I was going to do a video review, but I feel I’d rather keep my thoughts on my blog. Who knows, maybe I can come back to this later, so having a written log is better in that regard.
I’ve got a long, long history with The Crow. My first encounter with the intellectual property was when I watched the 1994 movie starring Brandon Lee and directed by Alex Proyas. I was in my mid-teens then, so I was naturally melodramatic, emotional, and drawn to works that inspired strong responses. The Crow ticked all those boxes for me.
To offer some context, at the time I was a sheltered kid with gothic tendencies, who grew up in a small, conservative South African community. I attended a strict all-girls’ high school, and the closest thing to an alternative scene I had access to were my fellow ‘weirdoes’ at school – all the rejects who were hippies, punks, role-players, and general misfits. The Crow starring Brandon Lee hit me with a cultural cosmic 2x4, not only affirming my love for a particular aesthetic, but also introducing me to a damned fine album that was a starting point for further musical explorations.
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| Brandon Lee as Eric Draven in The Crow (1994) |
Back then, and even now, the hardcore goths raised on a steady diet of Bauhaus, Joy Division, and Sisters of Mercy sneered at this film. It became somewhat of a stereotype to see at least three or four Crows at any party or event. As they say, “Friends don’t let friends dress up as The Crow for Halloween.”
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| Where were teen Nerine's friends, hey? |
But there was something so liberating in putting on the face paint, dressing all in black, and taking on some of that power and mystique of Eric Draven’s mien. Brandon Lee’s interpretation of the character felt his pain exquisitely, revelled in it – which struck a chord with many young people. Misguided or not, these notions were key for many wishing to establish an identify for themselves.
But who is Eric Draven?
It starts with the comic book character created by artist James O’Barr, who drew his black-and-white art as his way to work through his own personal loss of someone close to him. The Eric in those early comics is driven mad by his pain and grief. The lore is sparse – all we know is that Eric has returned from the dead. He cannot die because in his quest for vengeance, he denies death itself. He will not rest until he ends the people who killed him and Shelly, along a deserted stretch of road.
Interspersed with song lyrics and snatches of poetry, the comic flashes back to the happier times Eric and Shelly experienced. The Eric we meet there is an everyman. He’s not specifically given a career, though in one frame he returns home carrying a workman’s toolbox, which implies that he has a practical job, perhaps a mechanic or electrician.
When he loses everything, he still holds onto a shred of compassion, for the innocent, for those trapped in the malicious webs of others, as is expressed in how he deals with Sarah’s mom with the immortal line, “Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of all children. Do you understand? Do you understand?” This line from the comic made it into the Proyas film but takes it further in showing Eric in the possession of powers to cause the drugs to leave Sarah’s mom’s body through the holes in her veins. Yeah, kinda grim, I know. But it was and is a powerful image.
The Eric Draven we see in the comic book and the first film has both the capacity to kill and heal, creating secondary dynamics with those in need of help – Sarah’s mom, Sarah, to a degree Detective Albrecht. His aim is to set the wrong things right, which we hear in Sarah’s voice-over for the 1994 film:
“People once believed that when someone dies, a crow carries their soul to the land of the dead. But sometimes, something so bad happens that a terrible sadness is carried with it and the soul can't rest. Then sometimes, just sometimes, the crow can bring that soul back to put the wrong things right.”
Eric Draven is driven to hunt down and end every person responsible for killing him and Shelly. In many ways, his journey is that of our innate sense of making sense of a world that is red in tooth and claw. We all wish that justice is done. So often it appears that evil is allowed to walk unchecked, and if you consider the events that drove J O’Barr to create The Crow, the comic book itself is born out of an act of catharsis, a redirecting and transformation of negative energy into a cultural artefact that will memorialise a deep-felt connection with another human being.
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| J O'Barr's Eric evokes Peter Murphy of Bauhaus fame. |
The line, “Victims, aren’t we all” is another resonates for this reason, too. It can be argued that the antagonists are as much victims of circumstances as those they prey upon. Hold that thought, because we’re going to come back to it when I start dissecting The Crow (2024) adaption starring Bill Skarsgård and FKA Twigs and directed by Rupert Sanders. Not only do we see a reversal of the hunter becoming the hunted, when the prey returns seeking vengeance, but we must ask what sort of society breeds the kind of predator who will destroy lives so casually in contemporary society.
That the comic book and the 1994 film were impactful goes without saying; you’ll often see them lauded, possibly primarily GenXers, for whom they played a large part of their cultural references in their mid-to-late teens. The 1994 film itself also carries an extra sting of tragedy in that rising star Brandon Lee was killed on set. I’m not going to go into an exhaustive recounting of events, as there are so many other excellent pieces that discuss this, and I will offer up a list of books, articles, and more that I’ve found useful at the end of this piece.
Brandon effortlessly captures Eric’s mingled grief and rage that is focused single-mindedly on a quest for vengeance. There is something ultimately satisfying in watching evil people get their comeuppance, and as my husband has so succinctly put it, there’s not much story in The Crow. It’s, in essence, Death Wish but for emo goths. Which despite its aesthetic trappings of face paint and skin-tight black togs, is a film that nevertheless carries an immense weight of emotion for viewers when they are in a frame of mind that is receptive to these sentiments.
Eric feels pain – emotionally and physically – and is driven by this. Eric fights for Shelly, who is beyond suffering, and in that sense, perhaps we can identify in him a champion – someone who moves outside the bounds of time and law to do what must be done to assuage the weight of his hurt. He cannot die because he refuses himself even that refuge to finish his work.
As in the nature of Hollywood, sequels for a successful film are pretty much de rigueur. But with a work as intense and highly personal as The Crow, is it even possible to create an effective sequel? It can be argued that the emotional outburst of the first movie only lends itself to that one shot. Any other attempt to recapture the mood and the energy is doomed to failure. In fact, the sequels that followed bear testament to what I like to call the ‘law of diminishing returns’ when it comes to Hollywood. Whether it’s just weak writing or a case of executive decisions to stick to their increasingly watered-down vision of a boilerplate, the devil alone knows.
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| Vincent Perez as Ashe Corven in The Crow: City of Angels (1996) |
The Crow: City of Angels (1996), directed by Tim Pope, at least plays lip service to a credible sequel, featuring a grown-up Sarah (Mia Kirshner) living a beautifully gothic life as a tattoo artist in a Los Angeles soaked in a moody noirscape. Tragedy befalls Ashe Corven (Vincent Perez) when his young son Danny sees a crime being committed, and both he and Ashe are killed by a drug kingpin Judah Earl. This film at least pays lip service to a development of the story – of a new unquiet soul brought back to mete out justice, suggesting that this phenomenon occurs under special circumstances. Earl is shown as possessing magical powers, which further expands the lore, and perhaps the entire gloriously gothic production might have done justice to the spirit of O’Barr’s original work if it weren’t for the almost nonsensical editing decisions that render this into a jumbled mess. I gain the impression that Sarah was intended as a love interest, with Ashe at one point uttering ‘But what if I don’t want to go back’ (to the land of the dead, presumably. This could have been a worthy film. Even Iggy Pop as the gang member Curve doesn’t quite raise the bar. At best, it’s a pretty, somewhat over-indulgent gothic film, but it fails to deliver the same sparse, gritty punch the first film does.
For those of a literary bent, a series of tie-in fiction was released by HarperCollins during the late 1990s, and while much tie-in fiction can arguably be said to be somewhat hit and miss, this time some pretty solid authors for the time were contracted, including Poppy Z Brite, SP Somtow, and Chet Williamson, among others. These, are, of course, difficult to lay hands on now, as they’re out of print, but are certainly far more satisfying than the sequels after The Crow: City of Angels in that they are allowed to expand beyond the tried and tested. There are other comic books, too, but they failed to land for me – perhaps your mileage may vary.
As an author, I’ll maintain that the premise of The Crow, in the right hands, can be developed into some compelling, gritty dark fiction. It’s just that by the time Hollywood bowdlerises a good idea, it’s better to rather indulge in trawling Archive of Our Own for your fan fix. So, yes, I’ve watched The Crow: Salvation (2000) and The Crow: Wicked Prayer (2005) so that you don’t have to. Some things even Dennis Hopper can’t save.
I will briefly touch on the one-season TV series that was aired in 1998. Starring Mark Dacascos who, like Brandon Lee, is proficient at martial arts, it is easy to see why Dacascos was cast. At the age in which he took on Eric’s role, he echoed Brandon’s looks exquisitely. The series itself, which had 22 episodes, had potential to expand the lore, and initially leaned quite heavily into imagery from the first and second movies. There were some sweet call-backs.
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| Marc Dacascos as Eric Draven in The Crow: Stairway to Heaven |
Ultimately, the series was let down perhaps not so much by the budget – which was admittedly small and had that same made-for-TV feel that resulted in the Highlander spinoff feel like Days of Our Lives, but with a few beheadings thrown in for shits and giggles. The Crow: Stairway to Heaven at least tried to stay true to the spirit of the original film, the first few episodes starting out as a sanitised sequence of events that mirrors the film, until such point that the writers need to delve into fresh material.
Admittedly, Eric Draven as an undead crime fighter has its appeal (and if treated properly in a script, has potential). In the series, they had to come up with a reason why Eric’s face paint shows up, changing the lore slightly to suggest that the Crow is Eric’s alter ego that overtakes him whenever he’s angered. At least he’s not big and green.
Even though the series’ writing is sketchy at best, it still has a lot of heart. And who knows, if it had been developed further, its lore could have solidified. We had introductions of the concept of a Snake, almost like an evil anti-Crow arch-nemesis, which was intriguing. Eric’s powers, much like in the movie, are tied to the bird.
Incidentally, the comic book offers the bird more like an interrogator or projection of Eric’s self-talk rather than spirit guide that we see in the film and series. It’s a great concept, nonetheless.
My verdict on the series is that it’s crunchy, pulpy, and fun, and not to be taken seriously. Maybe I was just in the right place and time to enjoy it now in my later years. I recall seeing it on telly when it first came out and absolutely loathing it for being a watered-down version of the Proyas film. And certainly, it has none of that art or that feel for mood that we get with the original film. But it has a charm, and at the hands of a talented set of writers and producers with vision for long-term depth and breadth, could have developed into something as epic as Supernatural.
Which brings us to the 2024 film directed by Rupert Sanders, and starring Bill Skarsgård as Eric and FKA Twigs as Shelly. We got here by way of several false starts, with one attempt even having cast Jason Momoa as Eric. And, in any case, I have my severe doubts whether Momoa would have been up to the task.
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| Bill Skarsgård's Eric Draven in the 2024 film. |
A common sentiment I’ve seen expressed by die-hard fans of the original film is that it should be left well enough alone, to honour Brandon Lee’s memory. As a fan who is also an author of dark fantasy fiction, with a great love of fanfiction, I’m all for spin-offs or an expansion of the world, or perhaps even crossovers with existing intellectual properties. The Crow is broad enough in its approach that it can possibly dovetail quite well with other universes.
Something else that I would like to touch on is that Eric and Shelly’s story, as told in the comic and in the first film, inhabit a dear place in the hearts and minds of an entire generation, if not more. (Although the other day I heard someone quip on Threads that they’d overheard a teenager say that they’d heard ‘the son of Bruce Lee had done a The Crow movie’, in which case the horrified eavesdropper “turned to dust and blew away in the wind” – their words.)
Shelly is more than merely a love interest to Eric, she is an ideal representation of true love, an expression of O’Barr’s love for his late fiancée. As a character, she does not have much agency other than existing as a focus for Eric’s near-religious devotion. He is her dark knight, seeking justice in a world that has no pity, much as O’Barr once desired to seek vengeance against the drunk driver who’d killed his love. And in seeking justice, Eric becomes a deeper darkness, that love of his for Shelly the one true, good thing in his cursed existence. It’s very gothic – in the literary sense. And it’s also, to a degree, been placed on a pedestal by many as a beloved story.
Now if internet culture has taught me anything over the years is that people get really feisty and gorrammed weird about their favourite shows, films, and games. It’s not unheard for fans to even foster a parasocial relationship with fictional characters or celebrities or at the very least go through periods of hyper fixation with characters that resonate strongly with them at a particular time of their life. Is it healthy? Probably not. But life is already so grim these days. Who am I to cast judgment if no one’s getting hurt?
Suffice to say, when it comes to The Crow, we’re already seeing a rather small and passionate fan base with deeply embedded conventions within its subculture. Anything that comes to rock the boat will be viewed with scepticism. And while spaces such as Archive of Our Own allow for crossovers, alternative universes and all manner of adaptions, these still happen within a designated space where variation is not only expected but often welcomed. Works come with content notes, and if it’s not your cup of tea, you scroll past and move on. No harm done.
Bring an adaption into the broader public eye that strays so far from the source material so as to render it practically unrecognisable, don’t be at all surprised if a ravening mob of fans comes at you with pitchforks and torches. As can be seen now with The Crow (2024). To give credit where it’s due, Rupert Sanders made some effective creative decisions, and the production design, in part, reminded me slightly of Joker (2019) in that it had a slightly retro feel to it with carefully considered choices in terms of set dressing, location, costume, and makeup. If I had to sum it up, I’d say stylistically, it’s more The Crow by way of Trainspotting, with a side order of Joker.
I will say this much: I was not wholly on board with how Eric and Shelly’s relationship was portrayed. Granted, in the Proyas film, we only ever get to know Shelly briefly in flashbacks, in which she is elevated to a symbol of the idealised feminine. Pretty much as she is in the comic book. Not that that is wrong, per se, to turn her into an unobtainable prize, as it were, a goal to be strived for, protected, and avenged. But also, it’s not, in my mind, terrifically original (and I say this as a serious fan who can see both the good and the bad). But it does make it easy to project the viewer’s own ideals – she exists as a placeholder of all that is good about true love, an ideal we all hold dear to ourselves. But hey, back when I watched Brandon Lee as Eric, his fixation on Shelly struck me as romantic. We like to believe that that sort of love endures.
Which is why I understand the backlash against the depiction of Shelly in the Sanders film. Shelly is revealed as not only a victim but a manipulator. And, perhaps, if we consider her upbringing, this is hardly a surprise. Eric is an introverted loner. Both young adults seek refuge in intoxication and have no qualms about indulging frequently in drugs. While the Eric of the comic books is revealed as a kind of everyman, and even the Eric of the Proyas film is a wannabe rockstar, they are both still quite down to earth.
Sanders’ Eric is a misanthropic artist contemplating self-harm, on a path to self-destruction. In fact, the only nod to the comic book other than the obvious crow-guide bringing him back from the dead was a scene from the comic involving a grey horse that becomes entangled in barbed wire. That’s it. Absent of any of the other obvious symbology from the comic, barring the bird, it falls somewhat flat considering the whole of the film.
Whereas the love between the Eric and Shelly in the comic and Proyas film is presented as something ethereal and pure, their relationship in the Sanders film takes on a darker note; it becomes obsessive, unhealthy – cue Romeo and Juliet much? Shelly is as much the victim as she is the manipulator, seeing in Eric someone vulnerable that she can bend to her will.
We will never know whether she truly loved him or whether he merely served as a means to an end, a gallant knight to aid in her escape from the people pursuing her. That the pair then immerse themselves in the city’s seedy underbelly of drug-fuelled clubs and hedonism doesn’t do either of them favours. As a viewer, I did not feel the same outrage I did when they meet their fate as I did when the comic-book couple died.
Another supernatural bit of lore is inserted with the damned soul sending others to Hell, but I feel that that was underbaked and not foregrounded enough to make me care about the big bad when he died. But perhaps here we're also looking at how top-heavy the film was loading up on the backstory of Eric-meets-Shelly-and-they-do-lots-of-drugs.
In fact, I felt that this Eric and Shelly almost deserved their fates. And while I think Skarsgård did an admirable job as Eric, I was not quite on board with his appearance – creative choices having resulted in him looking rather like the chap from Die Antwoord (or for those of you who aren’t au fait with South African music, the Sanders Eric looks a bit like the version of the Joker as portrayed by Jared Leto, whom I’m pretty sure was modelled on the dude from Die Antwoord, whom I’m not fond of in the least). Go Google him. I won't sully this blog with his image.
The original Eric in the comic book was, as far as I can recall reading, based heavily on Bauhaus singer Peter Murphy. Brandon Lee set the standard after that, in my opinion, and anyone else who followed in his footsteps for a similar role, had a tough act to follow. That Lee died so tragically on set only fuelled the mystique and the almost mythical resonance of that first film. To try to remake it, in many fans’ minds, is almost tantamount to sacrilege. Not to mention dishonouring Lee’s memory.
Which goes even further to explaining the backlash the Sanders film has received. Anyone who’s been following Alex Proyas on social media will also be well aware of his scorn and almost gleeful delight at any bad reviews the Sanders film has received. And, honestly, I can’t blame him. You can’t tell me that a director will simply walk away unscathed when the lead actor of his film gets tragically killed on set. I totally *get* why he's pissed.
So, was the Sanders film as terrible as they say it was?
My verdict: no. It’s not a bad film. Aesthetically, it’s a visually rich piece of cinema. For lovers of action-packed, gothic tales, it’s highly entertaining. And that opera scene is sheer perfection. But is it worth of being part of The Crow franchise? I’m hedging here. I feel that as an adaption, it falls somewhat flat as it’s strayed too far from the spirit of the source material. Perhaps if the main characters had not been Eric or Shelly, but merely two ill-fated lovers, one of whom returns to put the wrong things right, the film could take its place in the body of work that has grown out of the original comic book.
The Sanders film certainly is inspired by, and adds an extra dimension to, but also, I feel, somehow lacks the narrative ambiguity and intensity of the first film and comic book. The Eric of the comic book is completely insane – he laughs in the face of the absurdity of his predicament. Wracked with a pain he cannot avoid (he even takes a whole pile of morphine) he refuses death until he has succeeded in eradicating every last person responsible for his and Shelly’s deaths.
Brandon taps into that same spirit of madness, even quoting Paul Bowles existentialist literature with the following quote that has resonated so strongly with me throughout my life:
“Death is always on the way, but the fact that you don't know when it will arrive seems to take away from the finiteness of life. It's that terrible precision that we hate so much. But because we don't know, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens a certain number of times, and a very small number, really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that's so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more. Perhaps not even. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless.” – The Sheltering Sky, Paul Bowles
He even paraphrases this in the very last interview he did before his tragic accident. And I feel that this is the spirit that we, as viewers, encounter in the comic book and first movie, that subsequent sequels and adaptions have absolutely failed to grasp.
I will add this quote by Heraclitus:
“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.”
This is why I believe that after the first comic book and that first movie adaption, we will always fail to regain the same impact with a work. That initial outburst of tragic-dark energy has been expended. James O’Barr’s comic book was born out of unutterable sorrow and darkness. The first movie itself, felt death’s hand far heavier than the subject matter it portrayed. You can’t escape that.
Perhaps it’s better to take what inspiration you can from these two works, and let them be. Then go out and create your own works.
I’ll be cheeky now, and discuss briefly the impact that The Crow – both J O’Barr’s comic book and the Proyas film had on my career as an author. Oh, and by the way, if you’ve read this far, I’m seriously impressed. Thank you.
I was fifteen when I saw The Crow. I recall reading a scathing review of it in the papers that made me have an axe to grind with the reviewer for years. (I later ended up working at the same newspaper publisher as him, and always glared daggers at him whenever I saw him in the newsroom.) Yes, yes, I know, it’s sad that I love the film. My husband never fails to remind me how much he hates it. But I make a point of rewatching it every few years. Is it a great piece of cinema? Objectively, perhaps not. It’s violent and sentimental. It has some structural issues. But that doesn’t take away from the fact that it led to me discovering the comic book and falling irrevocably in love with Eric Draven as a character, and identifying with his mission to set the wrong things right.
Yes, I’ve written a fanfics for The Crow. I recently revisited them, and the one is so terrible I want to hide under a rock when I think of it. The other is a short one-shot based on the comic book. You can read it here. I’m still proud of it. I don’t recommend reading the other one. I wrote it sometime after my first novel, and it’s totally underbaked and cringy.
When I eventually got my act together and started writing seriously in my late twenties, I naturally had some novels I had to get out of my system before I could move onto my more mature style. These were my first two Books of Khepera (Khepera Rising and Khepera Redeemed) which featured my uber-gothic black magician Jamie. He’s enmeshed in his emo gothness, and what he goes through is very much in part inspire by The Crow.
Following on his footsteps (after a few literary missteps) is my Those Who Return duology. The writing is far more mature, but themes of death and returning to life are prevalent with my ancient Egyptian reincarnation cult. And yes, loads of gothic vibes, for those interested.
But, let’s also talk birds. To say that I’m fascinated by birds is somewhat of an understatement. It’s also not just The Crow, but also the film Labyrinth, with its barn owl, and of course, who can forget Ladyhawke. Birds feature prominently in my writing – the dusk owl from The Company of Birds, that acts as a messenger but also carries souls, and then of course the delightful talking raven from The Splintered Fool series that I co-authored with Toby Bennett. And also, my talking griffin Silas from my fantasy adventure Raven Kin. If I were offered an opportunity to write tie-in fiction for The Crow franchise tomorrow, I’d accept it in a heartbeat. I’m even currently plotting an Inkarna/The Crow crossover I’ll eventually start posting to Archive of our Own because, gorrammit, I’m not in the mood to wait.
So, yeah, thanks for sticking around for my little rant. If you liked this article, please do consider checking out my writing. Or come hunt me down on social media to tell me what you love about The Crow.
Some resources
A friend recently linked me to this YouTube video that gives some background to the comic book.
I’m currently reading this book about the making of the first film and Brandon Lee’s tragic death. Very informative if depressing.
I really enjoyed this article – I think the writer makes some excellent observations.
