The Raven (2012)

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The Raven (2012)

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The Raven is an American thriller film directed by James McTeigue and based on a screenplay by Ben Livingston and Hannah Shakespeare. It stars John Cusack, Alice Eve, and Luke Evans. The title derives from Poe's poem "The Raven", in the similar manner of the unrelated 1935 and 1963 previous films.

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Plot: The film opens in 19th century Maryland – where several Baltimore policemen are chasing after the screams of a woman in an apartment. The police arrive at the apartment in time only to discover a woman sprawled on the floor with her throat sliced open and the corpse of her daughter stuffed in the chimney. Detective Emmett Fields is called to assist in the investigation and discovers that the crime resembles a fictional murder in the short story "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", which is part of a collection of stories penned by the writer Edgar Allan Poe. Poe has become a social pariah and penniless drunkard whose stories have not been circulated for some time. He has fallen in love with the beautiful young Emily Hamilton and desires to marry her but faces opposition from her father Captain Hamilton, a military man who loathes Poe and goes to the length of threatening physical violence. Poe is brought to see Fields for questioning and is horrified to learn someone is using his stories as the backdrop for a series of murders. Fields then proposes that Poe volunteer his services to help the police catch the killer and Poe agrees to the task.

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The two men are called to investigate the murder of literary critic Rufus Griswold, the man who became Poe's rival after a feud that was published in the Baltimore newspapers. Poe realizes the gruesome crime resembles a scene from "The Pit and the Pendulum" as Fields notices a red demon mask near the corpse. The two then deduce that the scene of the next crime will take place at Captain Hamilton's annual masquerade ball – a scene that will resemble the Masked Ball in "The Masque of the Red Death". Fields assigns several members of the Baltimore Police to go undercover as guests at the Masked Ball. Sometime before midnight, at the height of the festivities, a man on horseback dressed in a skeleton costume appears. Fields shoots the man only to learn he was an actor hired for the entertainment and receives an anonymous note. Poe then realizes Emily has been kidnapped, meaning the event was all a distraction. It's revealed in the killer's note that he will continue to commit murders and leave clues to Emily's location. The killer then threatens to kill Emily if Poe does not start writing columns for the newspaper that describe the brutal combination of fact and fiction – forcing Poe to comply with the request in order to save Emily.

–from wikipedia

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The Raven (2012)

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The Raven (2012)

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The Raven (2012)

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The Raven (2012)

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The Raven (2012)

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