The Crow (2024)

As a remake of the 1994 original, this update of a cult classic recounts how musician Eric Draven exacts supernatural revenge on the anniversary of his and his fiancée’s murder. Rooted in action and fantasy, the original was known for Brandon Lee’s performance as Draven; this mantle is taken up by Bill Skarsgård (It, John Wick: Chapter 4), with FKA Twigs assuming the role of his fiancée, Shelly Webster.

Given the film stars a musician as the protagonist, it’s particularly interesting to note the musical choices at hand here. The trailer for the original featured library music that included a mix of hard rock contemporaneous to its release in 1994 (perhaps a holdover, to some extent, from late 80s music), as well as an epic choir and orchestra with quasi-Latin chant in the latter half, in the sense of “evil Medieval”.

For the update, we get a recent song that nonetheless retains a bit of vintage resonance in Post Malone’s 2019 track “Take What You Want”, featuring Ozzy Osbourne. Including a track featuring Osbourne is no doubt a move in part to attract fans of the original film; the fact that it’s Post Malone also offers little doubt that this is also a film for a new generation of fans. It expertly toes a line between pandering to nostalgia while leaving open the possibility of new interpretations, which the best remakes tend to do. It’s also worth noting that Osbourne is frequently photographed and depicted in imagery with crows—maybe not essential, but perhaps an additional, subliminal association.

The trailer opens with strains of the vocal track as a teaser for the song to come, with a focus on dialogue at the outset. At 0:25 the music stops in synch with the locking of a jail cell, the sound returning at 0:38 to demarcate the murder of Eric and Shelly—fair enough, considering the film (or at least the original) was very much focused on action and fantasy, rather than drama per se.

At 0:40 we get Ozzy’s voice in synch with the studio title card—obviously a key part of the trailer’s pitch for those who may now know the 1994 version of the film (and no doubt an expensive license). The lyrics—“I feel you crumble in my arms down to your heart of stone”—don’t match exactly what happens on screen, but it does approximate the feeling, as we see Eric frantically swimming deep into an ocean to attempt to save Shelly (all of it a dream sequence?). At 1:05 after a series of trailer triplets (a common trope in epic music percussion), we get a “power down” sound that’s been common in trailer for well over a decade, followed by a split second audiovisual blackout at 1:08. Any of these edits alone might not necessarily be worth a mention, but the fact that they’re all used effectively in quick succession does ultimately add to the watchability of the trailer.

The next segment of the trailer mixes vocal phrases with epic percussion as we witness Eric’s transformation into the titular character. Post Malone repeats the phrase “gonna find my way out” as we see the Crow find, one by one, each of the people he wants to exact revenge on. It’s a simple premise, but maybe that’s exactly why it works.

At 2:07 we experience a particularly notable synch point with percussion synched to the bullets that the Crow sustains; it’s a prelude to the latter third of the extended-length trailer. A final montage sequence at 2:17 rides us out, with the Post Malone track and its trailerized arrangement—mostly in the form of epic percussion, synched regularly to the action—assume front and centre.

Taken as a whole, the choice of song and its use lead us from the outset, with Ozzy’s voice representing in some sense the time of the original film, and ending with an emphasis on Post Malone’s autotuned voice, representing to some extent the identity of the remake. It’s a fine balancing act that respects and affirms fans of the original, and of the franchise as a whole, while giving this remake its reason for being. The choice of song undoubtedly helps us understand this idea.

The Crow hits theatres June 7, 2024.

— Curtis Perry