandon Lee) is brutally murdered along with his wife Shelly Webster (Sofia Shinas) by a gang of thugs at the behest of crime boss Top Dollar (Michael Wincott) for attempting to stop evictions in their apartment building. A year later, Draven is resurrected by a crow and hunts the perpetrators of his and his fiancée’s murderers to avenge their deaths.

All of this takes place in an exaggerated, near apocalyptic looking version of Detroit on Devil’s Night. In addition to intense, high-octane action sequences, we see the landscape of a very gothed out version of the city twisting and turning ostensibly through the eyes of a crow.

At the time, most big action movies and thrillers had a very similar feel to them. Two of the biggest blockbusters of 1994 were True Lies and Speed. The Crow turned what felt like a very long standard on its head. Maybe it’s because I was a very young teenager just barely getting my feet wet in goth, punk, and metal subculture, but it was something I could connect with in a much deeper way than most other movies at the time.

The movie was released with a soundtrack that’s truly epic and still serves as a wonderful time capsule that highlights some of the best metal, goth, and alternative music that was coming out in the early 90s.

Eric Draven is out for justice and looking to put right an incredible tragic wrong inflicted on him and a person he loved, but he’s an emotional wreck and roller coaster while on the journey.  He’s got superhuman powers – albeit limited to the beating hearts of the villains he wants to dispatch – but he’s not a superhero, and he’s often borderline psychotic. Brandon Lee played this part spectacularly, and there are quite a few scenes that have stuck with me more than three decades later.

It’s a heartbreaking story set against a backdrop of a heartbreaking tragedy and thirty two years later, still stands up as one of the best movies of its era.