"Chronicle of the Raven" is one of those films that went unfairly unnoticed during the time of its release (was it even released?), leaving it buried in almost absolute oblivion, even though it could be appealing to many horror lovers. Though this film will not be making it into my list of all time favorites, I feel that it doesn't deserve the harsh reviews and the low rating that it got on IMDb.
In "Chronicle of the Raven" the story centers around a young American girl named Jennifer Cassi (Gina Phillips), who travels to Argentina, where part of her family lives, after being informed that her twin sister, named Johanna, has recently passed away under strange circumstances. After Johanna's death, Jennifer becomes the inheritor of the family mansion. Upon arriving, Jennifer is greeted by a housekeeper who does not speak a word of English and her "sweet" grandmother, the eccentric and devious Mary Ellen (Faye Dunaway, looking regal, as usual). The old mansion is also inhabited by Jennifer's aunt, Emma (Hilda Bernard), who is sick, bedridden and shows a great difficulty to speak. It should be mentioned that Mary Ellen seems to be a little bit too young to be Jennifer's grandmother... is this the result of a poor casting choice or Mary Ellen goes to the best plastic surgeon in the world? Neither, actually. The age gap of 29 years between grandma and Jenny serves a purpose to the story (yes, I know it is biologically possible, but still...).
The relationship between Jenny and her grandmother is not exactly a very loving one (no wire hangers are at fault in this story, thankfully!) and though it is heavily implied that these two never really got along, the bad blood increases when Jennifer informs that she is determined to sell the mansion, since she is in desperate need of the money (and doesn't seem to like Argentina very much, either). On the other hand, granny is very adamant about staying there and she won't let it go without a fight .
Jennifer begins to have strange nightmares featuring ravens, which are very similar to some really macabre paintings that her sister had made. Jennifer dreams that these ravens pierce her insides and devours her internal organs (yikes!). She also begins to feel sick and her doctor informs her that she has a strange type of cancer that affected all the members of her family, in which the internal organs begin to consume themselves, which eventually resulted in their deaths.
"Chronicle of the Raven" is a film that doesn't rely on annoying and repetitive jump scares, extreme gore or strident music to develop a horror-like atmosphere. Though I can appreciate those things too, I believe that recent horror flicks occasionally rely too much on those things, taking those resources to an extreme and making them less effective. It is more challenging to provide a horror tone without all those "in your face" elements, because then, the duty of developing a horror atmosphere belongs to the story, the narrative style and the cinematography.
"Chronicle of the Raven" provides a lugubrious tone, sometimes a little bit too tame for its own good, with a photography that offers a subdued color palette and a lot of shadows to provide the mansion where most of the story takes place, a very gloomy nature. The modest budget of one million dollars forces the directors to handle the cinematography with extreme care, in order avoid something grotesque and campy and they succeed in doing so. De la Vega and Parés (the directors), who previously collaborated together on very low budget zombie films that weren't to be taken as seriously as this flick, managed to reinvent themselves with this delicate (even elegant) style.
One of my main criticisms with it is that the climax isn't really that powerful. I mean, we do get a final revelation and the main character finds herself fighting against a main antagonist. However, just like I pointed out before, "Chronicle of the Raven" tries so hard to avoid unintentional hilarity, that the climax ends up lacking emotion as well. Another thing that I found a little bit baffling is the fact that some of the characters and their actions didn't make too much sense. One of the characters, for instance, a retired doctor named Darío Baredevil (played by Duilio Marzio) who quit his profession to become a gravedigger (um, okay) first appears in Jennifer's life as a potential buyer of the house, but he turns out to be out to help her because... reasons. I mean, I do understand that people are able to perform good deeds for the others, without any ulterior motives, but in a film, we need some explaining. Who is this man in Jennifer's life and how come he seems to have all the answers to what's happening with her?
All in all, while not being a memorable masterpiece, "Chronicle of the Raven" (also known as "Jennifer's Shadow") is a very respectable film, that manages to stay on the serious side for the most part, while offering some low-key moments of true horror.
