How The Crow captured the angst of the 1990s

Alex Proyas’ 1994 movie The Crow is arguably most remembered as the film in which Brandon Lee—son of legendary martial arts movie star Bruce Lee—was accidentally shot on set during filming, dying hours later in a hospital at age 28. But The Crow is so much more than that, as hardcore fans of both the movie and the 1989 James O’Barr comic book series it was based on know.

I was 18 years old and less than a month away from graduating high school when Proyas’ film was released in theaters on May 13, 1994; the perfect age demographic for a movie like this. Thirty years later, I recently watched it again and remembered how very 1990s it is. Dated in the best way possible, The Crow is a time capsule of what pop culture christened the ’90s to be: the decade of angst.

Generational research has always fascinated me, but I’ve never been one to unfairly blame particular age groups for the foibles and follies of the world, let alone stereotype them the way this now infamous 1993 Newsweek article did with Generation X (and the way the media still does, by the way). But watching The Crow again reminded me why I liked the movie so much in the first place: it was a movie that expressed—yes, I’m going to say it—the angst I and many other teenagers were feeling in the mid-’90s.

Take the scene when Top Dollar—expertly played by Michael Wincott—is sitting on the bed with his sister, both clad in black, immersed in shadow, as he shows her a snowglobe with, of all things, a morbid-looking graveyard with a dead tree inside it. Top Dollar says, “Dad gave me this…he said, ‘Childhood is over the moment you know you’re going to die.’” Besides wondering if such a thing exists (it does, by the way), I thought this scene perfectly summed up how many adults saw ’90s teens: overly dramatic and sullen. But to be fair, many of us probably wanted to be perceived this way, albeit in different, much cooler terms like edgy, moody, and introspective. It was cool to be angsty, and you didn’t have to wear all black and makeup to own it. No, some of us wore flannels and Dr. Martens.

Angst, of course, has always been around. The word for the deep-seated hopelessness, worry, and dread we all experience was first coined by Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard in his 1844 philosophical work The Concept Of Anxiety. In it, he defined it as “freedom’s actuality as the possibility of possibility.” To illustrate this, he used the example of a man looking over the edge of a tall building or cliff, simultaneously feeling the urge to step back to safety and throw himself off, fully aware that he has the freedom of choice to do either, which filled him with dread. I think it’s safe to say that this feeling has now become normalized, thanks in large part to the internet, social media, and the current state of the world. But 30 years ago, it was looked at by adults as a novelty, one of the many terms like cynical, apathetic, and slacker older generations used to describe Generation X at the time. As much as I detested those labels, looking back, they were right.

We were the first generation growing up as latchkey kids, coming home after school to empty, single-parent houses as the divorce rate peaked at 22.6 percent in 1980. As Christine Hensler wrote in her 2012 book Generation X Goes Global: Mapping A Youth Culture In Motion, “We watched the decay and demise (of the family), and grew callous to the loss.” The economy was crap by the end of the ’80s, which meant the job market sucked for those of us graduating from college at that time. Climate change, or global warming, as we used to call it, became politicized in the ’90s, and we were all convinced the world would end if we didn’t join Greenpeace. The beating of Rodney King and the 1992 Los Angeles riots showed us that not only was racism alive and well in America but that police corruption was, too. We wanted to revolt against the establishment—the rich, the powerful, the greedy. We may not have invented angst, but we sure as hell mastered it.

Everything about The Crow—from its tone to its triple platinum soundtrack to the timing of its release—encapsulated the collective angst we were feeling by 1994. Proyas’ adaptation blended O’Barr’s 1980s goth and new wave aesthetic from the black and white images of the comics with the grunge movement of the ’90s, using light and shadow with a pared-down color palette of blood reds and dark greys to give the film a feeling of dread and sadness.

When Kurt Cobain, the unwilling spokesperson of the grunge movement, killed himself a month before The Crow’s release, it sent shockwaves throughout the music industry while Nirvana disciples wept. Once we got over the initial shock, however, we realized it wasn’t that surprising. Nirvana’s songs included themes of self-doubt, trauma, addiction, isolation, and social alienation. There’s also his song, “I Hate Myself And Want To Die,” off the band’s 1993 album In Utero that speaks volumes. We were used to morbid themes and when The Crow hit theaters, not only was Cobain’s suicide fresh on our minds, it was like we were seeing a real-life ghost as we watched Lee in his final role a year after his accidental death. For many of us, The Crow was the catharsis we needed for the conflicted emotions we—like all teenagers—felt we were burdened with. Draven was a restless spirit, just like us, trapped between the living and the dead. He just wanted to find peace again, but first he had to pay his penance. Finally, here was a film that gave us permission to rage, to cry, to mourn, and eventually find solace for whatever was ailing us. I mean, try to watch Draven’s flashback scene when he readies himself to seek vengeance while the Cure’s “Burn” creeps into prominence and not feel something.

The Crow was Proyas’ first American feature-length film. With a budget of $23 million, it earned more than four times that with a worldwide total of $93.7 million during its theatrical run. Not bad for a director with a background in music videos. But that’s exactly what makes it endearing to so many people. It’s like watching one long music video with a soundtrack filled with some of the best bands of the time—Rage Against the Machine, Nine Inch Nails, Stone Temple Pilots, the Cure, and the Jesus and Mary Chain; a celebration of ’80s and early ’90s new wave, grunge, metal, and industrial rock.

With yet another reboot of The Crow—this time by Director Rupert Sanders—hitting theaters August 23, it’s hard to believe it will be the cultural touchstone Proyas’ ’94 film was. In his Vanity Fair interview about his adaptation, Sanders says, “That look was me in the ’90s when we were squat-raving in London, [mixed with some modern influences] like Post Malone and Lil Peep. I hope people who are 19 today look at him and go, ‘That guy is us.’” Maybe it will, maybe it won’t. Thirty years later, the death of Brandon Lee still looms large over this franchise, making any reboot an exercise in futility. O’Barr’s comic book series, along with Proyas’ adaptation of it five years later, was a fresh, little-known project surrounded by real-life tragedy that helped fuel the painstaking passion it took to create both iterations; an incredibly personal story of pain and grief that became a timestamp of 1990s culture. How will this new version reflect today’s youth? And will it be embraced by them the way Proyas’ version was and still is?

Though I’m hesitant to call The Crow a superhero movie as it’s often described, in a world where comic book movies dominate our culture, it’s easy to see Eric Draven as our gothic-grunge hero who embodied an entire generation and saved it from drowning in its own misery. Buildings burn. People die. But angst is forever.