The problem is that "The Raven" is all surface. The movie is nothing but its fun idea, without much development or ingenuity

But on the whole, Ben Livingston and Hannah Shakespeare's never finds solid footing, and although the early murders are inventively intriguing, as the film goes on they slowly but surely lose their power to startle, amaze and perplex.

The maniac on the loose i less Jack the Ripper than a literarily inclined nobody, and not even a butler, to boot.

There have been so many good adaptations of works by Edgar Allan Poe that few will work up much enthusiasm for this thriller in which the great author himself is put through the paces of an average serial-killer yarn.