I can’t say for sure that the doomed lovers in the new The Crow were modeled after Machine Gun Kelly and Megan Fox. But once it occurred to me, the comparison became impossible to shake, because the only better way to sum up the film’s sweaty approach to contemporize its story is the fact that its villain is trying to avoid being canceled. Its hero, Eric Draven, as played by Bill Skarsgård, has the silhouette of a Soundcloud scarecrow, crowned with a Bushwick mullet and inked with tattoos — including a cursive “Lullaby” over an eyebrow — that scream “poor decision-making” as much as they do “emotional rebellion.
” Meanwhile, Shelly (FKA Twigs) is pitched as a princess with a dark streak, all elf locks, slip dresses, and sheer layers, a girl who was raised in wealth and trained as a pianist but turned to partying thanks to toxic parenting. The Eric of James O’Barr’s 1989 comic was modeled after Iggy Pop and Bauhaus’s Peter Murphy. An emo-rap update feels right for a movie adamantly branded as not a remake or reboot but a reimagining of the original source material.
The Crow isn’t untouchable — it’s spawned way too many sequels, not to mention a short-lived TV show, for that. But O’Barr’s work and Alex Proyas’s 1994 film adaptation were accompanied by real tragedies — the death of O’Barr’s fiancée in an accident involving a drunk driver and the death of star Brandon Lee in an on-set accident — that gave added ballast to their tor.