Bill Skarsgård and FKA Twigs sleepwalk through this ill-advised reboot of The Crow

When it comes to bad movies, The Crow occupies a category that transcends emotion. It’s not “so bad it’s good,” it’s not “so bad you have to see it.” If certain movies inspire waves of embarrassment and spikes in rage or adrenaline, this one is more akin to a dull but constant pain in your knee, or a ringing in your ear before you lose the ability to hear a certain frequency. It’s a movie that, somehow, fails at failing. Watching The Crow feels like the vast empty wasteland where Eric Draven (Bill Skarsgård) finds himself after witnessing the violent murder of his beloved, Shelly (FKA Twigs).

After finding herself on the run, Shelly winds up in a rehab facility where she meets the self-pitying and fragile Eric. Dressed in pastel pink sweatsuit uniforms (one of the few highlights of the film is the costume design), they develop an instant connection that leads them on a “prison escape.” Eric suspects Shelly has a secret but his love for her transcends any doubt. When her past finally catches up to her, though, Eric also has to pay the price. Caught in a liminal space, he finds out he’s able to return to the land of the living in order to make things right.

On paper, The Crow delivers what audiences want from the franchise. It’s blood-soaked, brooding and brutal. The violence can be imaginative, though it’s wasted in the grey, muddy cinematography that feels dour and distant. The leads are beautiful but stale. Bill Skarsgård has a presence, though his accent is all over the place and most of his performance feels like a somnambulist wading through the world with the heavy cadence of a sleepwalker. He has little chemistry with FKA Twigs, who struggles in any scene that requires her to speak or emote. She’s at her most compelling during wistful montages of “happier” times as she laughs in golden-hour light. Someone with a face like hers can learn to work on screen, but it’s unfortunately evident that the work wasn’t done here. It leaves her floundering like so many other pop stars who’ve tried and failed to transition from music to cinema.

In many ways, The Crow feels like remnants of another era. Its style and lack of momentum are akin to that series of mid-2000s horror films that challenged audiences with their questionable ambition and middling storytelling — movies like Constantine (2005), The Wicker Man (2006) and The Number 23 (2007), which were universally trashed upon their release but have somehow amassed cult followings since. The Crow does bolster the new wave of supporters these films have gathered over the past 20 years; whereas they’re still mostly failures by any measure, they are fascinating and occasionally hypnotic despite their shortcomings. The Crow, on the other hand, lacks any singular strangeness that would be worth reappropriating. It’s dull as cardboard. 

In some ways, the movie ends up being critic-proof. There’s very little to latch onto to dig into. The Crow just doesn’t have enough substance. It’s precisely the kind of movie you forget you watched hours afterwards and being forced to drudge up the experience for the benefit of a review feels like running your tongue against your teeth after you forgot to brush. As someone who considers themselves a rather generous audience, it’s difficult for me to find any reason to recommend the film. There’s so little good —and even less that is remarkable — that even the most passionate bad-movie enthusiasts will likely be bored. ■

The Crow opens in Montreal theatres on Friday, Aug. 23.

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