and by that I mean that The Raven is the most insultingly bad adaptation I have ever seen and very worthy of being on my "worst movies ever made list" actually doing the remarkable thing and knocking a Coleman Francis movie off the list. The reason for that is that Coleman Francis is a name movie buffs like to make fun of and he has only directed what? three movies? Whereas this guy manages to have a long career of producing the most pretentious, nonsensical pieces of crap. It seriously PAINS me to see this guy was in cinema for 30 years.So what's the story? Well as opposed to being set in the 1800's it is now set in the modern day. Lenore is the lead singer of a goth pop group (and no, this is not an alias to make her sound more goth, this is her real name) and she often has flashbacks of her grandfather (or... not) reading to her Edgar Allen Poe stories (oh and this is minor but the young Lenore doesn't look ANYTHING like the older one) and she is confronted only just now for some reason by a murdering evil spirit which I think is The Raven, I say this because I still have no clue what this is and apparently for an evil spirit he certainly does drive a lot. Either way Lenore must become the Lenore Edgar Allen Poe wrote about (who is also a Guardian Angel type figure to her) and defeat The Raven.Okay, if you have read the poem then you know this has next to nothing to do with the actual Raven story so I'll skim over that (although I refuse to let this go) and talk about how incompetent a guy with 30 years "experience" and working with prominent German directors has fared out. The editing is so fast in this movie, it flashes bright white lights every 2 minutes, cuts back and forth between power lines (maybe it's symbolism to show that one scene is actually connected to another... I don't know, it's annoying) and the fact that this wasn't edited by just one guy is really surprising. Oh and there are also these flashes of some guy talking with text over it that I really don't know what this has to do with anything... I think I have made my point in saying this has even less significance abut somehow happens more frequently then the use of the line "flags on the moon" in Beast Of Yucca Flats. To talk more technical stuff, every element feels like either a YouTube video from when it first started or some kind of soft core porn.This movie is also very pretentious as you probably may have read above but where it loses me is that even in context nothing makes any sense. Why is it that The Raven only decided to kill everyone she comes into contact with now as opposed to when she was a child? How does The Raven turn invisible yet in the final 10 minutes he is somehow warded off by a karate girl Lenore just happens to be friends with? Why is Edgar Allen Poe writing gibberish watching Lenore sleep and speaking of Lenore sleeping why are there candles all around her bedroom and black roses even if you make the argument that Poe writing that crap was symbolic? What is the significance of the telegraph wires that take up most of this movie's shots? Why is the Raven heavily breathing when it is revealed he's the ghost of someone Lenore killed and if that is the case why is Lenore free to move about instead of... you know, in jail? Why does the Red Death appear in this movie because he contributes absolutely NOTHING to the plot? Why is nobody alarmed when people Lenore starts getting into contact with disappear? At the end why can the karate girl fend off The Raven when he's meant to be invisible? and finally why is Edgar Allen Poe in modern times and if this is art house then why is it a "love conquers all" message when it's basically told to us? All these questions and probably a whole lot more will arise when watching this movie.As I said this is probably the most insultingly pretentious movie I have ever seen in my life. How Ulli Lommel can make a career out of making movies spanning decades and be THIS bad is beyond my comprehension. I would advise if you're an Edgar Allen Poe fan... It would be better to avoid this movie like a toxic waste dump.

Before I start this review, I feel as though I should talk about a director, Rainer Werner Fassbinder. For those that don't know, Fassbinder, for me, blurs the lines between an art-house film and flat out exploitation. This was a guy whose best film, in my opinion, is where a couple who have both committed adultery are pressured by their crippled daughter to shoot said daughter. The guy was apparently a horrible human being in real life but I at least see an audience for his work. So why am I bringing this up? He often would produce films for his "anti-theater" movement, often actors that worked in his films would direct something he'd produce. The best director to come out of that is Margarethe Von Trotta who did Rosenstrasse and Hannah Arendt. On the other end of the scale, the worst is Ulli Lommel who just feels like he's trying to recapture that "arthouse/exploitation glory" with this - The Raven.If your familiar with Edgar Allan Poe's work, even remotely, you should know the story about how a guy is tormented with the loss of a woman called Lenore, a Raven flies in and torments him with the word "Nevermore" (this "analysis" doesn't do the poem justice at all, if you haven't already, I'd suggest checking it out). This film doesn't even follow that. In fact, it doesn't even follow a coherent narrative, to the point where Ed Wood would probably scratch his head in confusion to answer the question of "what the hell is going on?" The plot, actually is about a woman called Lenore who has psychic dreams about Edgar Allan Poe and The Red Death from his story "The Masque Of The Red Death". Whats the point of including this in the narrative, for The Red Death, there is none, for Edgar Allan Poe himself, thats a bit more complicated.So Lenore is told by her Grandfather (played by Lommel himself) that she is the Lenore that Edgar Allan Poe talked about in The Raven. Her character goal is to become Lenore in Poe's work but even if that wasn't vague enough of a quest, we have a reason as to why that is the single dumbest idea any character can conceive. Earlier in her life she actually fought off a man who wanted to rape her and she electrified him. He comes back with Tomato Sauce on his face killing all Lenore's friends but he can't harm her, nor even die, until she fulfills her destiny. So if she does become Poe's Lenore, it means this angry rage ghost can harm her and she's the source of his rage! Now for other questions like "why does Poe's work allow such a shroud of non violence against someone who shares a name with one of his characters?" or "where did the ghost come from?" or "why is it killing her friends and other seemingly random people we never even get a name for?" Explanation? Who needs it? Oh and the film is edited so badly that to figure out what I did about the plot, I had to read the blurb on the back of the box. If you saw this film without the DVD box...good luck trying to follow the film.I actually haven't even got to the editing in this film and that is by FARRRRRR the worst aspect of the film and considering the actors all sound like they're half asleep, all the cinematography looks like it was done by a 5 year old and the sound is eerily quiet and you suspect that it wasn't directed that way, thats saying a lot. Why? Well we actually get, nearly every minute, quick shots of telegraph poles. We also have the Red Death dreams that take up a good 10 minutes. We also see a man in a black bird suit driving from time to time which takes up less than 5 seconds every time and that happens every scene, and to add insult to injury, the killer often talks in this film, over a shot of telegraph poles and the words he's saying actually being put on screen for the audience. Can you guess how much this has to do with the plot? If you guessed "nothing" YOU ARE CORRECT!I'm not sure if this actually is starting to sound like The Room or Birdemic where "oh its just parody fun, this sounds hysterical" its not. Its absolute torture to sit through. I've never felt 80 minutes as long, drawn out and as boring as this. What about characters back story? Well lets try Lenore, she's a singer for a band (we see a total of 3 minutes devoted to it and thats to sing some shitty song, guess how much it contributes to the plot), she was raised in a nunnery (we get this information around 10 minutes from the end) and loved being read Edgar Allan Poe stories by her grandfather. The entirety of her character summed up in ONE SENTENCE! She is also the deepest and introspective character in the entire plot. Ask me to name another character, I swear, I WILL stare at you blankly.Overall, I don't see how anyone...anywhere can really enjoy this film. Its torture to sit through, you need a DVD case with you at all times to figure out the bare bones of what the hell is going on and it has nothing to do with the poem at all! In short, when your adaptation of an Edgar Allan Poe story makes Masque Of The Red Death starring Frank Stallone look like a masterpiece, STOP DIRECTING IMMEDIATELY!

This laughable excuse for a film was both aesthetically assaulting and insulting....to the viewer and to the media industry. there was nothing even remotely entertaining or well done about this production. the whole thing wasn't even worth the edit that would have told them not to attempt to bring it into the world. i couldn't even watch the whole thing. someone decided they could make a film just because they had a cheap camera and some makeup one could purchase at any Walgreens. I could film something better than this with a potato. I don't know whats worse, the film itself, or the fact that someone allowed this garbage to be published....shame publishers. I'd say the same to the producers, but seeing as this must have been a no-budget film, i think its safe to say there are no producers to blame for such catastrophic defecation of the film industry. My advice...DO NOT WATCH THIS FILM! (Strongly recommended)

Just one thing.I am German. And I feel ashamed by movies like this, by Lommel, by Boll, and all those other German directors, that recently entered Hollywood to produce the worst movies, that an human mind can ever imagine. This movie right here actually is even worse than anything I could imagine before.So... Just understand: it's not our fault... Nobody in Germany knows these guys, nobody knows, where they are coming from and who pays them money to produce this. We like good movies, too, and yes, we hate these guys, too.I honestly feel ashamed. As a German, I apologize for this. Thank you for your attention.