The Crow: Wicked Prayer 2005

I’ve been meaning to watch this movie for quite a while after re-watching the original Crow and watching the first sequel, City of Angels. But considering how bad the first sequel was and I imagined it went downhill from there I just kept putting it off. But when I was scheduling an upcoming Filmwhys guest, I found out that he had never seen the first Crow, and while I had already covered that movie I finally decided it was time to take on another one of the sequels. I went with Wicked Prayer mainly because for whatever reason, that was the one that was paired with City of Angels on the bargain bin double sided DVD I picked up for this site even though it completely skips the third movie. But as with most of the Crow movies, there is no connection between them aside from the fact that someone is killed in a major dick move and they come back for vengeance, or as the “legend” puts it: “make the wrong things right”. This movie also has some star power backing it up more or less with the likes of David Boreanaz, Tara Reid, Edward Furlong, and Dennis Hopper. After watching the first sequel, it felt like a pale imitation of the original and this fourth one is much more like a hollow mockery of it.

So this time around the doomed couple is Edward Furlong who is a broke miner living in an Indian Reservation and branded an “Injun killer” for reasons we don’t find out until later. He’s in love with the sheriff’s daughter who is also some sort of seer, something they don’t bring up until she’s already dead. Meanwhile, there’s a gang who refer to themselves as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: War, Pestilence, Famine, and Death led by David Boreanaz as Death aka Luke Crash. And of course they act very indicative of their names, like Pestilence who coughs a lot and sprays pesticide all over the place and himself, and War who has a penchant for heavy weaponry and as a side-note also played Tank in the first Matrix. Tara Reid meanwhile plays Death’s right hand girl slash mystic Lola Byrne for the sole reason of allowing them to have the gimmicky name Crash and Byrne which is referenced out loud at one point in the movie. In fact, aside from that there are around a dozen Raven and Crow related names including Edward Furlong’s last name of Cuervo which everyone seems to pronounce as “Crow” and a random Native American festival called “Rave – N – Fest” as well as the new casino which is being built is called the “Raven Aztec Casino” which doesn’t entirely make sense as to how it’s supposed to relate to the current tribe or does it really play a part in the events that are happening throughout the rest of the movie aside from the fact that the characters often make reference to the fact that it is being built.

This movie definitely has a smaller budget than the earlier Crow movies, most of the special effects are done with TV style editing techniques and for some bizarre reason the movie spells out the motives of the Four Horsemen by literally spelling them out on title cards at the beginning of the movie instead of actually giving them motivations that the audience can see and relate to. Instead, it’s just a handful of sentences that are quickly forgotten and all that’s left is a group of hollow henchmen with nothing but the shallow gimmick of their names in place of any sort of personality. The one exception is Boreanaz’s Death, and he really hams things up playing a slightly more boring version of Angelus, while Tara Reid hangs off of him while continuously reminding him of the things that are needed to do to complete the spell which will make him the embodiment of Satan on Earth. For some reason. This was also part of why they end up killing Edward Furlong and his girlfriend, in order to take her eyes as part of the spell. They apparently threw in Furlong just for fun. I also thought this was the worst looking Crow make-up out of all the movies that I’ve seen. He literally just draws a line down his eyes with a Sharpie, and puts on a random goth outfit that was nothing like he ever wore before now. And his face is so inconsistent. One scene his face looks white, the next it’s normal, and back and forth with no rhyme or reason.

(Insert Lone Ranger feed the bird joke here)

The one high point, if I should call it that, is Dennis Hopper. He shows up in the third act as some sort of high priest only he talks only in late nineties rap slang as only a 50+ year old white guy can deliver it. Not only does it feel like it’s dated based on watching it now, but I also get the feeling that it probably felt dated even back when it first came out, which makes it even more hilarious. On top of that, there’s the one hit wonder from around that time Macy Gray with a small role and the weakest death scene ever where she just limply falls off screen. The climax is also filled with ridiculous things like Danny Trejo dancing around, shirtless, in order to revive the wounded Crow so that Edward Furlong can stop Satan in Death’s body before he bones Tara Reid so he can live for seven years on Earth. Did you get all that? It has some goofy B-movie moments here and there that are hilariously bad, but for the most part this movie just meanders from one scene to the next with no real point to it. Easily skippable unless you’re a Crow completist or a fan of Tara Reid’s entire filmography. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.