The 'curse' of The Crow

After its star died in an on-set accident, the 1994 film earned asad infamy. With a reboot out now, Geoffrey Macnab finds out if the influential franchise was ever able to take flight

- Geoffrey Macnab

When you ask producer Jeff Most if his 1994 film The Crow was indeed cursed, he takes a moment or two to answer. It's a question that's been put to him many times before. For three decades now, the media has pushed the idea that the film - on whose set the actor Brandon Lee was fatally wounded in a stunt accident - was somehow jinxed.

The notion irritates him – but he can’t altogether dismiss it. “Looking through the lens of the media, I understand why much is made of the purported curse of The Crow,” Most says. Whether or not you give any credence to the “curse”, it’s clear that the franchise was scarred by the tragedy.

The latest Crow picture, directed by Rupert Sanders and starring Bill Skarsgard and FKA Twigs, is out in cinemas this week. It’s the fifth theatrical release in a franchise that’s also harboured a short-lived TV series and two cancelled sequels. In 30 years, no one has managed to successfully re-adapt The Crow: each subsequent movie has been warped by the lens of the original picture, and deemed opportunistic, distasteful, or simply not very good.

This new Crow faces a daunting challenge in trying to come out from under the wing of the Brandon Lee version. A Gothic revenge fantasy directed in bravura fashion by Alex Proyas, The Crow (the original and best) is notable for its craftsmanship: the way it blends MTV pop video aesthetics with traditional horror tropes; its Clockwork Orange-like mix of violence and lyricism; and the epicene star Lee’s brilliant performance. He plays Eric Draven/the Crow, “the killer of killers”, a rock musician who has dug himself out of his grave and come back to avenge his own death and that of his beloved fiancée Shelly (Sofia Shinas).