15 Critically Mauled Movies (That Aren't Actually That Bad)
8. The Raven
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 22%
Consensus: "Thinly scripted, unevenly acted, and overall preposterous, The Raven disgraces the legacy of Edgar Allen Poe with a rote murder mystery that's more silly than scary."
The Raven has a flawless premise: Edgar Allan Poe tries to stop a serial killer who is carrying out murders based on his stories and while it certainly doesn't reach the insane levels of entertainment initially suggested, it's actually a decent murder mystery.
The acting is hit-or-miss, the script is dodgy and it perhaps takes itself too seriously given that it's a pretty silly movie, but this certainly doesn't disgrace the legacy of Edgar Allan Poe and John Cusack gives a good performance as the legendary author.
The murders are delightfully gory, the direction is good and the film is overall an atmospheric, slick and twisty serial killer movie with a reasonably good twist ending. It's no Silence of the Lambs, but it is quite fun and the low RT score seems ridiculously harsh. Then again, horror movies do often get judged too harshly and frequently reviewers seem to forget that such films are only trying to be a bit of light entertainment.