Once upon a midnight dreary

I love seeing films that I've never heard of before and thus have absolutley zero preconceptions about. It's super fun making judgements right from the title and as the opening credits run. And so my initial thoughts about this film were; 'Awesome! I love ravens. Ravens are great....'

This might actually be a rook, but the sentiment still stands.

The Raven (2012) 

Firstly, there's not enough ravens in this film. But there is John Cusack with an amusing beard as a down and out Edgar Allan Poe running around Victorian era Baltimore trying to trace a crazed obsessive serial killer who is reenacting Poe's fictional murders. It's all very dark and complex with a vaguely (and literally) tortured romance going on as well.

You're plunged into the scary dark world right from the onset. And having read none of Poe's fiction, I was totally unprepared for the grisly violence! I was feeling fairly creeped throughout the entire film as the body count notches up. Stylistically, it was like a time warped Se7en with touches of the game 'Hard Rain' for good measure the way you're led to consider 'whodunnit?'

John Cusack, as ever, is excellent and compelling. I don't really remember the rest of the cast, which goes to show... The script is surprisingly witty with some great exchanges between Poe and everyone he speaks to really. His is a very lovingly developed character.

The ending I thought was a very clever take on the actual facts surrounding Poe near the time of his death. 

Quoth the raven; it's a tongue!  

~Aim

Also when we saw this scene we both burst out. Is that a tongue?

~ Chris

We withdrew some money...

...and watched ATM.

ATM is a film I've seen a trailer of somewhere, either in the cinema or some DVD, Aim doesn't recall seeing anything about it but we (I) decided we should give it a try anyway.

ATM

The basic plot:
Three people go in an ATM hut, neither me nor Aim has ever seen a building like that before but maybe they actually have them in America. There they get trapped by a hooded man, that at first just stands there and watches them, they get freaked out and holes up in the hut. Later the guy kills a man that is out walking his dog in front of them and they realise that they're in mortal peril. His attempts to lure them out/kill them in the hut continues as they try to think of a way to escape.

My thoughts:
The film is...meh...and quite unsatisfactory, it gives no reason for the hooded man to do this and the acting is really awful. Furthermore there's tons of pointless dialogue and a romance that makes Twilight seem like Romeo and Juliet.

The idea for the film is good but it leaves much to wish for. A higher pace, a better insight to the hooded man, better acting, and less crap dialogue.

That the script was written by the guy that wrote Buried first struck me as quite the surprise but when I come to think of it, the dialogue of that film wasn't the best either. It was better delivered by Ryan Reynolds though. I also see the similarities between the two films and that the writer has drawn inspiration from his own work. Although if you're going to watch one of his films go with Buried, take my word for it.

And now for what you have all been waiting for...
will it get a tongue?

Nope, I can't recommend this film even though I liked the basic idea of it enough to watch it after seeing the trailer.

~ Chris