The Man Movie Encyclopedia: The Crow

Greetings, all.

How’d the holidays go for everyone? I’m a single dude with 3 family members I care about, 2 of which live 30 hours from me. So, I didn’t do a damn thing. However, I did get a Bloodsport shirt, so, basically, it was the greatest Christmas ever.

Alright, now it’s time to take a look at another holiday, Devil’s Night, as we review….

We open up on Devil’s Night, the night before Halloween, where in this particular city, everything burns. We see a loft, which is now a crime scene, where Shelly Webster and her soon to be husband, Eric Draven, are dead and near death. We meet a concerned police officer, and a girl named Sarah, who was once friends with Shelly & Eric.

We fast forward a year later, and Eric rises from the dead while the gang that murdered him and Shelly are out burning and destroying things. We head back to the loft where Shelly & Eric lived, as Eric returns himself, and takes in the memories of what happened a year ago.

He gets suited up and heads out where he first meets Tin Tin, one of the gang who prefers knives. They have a discussion that ends up with Tin Tin getting properly delt with before Eric ganks his coat. He then shows up to Gideon’s, a pawn shop where Tin Tin sells the stuff of the people he’s robbed and/or murdered. It’s here where Eric is looking for Shelly’s engagement ring. Gideon gives up all the information he can on T-Bird and the gang, and Eric allows him to live so he can deliver a message, that he’s coming for their heads. Once he finds Shelly’s ring, he douses the pawn-shop in gasoline, and blows Gideon’s place to hell. Afterwards, he immediately runs into Officer Albrecht, the cop who was rather attentive of Eric & Shelly’s case. During all this, Sarah, friend to Shelly & Eric, roams the streets on her skateboard, while her mother gets high and fucks with Fun Boy, a member of T-Bird’s gang, who looks like Edge.
Eric catches up with Fun Boy, as he gets high with Darla, Sarah’s mother. He shows up and fucks with him, before using his powers to purge the morphine from her system and telling her to get the hell home. He then wakes up Fun Boy, who passed out from a gun-shot to the leg, just so he can make sure he’s attentive when he injects him to death with morphine. All in the heart.

Afterwards he heads to Officer Albrecht’s house, and has a conversation with him where he’s able to see everything Shelly went through, as Albrecht was there the whole time. We then bounce over to Trash, a club that’s owned by Top Dollar, the head gangster in this city, who he has an incestuous relationship with his half-sister. He’s interviewing Gideon about what happened, and doesn’t exactly believe him, so he kills him for good measure. As this is going on, Eric has found T-Bird, and sends him on a cruise through the city before parking at a dock, duct taping him to the seat, and then drops a grenade in his lap before sending the car flying off the dock in a fireball. It’s a great scene, as T-Bird initially tries to figure out just who the hell Eric is, but once he does, his brain won’t let him. He just keeps repeating “There ain’t no coming back, this is the really real world…there ain’t no coming back”. It’s fucking awesome.

Sarah figures out he’s alive as well, while Top Dollar holds on to Skank, the last remaining member of the gang. Naturally, Eric wants Skank, and shows up to Trash, where his last prize is waiting. Once there, Top Dollar doesn’t spend much time talking, and has his gang of about 20 dudes just open fire. All the good it did them though, as Eric comes to life and lays everyone to waste in a pretty awesome scene. .

After finally killing Skank, he thinks it’s all over and heads to the graveyard. However, Top Dollar and his friends nab Sarah, in hopes of luring him to a church, as they figured out that the way to hurt him, is to kill the crow. They injure it, which makes Eric mortal again. They’re just about to kill them both, when Albrecht shows up to help even the odds. Dollar, his sister, and Sarah head up to the top of the church, with Eric in tow. Dollar’s sister gets it when the crow pecks out her eyes and she falls to her death, which is pretty sweet, if I do say so myself. Eric then battles it out with Top Dollar on top of the church, in a decent little fight, where Eric wins by giving Dollar something, something he doesn’t want anymore; 30 hours of pain, all at once. I thought that was absolutely fucking brilliant, especially when Dollar lands on a gargoyle, and his blood pours out of the gargoyles mouth. Eric rescues Sarah, saying goodbye to her and Albrecht before returning to Shelly’s grave, where she appears, and takes him home.

MAN MOVIE TALLY:
1-Liners: 0
Guys Beat Up: 4
Guys Killed: 17
Swear Words: 54
Boobies: 1
Explosions: 2
Chase: 1
Broken Bones: 0
Fight/Shoot-Out At Motel?: No
Guy Get Girl? Yes
Guy Smoke?: Yes

MAN FACTS:
Michael Massee, the actor who played Funboy, and the one whom fired the gun at Brandon that ended up killing him, actually didn’t act for an entire year, due to being traumatized, and never saw the film. He died in 2016.

The director wanted to shoot the movie in black & white, with the flashback scenes being in color. Naturally, the studio put the nix on that. However, you can see he basically did just that, as the entire movie is drenched in dark, bleak colors, and the flash-backs are vibrant and colorful.

The creator, James O’Barr, didn’t like the casting of Brandon Lee at first. He’d only seen Showdown In Little Tokyo, and was afraid The Crow would be turned into a kung-fu film. However, after meeting with Brandon, and seeing him on set, he quickly changed his mind.

The movie executives originally wanted this to be a musical starring Michael Jackson. Yes. Seriously.

There are no crows in this movie. They used ravens, due to the fact they’re larger with a more impressive beak.

With the profits from the film, the creator, James O’Barr, bought his mom a car, himself a surround sound system, and donated the rest. As he was good friends with Brandon, and just felt like it was blood money.

The grenade that is dropped in T-Bird’s burns at a cool 2500 degrees when it goes off.

C’MON BENNETT, LET’S PARTY!:
What can you say, one of the all time greats. The Crow is just a beautiful action/comic book movie that would have been Brandon Lee’s launching pad. Not to be out done, the rest of the cast kept up with him, with everyone delivering. Just a fantastic movie with a simple story that plays out at a nice pace, and leaves you wishing he had more bad-guys to kill, because he does it so damn well. Just a fantastic piece of film making, one of my Top 10 of all time.
***** Head-Butts out of 5

Any questions, comments, drunk-ramblings, feel free to send them my way, I always dig hearing from you, the beautiful people.
Twitter: @CaliberWinfield
Instagram: @CaliberWinfield
I post almost daily with workout related stuff to help you cats out, along with what’s coming down the pike via the MME, and general pop culture from the 80s and 90s that I can’t seem to let go of.
[email protected]
If you just can’t wait until next week, you can also find me at these fine places:
Only A Ninja Can Review A Ninja: The Man Movie Encyclopedia
The deadly arts contained inside these movies can only be viewed and reviewed by one man, Caliber Winfield. For only a ninja, can review a ninja. I cover all the classics, from Enter The Ninja, American Ninja, to the modern films such as Ninja Assassin and Ninja. I don’t want to say this book has both saved and changed lives, but this book has both saved and changed lives.
The Man Movie Encyclopedia: The Hall of Burly – Vol. 1 – A collection of the first 19 MME articles written for 411. You get all the classics like Commando, Robocop, and Die Hard, not to mention bad-assery such as Point Break and They Live. Beyond that, you also get two new articles. My Top 5 favorite action movies, and what I believe to be the Top 5 most over-the-top scenes in action movie history. I won’t lie, it’s the greatest self=help/martial arts instruction book of all time.
My Summer Vacation At Camp Crystal Lake – My brand new ebook that’s become so popular it’s charting on the album sales charts. I cover the Friday The 13th franchise in Man Movie Encyclopedia fashion, followed up by a few list-based articles, chronicling my favorite kills, moments from the franchise, and a few other subjects. $3 via amazon, or simply email me and get it for $2, either way, it’ll probably change your life.
Caliber Winfield On The Facebook –
Anything new that I do you guys can find here. How are we not at 100 likes? I mean, c’mon.
All Things Caliber –
I merged my wrestling website into my long standing website that’s been up for over 6 years. Anything under the sun, I’ve written about it.