The Crow: Salvation

The Crow: Salvation
Movie poster for The Crow: Salvation
Directed by	Bharat Nalluri
Written by	Chip Johannessen
Starring	Eric Mabius Kirsten Dunst Jodi Lyn O'Keefe Fred Ward William Atherton Dale Midkiff Bill Mondy Walton Goggins Tim DeKay
Distributed by	Dimension Films
Release date	January 23 2000
Running time	102 min
Country	U.S.
Language	English

The Crow: Salvation was the third movie based on The Crow comic by James O'Barr. It was directed by Bharat Nalluri and released direct to video in 2000 after its distributor cancelled the intended theatrical release. The original movie gained a cult following while the second (The Crow: City of Angels) was poorly received.

Plot summary

Alex Corvis (Eric Mabius) is framed for the murder of his girlfriend Lauren Randall (Jodi Lyn O'Keefe). Three years later, he is executed in the electric chair for it. Soon after the execution, Alex is resurrected by a crow, so Alex can clear his name and get revenge. He peels off the burnt flesh from his face, revealing his crow appearance.

Alex follows the crow to the Salt Lake City police department's evidence room, where he discovers that Lauren was killed by a group of corrupt cops. Alex has a vision of one of the killers, who has an unusual scar on his arm.

Alex finds the knife that was used on Lauren, and then goes to Lauren's grave. There, he meets with Lauren's sister Erin (Kirsten Dunst), who does not believe he is who he says he is. He tells her that he'll prove it somehow, and disappears.

Alex finds Tommy Leonard (David Stevens), the man who was paid to lie about Alex at the trial. Tommy tells Alex which cops killed Lauren -- Madden (Bruce McCarthy), Martin Toomey (Tim DeKay), Vince Erlich (Dale Midkiff), Stan Roberts (Walton Goggins), and Phillip Dutton (Bill Mondy). Alex spares Tommy's life.

Later, Dutton pulls over two women, and tries to sexually assault the driver. Suddenly, he sees Alex sitting where the passenger was. Alex looks for the scar, and doesn't find it. Alex shoots Dutton in the head, and stabs him fifty-three times, killing him.

Later, Erin watches the news and sees Dutton's dead body on the screen, with the name "Daisy" cut into his head. This is Alex's sign to Erin, because Daisy was Lauren's nickname for Erin.

Alex finds Erlich leaving an apartment in his Corvette. Alex kicks through Erlich's window, drives the Corvette very fast, searches Erlich's arm for the scar, and doesn't find it. Alex drives the Corvette into the side of an abandoned bus, and blows it up with Erlich laying bloodied on the hood of the car. Alex inadvertently drops the list of names of the cops he's after, and Roberts and Toomey find it.

Later, Alex gives Erin a piece of paper found in Erlich's car, and Erin now believes that Alex is innocent. She then finds out that her father, Nathan Randall (William Atherton) is in business with the corrupt cops who killed Lauren, and was thus indirectly responsible for her death. Nathan says that he never wanted Lauren to die, but Erin leaves the house. At the same time, Roberts and Madden kill Tommy and his family.

Alex meets with his lawyer, Peter Walsh (Grant Shaud), and they talk about Lauren's death. Alex goes to the place where Lauren died and talks to her. He then puts the crow makeup on Erin. Erin goes home, and finds Nathan dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Later, Walsh tells Alex that Nathan owns a company called Westwind Building, which owns DERT, a company that owns about a dozen other companies.

Tommy used to make daily deliveries to the Key Club, a strip bar owned by DERT, and Walsh tells Alex that a place like that is about unreported cash; things like money from drugs. Lauren discovered what they were doing when she witnessed a police captain named John (Fred Ward) killing a man at the Key Club, and John had his men kill Lauren. Erin barges into Walsh's apartment, telling Alex that Nathan is dead.

Alex goes to the Key Club. Madden and John meet Erin at Walsh's apartment, and explain to her about Nathan. Erin gets John's gun and aims it at him, but John gets his gun back. Madden kills Walsh, and John kidnaps Erin.

Later, Alex starts a big shootout at the Key Club and fatally impales Roberts with a pipe he breaks off the ceiling, kills the remaining police, then grabs Toomey and checks his arm for the scar, but doesn't find it. Madden shows up, and tries to kill Alex. Madden accidentally shoots a pipe, which ignites a gas leak; the explosion kills Toomey. Alex walks out of the fire. He sees an arm hanging out of the rubble with the scar on it, but it turns out to be the wrong one. Alex then leaves the rubble and watches a woman while having a flashback. Her jealous boyfriend hits Alex.

Alex goes back to Walsh's apartment and finds no Walsh and no Erin. Alex finds what he needs to link John to Lauren's death, so Alex goes to the police station and confronts John.

John doesn't like the way he is being spoken to, so he stabs Alex fifty-three times with the knife that killed Lauren. Madden, John, and his mole (Kelly Harren) pull Alex into John's taxidermy room, where Erin is tied up with her mouth stitched shut, wearing the locket that connects her to Alex. Erin brings Alex back from the dead again, and Alex sets Erin free. Erin runs out with John in pursuit, and Alex kills Madden by throwing him into a glass trophy case that cuts his neck. Alex then sees Walsh's body hanging from the ceiling. Alex kills John's secretary by throwing her against the wall, impaling her on a set of mounted antlers hanging on the wall.

John gets Erin into a car and drives away, and Alex reaches the roof of the police building and jumps off onto the car. Alex punches through the car's glass roof and grabs John's arm, which has the scar on it. Alex and Erin take John to the prison's death chamber and strap John into the same electric chair that Alex died in. Erin pulls the switch, and they leave John to suffer in the chair, burning long after he is dead. Alex and Erin walk outside, and Alex disappears in a whirlwind.

Later, Erin, who apparently came to visit the graves of both Alex and her sister, puts the necklace that bonded her and Alex on his headstone before leaving as she explains her renewed sense of mortality in a voice-over.

Original Soundtrack

Tracklist:

• 01: Filter - "The Best Things"
• 02: Rob Zombie - "Living Dead Girl"
• 03: The Infidels - "Bad Brother"
• 04: Kid Rock - "Warm Winter"
• 05: Hole - "It's all Over Now, Baby Blues"
• 06: The Flys - "What you Want"
• 07: Monster Magnet - "Big God"
• 08: Sin - "Painful"
• 09: Tricky - "Antihistamine"
• 10: Days of the New - "Independent Slaves"
• 11: Pitchshifter - "Everything Sucks (Again)"
• 12: Stabbing Westward - "Waking Up Beside You"
• 13: The Crystal Method - "Now is the Time"
• 14: Static X - "Burning Inside"
• 15: New American Shame - "Rusted Wings"
• 16: Danzig - "Underbelly of the Beast"

Cast

• Eric Mabius - Alex Corvis/The Crow
• Kirsten Dunst - Erin Randall
• Fred Ward - The Captain
• Jodi Lyn O'Keefe - Lauren Randall
• William Atherton - Nathan Randall
• K.C. Clyde - Brad
• Bruce McCarthy - Madden
• Debbie Fan - Barbara Chen
• Dale Midkiff - Vincent Erlich
• David Stevens - Tommy Leonard
• Grant Shaud - Peter Walsh
• Bill Mondy - Phillip Dutton
• Walton Goggins - Stan Robbers
• Britt Leary - Stacey
• Tim DeKay - Martin Toomey

Trivia

• The story's basic plot outline was previously seen in the 1998 novel The Crow: The Lazarus Heart by Poppy Z. Brite. This book had many LGBT elements not seen in the film; the Crow was gay and his dead lover's sister was a transwoman.
• Alex Corvis is said in the movie to be the youngest person to be executed using an electric chair. This contradicts the fact that the youngest person who died this way was actually fourteen year-old George Stinney.
• According to an interview, Rob Zombie, musician and horror director, wrote a script for a third Crow film called The Crow: 2037 which was about a boy and his mother being murdered by a Satanic Priest in the year 2010. The boy is resurrected by the crow a year later and forgets everything until twenty-seven years later, also included is a link to the script (PDF format).[1][2]
• The name Corvis used in The Crow Salvation is similar to the name "Michael Corvin", which was originally to be used for Vincent Perez's role in "The Crow: City of Angels". The name was scrapped, but eventually passed to Scott Speedman for the "Underworld" series.
• James O'Barr, creator of the original comic, designed some promotional sketches for the film. They are included as bonus material on the film's musical score CD. He also says he liked Eric Mabius' performance, but stated the overall film suffered greatly for other reasons.
• This film marks Kirsten Dunst's first foray into the role of a character inspired by a comic book; she would later come to fame in the popular role of Mary Jane Watson for the "Spider-Man" films.
• Rob Zombie, who as noted above contributed a very early story for what eventually became this film, still retains a notable mention in the finished piece: a remix of his hit song "Living Dead Girl" appears in the Corvis/Erlich chase scene.
• Unlike the first two, where the protagonists painted their faces, Alex peeled the burned flesh from his face and had that design in scar tissue as the outcome.
• The German version is missing more than 6 minutes (including the final scene - the movie ends with the Crow discovering the scars on the captain's arm). The absence of these scenes results in many plot holes and incoherences.
• The Company's name "DERT" signify Dutton, Erlich, Robbers and Toomey, the four murderers.

External links

• The Crow: Salvation at IMDb