Even if the tragic accident that resulted in the death of star Brandon Lee hadn’t enshrined the film in cinematic infamy, The Crow is more than good enough to endure as a longstanding cult classic based entirely on the quality of what unfolds onscreen.
Next year marks the 30th anniversary of the supernatural cult classic’s release, and it remains as popular as ever. Current-day Rotten Tomatoes scores of 84 and 90 percent from critics and audiences underline that it’s undoubtedly one of the finest superhero flicks to emerge prior to the Marvel-induced boom at the turn of the millennium, but one incendiary take vehemently disagrees.
A Reddit thread has been plunged into chaos after a retrospective glance at The Crow describes the intensely atmospheric and undeniably entertaining tale of redemption as “borderline unwatchable.” As you can imagine, there’s a whole lot of people out there who can barely believe their eyes, with the overwhelming sentiment emanating from the comments and replies heavily criticizing the original poster for being flat-out wrong.
Sure, Alex Proyas’ Gothic fable may not be to everyone’s tastes, but blasting an indisputable favorite and unsung milestone for an entire genre as overhyped are fighting words on the internet. In the interest of fairness, we should point out that nobody’s claiming it to be a masterpiece that can only be loved and nothing else, but that doesn’t mean “unwatchable” isn’t a strangely harsh term to try and sum up a widely popular descent into darkness that only continues to gather new fans with each passing generation.