"Someone owes me two lifetimes and a set of perfect blue eyes."
The fourth film in the Crow franchise, loosely based on Norman Partridge's tie-in novel of the same name.
Jimmy Cuervo (Edward Furlong) is a down on his luck ex-convict in love with Lily Ignites the Dawn (Emmanuelle Chriqui), the beautiful daughter of the head priest of the neighboring Raven Aztec tribe. Unfortunately, their romance is cut short when Luc Crash (David Boreanaz), a former prison buddy of Jimmy's, murders them under the instruction of his shaman girlfriend Lola Byrne (Tara Reid, no shit) for a ritual that will turn Luc into Satan. Jimmy is resurrected by the title bird to exact his Roaring Rampage of Revenge and stop Luc before he can bring about the end of the world.
Bizarrely, this movie was directed by Lance Mungia, whose only other directing credit is the cult classic Six String Samurai.
This film contains examples of the following tropes:
- Abusive Parents: Famine's mother used to lock him in a fridge when he misbehaved as a child.
- Adaptation Expansion: In the original novel, the only villains were the characters analogous to Luc and Lola. The movie gives them a gang.
- Big Bad: Luc Crash is the leader of the Four Horsemen and the killer of Jimmy and Lily.
- Bloodless Carnage: War shoots most of the attendees at the Ravenfest beneath a sheet, but we see no blood on it until the next scene, and even then it's sparse.
- Casual Danger Dialogue: War and Jimmy halt their own battle and end up taking refuge together against the gunfire of a mob led by Lily's father. While they're hiding, War tries to shoot Jimmy, only to find he's out of bullets, leading to this exchange:Jimmy: You need to keep better track of your ammo.
War: It's been a long night. - Chekhov's Gun: Interestingly enough, the cap gun that Pestilence finds when he and Famine are disposing of Lily and Jimmy's bodies.
- Clear My Name: Upon finding her body, Lily's brother Tanner assumes Jimmy killed her and tries to arrest him. Jimmy sets him straight via his telepathy. Lily's father, however, takes a little more convincing, see Heel–Faith Turn below.
- Contrived Coincidence:
- The man who killed Luc's father just happens to be the father of the man Jimmy killed.
- Pestilence and Famine just happen to dump come across and dump Lily and Jimmy's bodies in the exact refrigerator that Famine's mother used to lock him in.
- Cool Car: Each of the Four Horsemen has one. Jimmy acquires a hearse about halfway through the movie.
- Covers Always Lie: The summary on the back of the DVD box calls the Four Horsemen "a Satanic biker gang," but they have cars, not motorcycles.
- Creator Cameo: Executive producer and CEO of FUBU Daymond John as Proud Foot Joe the virgin mortician.
- Crucified Hero Shot: Luc literally hangs Jimmy off a cross near the film's climax
- Death Seeker: Jimmy tries to kill himself again when he comes back and begs Tanner to do it later on.
- Didn't Think This Through:
- Jimmy takes Lily's body back to her trading post, thereby implicating himself in her murder, only to steal it back later to bury it.
- The Crow mythos in this film is a Raven Aztec legend. Lola immediately recognizes the revived Jimmy as "the Crow, like in the legend." This means she knew the legend and still saw fit to kill two lovers for the ritual.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Flashbacks indicate a man tried unsuccessfully to sexually assault Lily at the annual Ravenfest. Because Jimmy beat him to death.
- Even Evil Has Standards: As bad as they all are, most of Luc's gang has moments of this throughout the film (which seem to conflict with earlier and later actions they take) except for Luc himself:
- Famine and War are clearly disturbed (and nauseated) when Lola cuts out Lily's eyes (Pestilence seems somewhat nonplussed, or he just doesn't care).
- War is also disgusted when Luc cuts out Jimmy's heart.
- Lola and Famine (The former more so) seem disturbed by the murder of the witnesses in the Church. In Lola's case, she seems disturbed by Luc's action beyond his revenge against Moses ( who murdered his father).
- Evil Is Petty: A few examples of this in the film:
- Famine wants revenge (and thereby takes part in Luc's plot) because his tribal status was rejected (It's hinted this was because he's a 'half-breed').
- It's implied the Lily was targeted not only because of her blue eyes (which were necessary for Luc's plot) but also jealousy on Luc's part; a flash back reveals that since age 12, he had desires towards Lily.
- Eye Scream: Lola carves out Lily's eyes with a knife.
- For Halloween, I Am Going as Myself: Jimmy is given his Crow ensemble by Lily before they are murdered as a costume to wear to Ravenfest. Being that once he comes back he actually is the Crow, him showing up at Ravenfest qualifies as this.
- Foreshadowing: Easy to miss in most examples, but there's foreshadowing throughout the film that Luc's plot is doomed to fail:
- Right after Lola gets Lily's eyes (ItMakesSenseInContext), there's a quick flash of Lola in the hearse as the sunrise occurs, with bloody tears indicating she's lost her powers.
- Around the same time, Lola also sees the Rave-n-Fest massacre, and even sees the giant Crow and tarp falling to the floor.
- Just before he is hanged, Jimmy tells Luc that he's going to die - he does.
- Freudian Excuse:
- Luc's father was a pastor who was killed for the donations he had received. This caused him to hate God.
- Famine's mother was abusive and locked him in a fridge when he misbehaved.
- Healing Hands: Jimmy has these in addition to the standard Crow Healing Factor
- Heel–Faith Turn: Lily's father believes Jimmy killed her and wants him dead, until he sees the flaming crow Zorro Mark and realizes Jimmy's been chosen by God.
- Horror Doesn't Settle for Simple Tuesday: The bulk of the action occurs on Easter Eve.
- Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Luc and his gang are nicknamed after the Four Horsemen. Fittingly, Luc ("Death") carries out ritualistic murders, "War" is a psychopath who loves weapons, "Famine" is a fry cook, and "Pestilence" is a hazardous waste cleaner (who is terminally ill from exposure to chemicals).
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Luc. It still takes a knife to finish him off.
- Improbable Weapon User: Jimmy kills one man with a bug zapper and another with a baseball bat. Pestilence is killed with a neck snap after being stunned by the bug zapper.
- Improbable Infant Survival: A small boy is the only person Jimmy manages to save at Ravenfest
- Injun Country / Mayincatec: More like Injunatec. The Raven Tribe call themselves Aztecs but the rest of the characters call them Indians and/or Native Americans and none seem to object.
- In Name Only: A white man and his Native American girlfriend are killed at a trading post for a ritual involving her eyes and he comes back by exiting a fridge. These are the only things the film has in common with the book it is "based on," including character names.
- Large Ham:
- Once he becomes "Satan," David Boreanaz loses all sense of seriousness or subtlety.
- Dennis Hopper any time he's on screen.
- Lighter and Softer: Granted, it's still a pretty dark film overall, but compared with the Crapsack World of the first two films, and the still fairly gritty Salvation, this film has a noticeably more tongue-in-cheek feel.
- Mark of the Beast: Luc gets this on the upper right of his chest after he cuts out Jimmy's heart and Lola performs a spell.
- Meaningful Name: Jimmy Cuervo, Luc Crash and Lola Byrne, arguably Lily Ignites the Dawn
- Men Are the Expendable Gender: Lola survives the movie while the Four Horseman don't. This verges into Karma Houdini territory since she was the one to cut Lily's eyes out.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Jimmy says this word for word after uncovering Lily's body following his revival by the Crow.
- Mythology Gag: A few to the first film:
- The revived Jimmy greets Pestilence with "Boo," the same thing Eric says when Albrecht asks if he's a ghost.
- War calls Jimmy "Killer of Killers," the title given to Eric by Top Dollar.
- Luc dies impaled on a sharp rock, much like Top Dollar is impaled on the spike of a church gargoyle.
- Native American Casino: The Raven Aztecs live on a reservation that is trying to build a casino.
- No Name Given: The three Horsemen outside of Luc are only known as War, Pestilence, and Famine.
- "Not So Different" Remark: Luc tries to appeal to Jimmy that he should join the Horsemen because he, too, is trying to "put wrong things right".
- Occult Blue Eyes: Lily's, after Lola steals them. They give her the power to see the future and apparently tell if someone is a virgin.
- Opening Scroll: The film begins with a text screen filling the viewer in on the situation with the Raven Aztecs closing mines to build their casino, even though it's tangentially related to the plot at best and explained in dialogue later by Luc.
- Our Angels Are Different: It appears in this story the Crow is one, despite the very nature of the franchise meaning he does some rather un-angel-like things.
- Police Are Useless: Tanner arrives at a crime scene too late to stop the bad guys, brings a mob to help Jimmy in the final conflict without telling them he's the Crow, and lets Luc and Lola escape even after she confesses to cutting Lily's eyes out
- Papa Wolf: Lily's father is probably as determined to get revenge for his daughter's death as Jimmy is. Unfortunately he chases the wrong party.
- Pre-Mortem One-Liner: "Truth is, belief's not required."
- Pretty Fly for a White Guy: Dennis Hopper as El Nino the jive-talking pimp/Satanist priest.
- Retirony: Jimmy is killed the day before his parole ends.
- Shout-Out: We get a flashback to a dance themed Enchantment Under the Sea.
- Spiteful Spit: Jimmy does one at Pestilence's corpse, and another later right in Luc's face.
- Stock Footage: Most of the shots of the bird are taken from the third film.
- Tap on the Head: Averted. Famine dies from getting smacked over the head with a baseball bat.
- Tempting Fate:
- Early on, the unwitting Jimmy declares "It's a great day to be alive, ain't it?!"
- "Nobody move, we're doing this dead or alive."
- Unflinching Walk: Jimmy does one after he blows up his trailer
- Unholy Matrimony: Luc and Lola need to have a black wedding for their ritual
- Unreliable Narrator: War and Famine are far more enthusiastic about killing Jimmy and Lily in Jimmy's flashbacks than they are in the film proper.
- Viewers Are Goldfish: After Jimmy comes back from the dead we get flashbacks to things we saw not ten minutes before.
- Virgin Sacrifice: One is needed for the Horsemen's ritual. Subverted in that when they get to the chapel where they intend to pick up their virgin bride they see that she is visibly pregnant. Further played with in that when they find one, it's a male, which surprises Luc.
- Voice of the Legion: Luc has this at times when he becomes "Satan".
- Waif-Fu: Edward Furlong beating up David Boreanaz and UFC fighter Tito Ortiz probably counts as a male version of this.
- We Used to Be Friends: Flashbacks show that Luc and Jimmy were friends while in prison together, even confiding in each other at least once.
- Weird Moon: It goes through multiple phases in one night. There's no plot reason for this; it just happens.
