Wicked Things Horror Blog: Chronicles of the Raven

Mary Ellen (Faye Dunaway) is matriarch and grandmother to children and grandchildren as well as a sister who have suffered and succumbed to an illness that robs them of their organs and they slowly shut down and die, trapped inside their own body, almost unable to speak while this is happening. They have terrible dreams of a raven attacking them and eating their flesh. There's lost of bleeding going on with this illness and weakness and nightmares.

Grandma Mary Ellen has a Raven as a pet, which she locks in Jennifer's recently deceased (taken by the hereditary illness) twin Johanna's bedroom and hangs out with from time to time, but she doesn't let the Raven out and nobody is allowed in Johanna's room during the whole movie and it remains locked at all times.

Jennifer travels 3,000 miles to attend the funeral of her twin, Johanna and encounters a nearly dead Great Aunt and a reasonably well grandmother who feigns sickness (the very sickness the whole family has suffered). Jennifer now has lost her twin, mother, and father to the same illness, which is supposed to be hereditary, but BOTH of her parents had it???

The overall tone of the house Jennifer is about to sell out from under her grandmother and dying aunt is creepy and dark. There is always something very sinister lurking in your imagination. References to Poe's The Raven are made in the film regularly and the film features a "study" with lots of books that make you think of the short story, The Raven. Black Raven feathers keep getting found around the house and in the weird books contained in this study.

Jennifer must unlock the secret that is killing her family before it too claims her own life! She has few allies, a former doctor who is now a gravedigger and her twin's surviving husband. Oh, did I mention the former doctor appears to be altogether batsh*t crazy???