Rish Outfield's reviews
"Karloff (not Boris, just ‘Karloff') and Bela Lugosi in The Raven."
Lugosi plays Doctor Vollin, a brilliant surgeon who is obsessed with the works of Edgar Allan Poe. The sadistic doctor saves the life of a judge's daughter, then falls in love with her. He concocts a scheme to kidnap her and kill all of his enemies by recruiting a criminal to do his dirty work for him. Karloff is Bateman, an escaped killer/thief, who is "ugly," and then transformed from ugly to hideous by Vollin as leverage.
Not a bomb, but hardly a classic. After seeing so many great, landmark films from this time period, I suppose I had given Universal too much credit. Hey, even Spielberg made Hook. This is a modern film, for a change, with cars and electricity and telephones. Lugosi's role as a wacko who gets off on inflicting pain dwarfs Karloff's, yet he gets second billing. Karloff is good, again playing a sad character, but this is Lugosi's film, with a lot of scenery chewing and long awful monologues. He calls himself a god, rants about torture, taking away his torture by torturing others. "Death is my talisman, Mr. Chapman." Lugosi's accent really works for certain characters, but distracts in others (like Schwarzenegger today).
The Raven's link to Poe was really tacked-on (the poem is quoted by Lugosi's character, and later as the inspiration for a dance sequence, plus there's a stuffed bird sitting around) and rang untrue. You have to take into account the period it was made in, I guess, so that makes this movie alright, but hardly one I want to see again. With a running time of around sixty-one minutes, how it could be this slow and talky is way beyond me. This would've put me to sleep as a kid. The story was threadbare and felt like it was completed in a weekend. The Doctor blackmails Karloff to kill and torture for him, presumably so he can't be caught or fingered for the crimes, yet he has Karloff torture his houseguests, doing it IN his home, in front of the doctor. Where's the logic in that? Plus, all the guests in Vollin's house are rude, prissy socialites. I detest people like that and pretty much wanted them to die. I could also feel the early iron grip of the Hays Code on this flick (a set of self-censorship rules which insisted evil and crime be punished and unglamorous and violence appear offscreen) and perhaps that made it duller. Nevertheless, it was pretty bad, and had an awful ending. Not to give anything away, but the villain is killed by one of those rooms that has walls that compact together. Obviously, they stole this from Star Wars. I'm going to get one of these installed in my apartment, as soon as I've paid off my pendulum.
Note: Even though most of the cliches we point out were either not invented yet or not allowed to be shown when this was made, it got a lot of Skulls anyway. It showcased what may perhaps be the very first Phone Line is Cut Skull.

Total Skulls: 9

Sequel
Sequel setup
Rips off earlier film
Horror film showing on TV/in theater in movie
Future celebrity appears
Former celebrity appears
Bad title
Bad premise
Bad acting
Bad dialogue
Bad execution
MTV Editing
OTS
Girl unnecessarily gets naked
Wanton sex
Death associated with sex
Unfulfilled promise of nudity
Characters forget about threat
Secluded location
Power is cut
Phone lines are cut
Someone investigates a strange noise
Someone runs up stairs instead of going out front door
Camera is the killer
Victims cower in front of a window/door
Victim locks self in with killer
Victim running from killer inexplicably falls
Toilet stall scene
Shower/bath scene
Car stalls or won't start
Cat jumps out
Fake scare
Laughable scare
Stupid discovery of corpse
Dream sequence
Hallucination/Vision
No one believes only witness
Crazy, drunk, old man knows the truth
Warning goes unheeded
Music detracts from scene
Death in first five minutes
x years before/later
Flashback sequence
Dark and stormy night
Killer doesn't stay dead
Killer wears a mask
Killer is in closet
Killer is in car with victim
Villain is more sympathetic than heroes
Unscary villain/monster
Beheading
Blood fountain
Blood hits camera
Poor death effect
Excessive gore
No one dies at all
Virgin survives
Geek/Nerd survives
Little kid lamely survives
Dog/Pet miraculously survives
Unresolved subplots
"It was all a dream" ending
Unbelievably happy ending
Unbelievably crappy ending
What the hell?