The Raven follows the exploits of Dr. Vollin (Bela Lugosi), who agrees to help a judge out by operating on his daughter. Vollin falls in love with the woman, which neither her father nor her boyfriend like too much. Vollin is a huge fan of Poe and has collected various torture devices based on Poe's works. He also recruits an escaped con (played by Boris Karloff) to help him wipe out any opposition to his would-be love affair.
The thing worth watching this movie for is the interaction between Lugosi and Karloff. Even though they made several movies together, this one has some of their best scenes for my money. There is a Chekov's gun effect with all the torture devices Lugosi brags about to impress his lady. You just know they are going to come into play later in the movie. The runtime here is just about an hour so there isn't much waste in the storytelling. Everything gets to the point rather quickly and resolves in a satisfying way.
These old movies are rarely actually scary but they are fun to watch. If you have an hour to kill, you could do worse than the Raven.
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