Edgar Allan Poe: You are referring to one of my stories. A work of fiction!
Edgar Allan Poe: What's going on?

Detective Fields: I'm Detective Fields. Please, sit down, Mr. Poe.

Edgar Allan Poe: Yes. The infamous Detective Fields. Am I under arrest?

Detective Fields: No... not just yet.

Edgar Allan Poe: Then I'd rather stand! It makes it easier to leave!
Edgar Allan Poe: Take this kiss upon the brow!/And, in parting from you now/ Thus much let me avow/You are not wrong, who deem/All that we see or seem/Is but a dream within a dream.
[first title card]

Title Card: On October 7, 1849, Edgar Allan Poe was found, near death, on a park bench in Baltimore, Maryland. The last days of his life remain a mystery.
[first lines]

Breathless Tenement Man: It's the fourth floor.
[last lines]

Detective Fields: Hello, Ivan.
Maddux: I believe that God gave him a spark of genius and quenched it in misery. But as far as something like this... The only thing he's ever killed is a bottle of brandy.
Edgar Allan Poe: Her innocence was the first part of her soul to die.
Edgar Allan Poe: You're mad.

Ivan: Really, Mr. Poe? You're one to talk.
Ivan: That's life, isn't it? So much less satisfying than fiction.
Ivan: The idea of drinking something that will kill you, but having time to carry on a conversation is, as they say, fraught with dramatic possibilities.
Edgar Allan Poe: I often thought I could hear the sound of darkness as it stole across the horizon, rushing towards me. But here I was overwhelmed by a sorrow so poignant. Once she finally died I felt in all candour a great release, but it was soon supplanted by the return of that dark and morbid melancholy that has followed me like a black dog all my life...
Emily Hamilton: And neither the angels in heaven above/ Nor the demons down under the sea/ Can ever dissever my soul from the soul/ Of the beautiful Annabelle Lee.
Detective Fields: [viewing the scene] This crime is familiar to me.
Edgar Allan Poe: [after he hops into the carriage] I've come to back to town for your daughter, Charles.

Capt. Charles Hamilton: Over my dead body!

Edgar Allan Poe: Is that an option?

Emily Hamilton: [feigning disgust] Oh, please. I find you revolting as some of your stupid stories.

Edgar Allan Poe: Some, but not all.
Ivan: [concerned about the mud] Mr. Poe, your clothes!

Edgar Allan Poe: Just beating the mudslingers to it!
Emily Hamilton: [to Poe about the secret note] You think you're clever, don't you?
Emily Hamilton: So, I had to hear about your stunt all afternoon.

Edgar Allan Poe: Just wanted to see if I could get that little vein on the side of his neck to finally explode.
Edgar Allan Poe: Emily, you are my greatest and only inspiration.
Edgar Allan Poe: Who's next?
Detective Fields: Why would hair be attracted to a magnet?
Edgar Allan Poe: [in relation to the murder] You're talking about one of my stories? A work of fiction.
Edgar Allan Poe: [to Fields about the murders] Do you actually think I murdered these people?
Maddux: [about Poe] The only thing he's ever killed is a bottle of brandy.
Edgar Allan Poe: [finding a replica of the Pit and the Pendulum with Griswold dead] I really hadn't imagine the counter weight to be so large.

Detective Fields: We have reason to believe you know the victim.
Detective Fields: I believe the killer is taunting us. He wants us to know he will strike again.
Capt. Charles Hamilton: [in reference to the stories] Who was Prospero?

Detective Fields: He was the host of the ball... and the first to die.
Capt. Charles Hamilton: If you know what's good for you, Poe, you stay away from my daughter.
Capt. Charles Hamilton: Mr. Fields, I'm happy to indulge your request for the additional security. But I warn you, if I see this man

[Poe]

Capt. Charles Hamilton: there tomorrow night, you will have to protect him from me!
Edgar Allan Poe: It appears that my writing has become the inspiration to an actual killer.
Edgar Allan Poe: Emily, I think we should reconsider our announcement.

Emily Hamilton: Why? Are you backing out?

Edgar Allan Poe: No, no, no. Never. If your father sees me there tomorrow, he may have me shot. And, there well may be a depraved killer on the guest list. It's a bit much for one night.

Emily Hamilton: I think it sounds thrilling.

Edgar Allan Poe: Does it? Why?

Emily Hamilton: [amused] How else should Edgar Allen Poe commit himself to eternal love other than under threat of death?
Percy: You must sell a hell of a lot of papers these days, Henry. Two murders in one week.

Maddux: Circulation has indeed improved, despite unfortunate events.
Edgar Allan Poe: [to Fields about Emily] Your men are right. I've killed her
Ivan: [through the floorboards] Shut it, Emily... or I'll shut it for you.
Detective Fields: [about the most recent murder] You must write it now. Every detail.
Edgar Allan Poe: I feel as if I've gone from author to character in one of my many tales. I'm as trapped and bedeviled as any of the hapless bastards I ever created.

Detective Fields: I can appreciate that.

Edgar Allan Poe: Regardless of what you think of me, Fields... I am a master of my art and I will not fail. Ever.
Emily Hamilton: Why are you doing this to me?...

[crying]

Emily Hamilton: Let me out!
Emily Hamilton: Please don't let me die in here.
Edgar Allan Poe: [after the killer escapes] He was inches away. If I hadn't dropped my weapon.
Edgar Allan Poe: I will kill him. No matter how this ends. I will kill this perversion of a man. For godspeed, even his prose is barbaric.
Ivan: You came this far, Mr. Poe. Are you really gonna back out now? You know what happens next. You're the one who it, after all.
Edgar Allan Poe: [after pulling up the floor and finding her] Emily, open your eyes.
Emily Hamilton: [breathless] You did mean it?

Edgar Allan Poe: Mean what?

Emily Hamilton: When you said you would marry me.

Edgar Allan Poe: In this life and the next.
Edgar Allan Poe: [gasping to the stranger] Tell Fields his name is Reynolds.
Detective Fields: Do you have a cause of death?

Doc Clements: I'm sorry, I don't. I have a few ideas... but as you know, he was brought in in a very deranged state.

Detective Fields: I'm told he was ranting.

Doc Clements: Yes,. He kept going on and on about telling you that your last name was 'Reynolds'. It that helpful or gibberish?

Detective Fields: Maybe both.
Edgar Allan Poe: [screaming after Ivan] i'll send you to hell!
Ivan: I always knew you hand one story left in you

Ivan: When you stopped writing... I must admit I went kind of mad
Edgar Allan Poe: [screaming after Ivan] I'll send you to hell!
Ivan: I always knew you had one story left in you

Ivan: When you stopped writing... I must admit I went kind of mad

The Raven Quotes

Extended Reading

The Raven short comments

Polly 2021-12-17 08:01:14

All aspects of this film are very good (it should be able to get a higher evaluation ten or twenty years ago) [I can only say that John Cusack's performance is only a pass] ... But why everyone's evaluation is average? There are too many films of the same type of Gein [especially the TV series and movie versions of Sherlock Holmes]
Mercedes 2022-04-20 09:01:44

Disappointing, although I like John Cusack very much, but he is not suitable for playing Edgar Allan Poe, his temperament is not gloomy enough, and he is too tall. The dark atmosphere of the movie is not created by just a few disgusting corpses.