The Crow: Wicked Prayer (DVD)

The first Crow-inspired comic book movie came out in 1994, and starred the ill-fated Brandon Lee as the title character. The whole premise follows a wronged soul, one who’s been murdered, and whose salvation is a reanimating crow-spirit with a thirst for revenge. The Crow, directed by Alex Proyas (Dark City), was a somewhat campy, but undeniably beautiful and compelling film. It was very much in the book and the director’s dark noir style. The second movie starred Vincent Perez (Queen of the Damned) as the winged justice-seeker, and it was not a bad follow-up. A third film followed, starring Mark Dacascos (Brotherhood of the Wolf); these movies may not have been great, but they had one thing in common: Extremely good-looking men portraying The Crow.

By the time the fourth film came along in 2000, the standard was getting lower in all areas. Eric Mabius played The Crow and while he’s a good actor, he was the first to break the previous physical standard of how our dark, angular hero should look. Now, in 2005 we’ve got a pudgy, very weary-looking Edward Furlong in the lead for The Crow: Wicked Prayer.

So we’ve taken the perv-factor out of The Crow equation. What’s left? Good acting? No. A great story? No. Cool action sequences? No again. Luckily, The Crow: Wicked Prayer does have something going for it: It’s one of those movies that’s so bad it’s good.

Furlong plays Jimmy Cuervo, a trailer park loser who’s in love with a beautiful Native American girl named Lily (Emmanuelle Chriqui) and trying to convince her family (dad’s a preacher, played by Danny Trejo) that he is good enough for her. Cuervo’s white-picket plans are ruined when a roving band of Satanists with an ax to grind murder him and Lily. Undaunted, Cuervo bursts from an old refrigerator that used to be the child-abuse torture chamber of one of the Satanists (the word “Mama” scrawled across the front is a nice touch), and becomes The Crow. Sporting black eye-makeup an outfit that looks like one of Ozzy Osbourne’s onstage castoffs, he goes after those naughty Satanists.

The Satanists have cool names like Pestilence, War, Famine, Death, and… Lola. Lola Byrne is played by Tara Reid in all her resplendent Reidness – and her boyfriend, Luc Crash (get it? Crash and Bryne. Cool, eh?) gesticulating to the campy hilt by David Boreanz. The other Satanists are played by also-rans, but the big daddy of the cult is none other than Dennis Hopper who is saddled with the most laughable dialogue imaginable (but the prize still goes to our lead, who gets to say – with a straight face – “I’m the fairy fucking godfather, here to save your fairy fucking tales”). Although it’s hard to think of anything more delicious than Hopper as a sadistic Satanic priest who uses the word “homey” a lot, put a dazed-looking singer Macy Gray by his side as his evil leading lady, and you’ve got even better devilish delight.

Another funny moment, very early on in the movie, is when the Satanists are introduced using Terminator-style readouts, for no apparent reason (and a reason never does become apparent as the film grinds on).

The fight scenes are a scream. The Crow apparently doesn’t like to get too busy, because he only fights one villain at a time while the rest politely stand by for their go at the avian avenger. The scenes go on endlessly in variations of slow-motion and super-speed as obvious body-doubles bounce off of Styrofoam set pieces. Whacky sound effects worthy of 40s musical comedian Spike Jones are added for that little extra “punch”.

While I seriously doubt they were intentional (the filmmakers and cast, judging by the commentary and additional release materials, don’t seem to be in on the joke) the laughs just keep on coming during The Crow: Wicked Prayer. See it with friends – just warn them first, so you won’t have to eat crow later.

DVD Additional Release Material Includes:

2 commentary tracks, in which the obvious is stated more than once (“Here are the credits,” “I was in it for the paycheck”, and so on).

Wings and a Prayer -  The Making of The Crow: Wicked Prayer goes on for an excruciating half hour, featuring mainly talking-heads style interviews of the actors while on-set, talking about the great, meaningful art they’re making and philosophizing on how “The Crow lives in all of us.” (I guess that explains my craving for birdseed.)

El Pinto is a bizarre, very dark and grainy clip of various crew members trying to claim credit for “idea” to have cars in the movie. Hm.

Black Moth Bar Storyboards is a storyboard-to-movie comparison.

Margaritas and Conversation (producer Jeff Most and director Lance Mungia) is more rambling in the same vein as El Pinto, only funnier once you’ve seen the movie.

There are also two deleted scenes – yes, some tripe didn’t make it into the movie! – and photo galleries.

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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson