The mysteries surrounding Edgar Allan Poe’s life seem to make him as attractive a subject for a mystery yarn as anything he wrote about – which is particularly interesting, given his role in the development of the genre itself. The relationship between Poe’s art and Poe’s life is just too tantalising to ignore. The Raven (2012) blended Poe’s life and works in a fairly effective piece of horror, and a decade on, Raven’s Hollow (2022) has done much the same thing, with many of the same positives and negatives held in a similar balance.
The film starts with what looks like a fairy story scene (and not the only nod to a scene in The Beguiled) as a little girl gathering food in the woods has to flee from a malign something, which soon turns out to be no respecter of a locked and barred door. Perhaps the same malign force has something to do with the body of a young man, oddly strung up in the trees, which is discovered by a small group of military cadets travelling in the area. Edgar Poe (William Moseley), one of their number, insists on taking the body down and taking it home, reasoning that ‘home’ must be thereabouts. Just before expiring, the man had intoned the word ‘raven’ to Poe; there’s a small town nearby called Raven’s Hollow, which Poe suggests will surely take receipt of the man’s remains.
When the men arrive, the townspeople are reticent to say the least, though this may be due to the fact that they are already mid-way through a burial (and/or maybe aren’t all that used to strangers turning up carrying dead bodies). They claim not to know the young man at all. Poe, a sensitive and observant soul, disbelieves these claims and wants to know more about this place. Besides, it’s cold and getting dark: the men therefore decide to stay the night at the local inn. It’s an opportunity to ask more questions, which they do, though they find themselves laughing off the legend of a ‘raven’ which feeds on people; this creature is recently responsible for a small spate of deaths, it is claimed. They also discover that this folkloric creature is an old belief, far older than the settlement itself. Whatever their cynicism, strange events quickly do begin to overtake the men: even as different townsfolk emerge and recede as suspicious figures, risk and danger begin to impact upon the cadets and it seems they must solve the mystery in order to escape.
Step forward, Eddie Poe: never quite on the level with the other cadets, he holds a different viewpoint and seems open to different phenomena (this offers some justification for the isolated, troubled man he would become – Poe really was a cadet and really spent a few tumultuous years in the military). He is able to ask more pertinent questions and to gain the trust of several of the townspeople, even if for the short term: there are also hints that he is already rather more open to the kind of mythology or experiences which allegedly haunt Raven’s Hollow. The script here is very simple, though it does what it needs to do: it doles out its reveals rather carefully and in such a way that – with only a couple of brief lulls – the pace of the film holds fast, weaving together different strands of the mystery. There are some very gruesome set pieces, too, which have clearly been put together with some care.
As this takes place, there is a lot of period detail to enjoy: abundant mourning clothes, wine-coloured walls, dark wainscoting, tumbledown buildings and a consistent, pleasing sort of prim decay which characterises the film throughout. It’s far more Eggers than Corman; forget that very lurid latter kind of Poe adaptation, as that is not for here (and, as a result of all the natural low light and candlelight used, this is a very dark film overall). So aesthetically, the film is a delight – if you like that sort of thing. There are a few missteps as Raven’s Hollow moves along with its famous literary figure in tow, however. Whilst the simplicity of the script is notable, and certainly never makes Poe himself a particularly verbose figure, as may be expected, by the same token some of the chunks of exposition are a little too simple; a character gets a few minutes to fill in a raft of back-story, for example, which can feel rushed. Some of the lip service to Poe lore is a little clunky, too, even if you momentarily enjoy catching these moments as they go by.
Still, some minor reservations aside, this is a fairly enjoyable mystery story which makes Poe into an engaging character in that particular mystery. Moseley does something engaging with the role, Kate Dickie (in a supporting role here) is always dependable, and this is perhaps above all an interesting change of direction for director/writer Christopher Hatton, who has tended towards sci-fi and even a spot of kids’ animation in his other projects. No one can deny that segueing into a literary origins story like this shows a bit of versatility, or that taking on a canonical writer like Poe shows courage.
Raven’s Hollow (2022) will be released on 22nd September, 2022.