Raven’s Hollow is the horror movie for all of the Edgar Allan Poe fans out there. The movie mostly revolves around Poe’s famous poem, The Raven, but there are some references to his other works.

In the autumn of 1930, West Point military cadet Edgar Allan Poe (William Moseley) is on a training exercise with four other cadets. The group finds an eviscerated man on a rack in the middle of nowhere. Before he dies, the man whispers one word to Poe, “raven.” Poe assumes this is a reference to the nearby village Raven’s Hollow so the men travel there to find the murderer. Unfortunately, the military cadets are not ready for the secrets hidden in the Hollow.

Last year, Shudder gave us some of my favorite movies of the season. Horror Noire, The Medium, V/H/S/94. This year, the movies have seemed very lackluster. With the exclusion of Sissy, I haven’t liked anything from Shudder. While Raven’s Hollow isn’t terrible or confusing, it isn’t great either. It felt like the entire point of the movie was to try to shove as many Poe references in as possible. The movie would have been much better if they had just pulled the key elements from The Raven poem and twisted them to fit into the horror story they were building. It would have been easy to take West Point cadet Poe and have him experience elements from the poem without having to include many of the other characters.

I believe most people will pick Hollow apart for its…not great acting. Maybe I have seen too many terrible films but I didn’t think the acting was quite that bad. Instead, I kept getting distracted by the references to Poe’s other works. It made me second guess my knowledge of The Raven. Then again, if you aren’t particularly familiar with Poe’s works outside of The Raven, this probably wouldn’t be an issue for you.

Should you watch it? It is probably worth a go. There are some very good scenes that I wish were fleshed out a little bit more but are still quite beautiful as they currently are. Don’t go in expecting too much, though. We’re looking at like a 5 out of 10 movie here. There are definite places for improvement but it’s not a complete waste of time either.