Throughout Thanksgiving break, I watched the original 1994 The Crow movie and the 2024 remake. The original film stars Brandon Lee as the main star actor, and the movie’s entire premise, in short words, is a loving couple: Erin Draveen (played by Brandon Lee) and Shelly Webster (played by Sofia Shinas) who plan on getting married on Halloween day; however, a gang breaks into their home that night and brutally murders the two. The movie then progresses over a year, and Eric comes out of his grave, brought back to life through a crow, and brutally murders each gang member one by one to gain revenge over his now-dead lover. The original film was produced by Alex Proyas and released on May 10, 1994. When the movie starts, a 12-year-old girl who is soon introduced as Sarah (Rochelle Davis) begins to talk about how crows are pathways from life to the afterlife.
The original movie starts with crows carrying people’s souls to the afterlife, and sometimes, if a person’s soul is reckless for revenge, the crow brings them back to life. Since I do not want to ruin the story, I’ll explain the main points of acting and wardrobe.
Brandon Lee portrays Eric Draven in a pale zombie-like appearance. Lee said in an interview that he believes that Eric’s character shouldn’t look healthy for his role, meaning he lost about 20 pounds for the role. Throughout Eric wears leather pants, a tight elastic shirt decorated with black electrical tape, and black and white face paint. I enjoy the darkness of his outfit; it symbolizes the change in Eric’s soul when he witnesses his lover die. Also, because of this, Eric is a man of very few words, which I enjoy because, for me, a dead man shouldn’t speak too often, especially when he is seeking revenge on his murderers. I don’t want to get into detail since I think it is better to watch the movie on your own time.
Every character in the film performs in an extremely believing manner. My favorite performance by an actor was by Funboy (Michael Massee). Although he was a severe morphine addict and one of Shelly’s rapists and utterly had a small portion of the scene, I found that he exhibits drug addictions, in my opinion.
The remake of The Crow is extremely different from the origins of Eric and Shelly’s past lives. Something that struck me was that after they both died, they both ended up in the water, and Shelly drowned and fell while Eric swam up and ended up in a dark place filled with crows a strange man suddenly appeared and told him that when a soul cannot rest until he kills everyone that wronged him.
I enjoyed the casting of the two main characters, Shelly and Eric; they fit into their roles. I can’t exactly describe it, so you’ll just have to watch the movie. One confusing thing about this complete remake, and I thoroughly had to research on Google for this, is a character named Vincent Roeg, a wealthy businessman and philanthropist with a taste for fine art and classical music. He is secretly powered by demonic forces, blessing him with the power of suggestion. I liked the overall wardrobe with Eric wearing a jacket that Shelly gifted him and him wearing it as he kills everyone.
Overall, I would rate the original film a 6/10 personally because the movie did not typically have any background information about Shelly’s or Eric’s dark past. I enjoyed the movie despite the lack of overall background. This movie was not the same as the first in any manner. However, it was sort of refreshing, although I was confused about why they changed the plot and character so much, I found a slight liking to it overall. I probably rate this movie remake a 4/10.
