You have to love John Cusack for one reason; no matter what the material, you can always tell he’s giving his best. From 2012 to Con Air, and all points between, Cusack may not be in a number of good films but he’s always trying to be the best part of them. And that might be the case with The Raven, where Cusack stars as Edgar Allen Poe solving crimes.

Plot Summary: In this gritty thriller, Edgar Allen Poe (John Cusack) joins forces with a young Baltimore detective (Luke Evans) to hunt down a mad serial killer who’s using Poe’s own works as the basis in a string of brutal murders.

When a mother and daughter are found brutally murdered in 19th century Baltimore, Detective Emmett Fields (Luke Evans) makes a startling discovery: the crime resembles a fictional murder described in gory detail in the local newspaper—part of a collection of stories penned by struggling writer and social pariah Edgar Allan Poe. But even as Poe is questioned by police, another grisly murder occurs, also inspired by a popular Poe story.

Realizing a serial killer is on the loose using Poe’s writings as the backdrop for his bloody rampage, Fields enlists the author’s help in stopping the attacks. But when it appears someone close to Poe may become the murderer’s next victim, the stakes become even higher and the inventor of the detective story calls on his own powers of deduction to try to solve the case before it’s too late.

Tags: Alice Eve, brendan gleeson, Edgar Allen Poe, James McTeigue, John Cusack, Luke Evans, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Relativity Media, The Raven