La Zona Muerta

Is ‘Nevermore: The Raven Effect’ worth a stream?

I’m torn. It certainly wasn’t bad or anything; it was clearly made by filmmakers with a vested interest in the subject and was able to even achieve poignancy a time or two.

On the other hand, if you’ve been watching wrestling since the time Raven was actually a big deal… I don’t know that there’s a lot for you, here. I didn’t really LEARN anything.

One thing of note; the filmmakers were NOT shy about using copyrighted footage… be it from whomever owns the remains of the Don Owen Portland territory… WWE… a bit of TNA, a bit of WCW… and an extensive amount of ECW (including footage from Beyond the Mat), of course… not a knock, obviously, and I suppose that’s a fair use type situation, but I have seen a lot of wrestling docs that didn’t dare. I guess since the advent of Dark Side of the Ring (yuck), maybe filmmakers have felt more bold in exercising Fair Use rights.

Probably the most interesting thing to the modern fan who has seen all the ECW stuff a million times (like, did we really need the Sandman crucifixion story AGAIN)… you do get to see Raven talking through a run in angle in MLW whenever he was there last, and then Moose and Sami Callihan going over their plunder match (yes, I know it was the infamous Raven Clockwork Orange House of Fun match TM) with Raven during his most recent return to TNA. That’s interesting, certainly, and it’s heartening to see guys relatively young in the business deferring to and solicitous of Raven’s opinions.

The documentary (kicked off to a so so start by the odious Billy Corgan… and I still can’t believe we live in a world where the overbearing lead singer of the Smashing Pumpkins has ANYTHING to say about modern wrestling) is basically predicated upon the idea that Raven is an undersung genius, a misunderstood artist… and I don’t disagree with that premise. I think his wrestling business acumen being this vast, untapped oil reserve is probably a TAD overstated or he’d be producing somewhere. If Billy Pumpkin Man loves him so much, why isn’t Raven booking for him? Well… the doc goes out of it’s way (and it’s subject is all too willing to point out) to say that Raven is kinda annoying. I love him or hate him type fella, a talkative, narcissistic jerk who has a REALLY short attention span.

We all contain multitudes.

A couple of things I do have to praise the film for, for better or worse… it’s REALLY unflinching about drug use. Fortunately, Raven is clean and sober these days, but he talks about being “really good” at using drugs (and how that’s maybe not a great thing to be good at). There’s a sobering part where he openly talks about shooting up OxyContins… more than one part, really. He talks about using steroids and growth hormone so matter of factly that you scarcely notice it (That’s how he “finally got to 240 pounds,” he says like he was taking an aspirin) and I guess that’s laudable in it’s way; no sugarcoating. There is another part of the film where they smash cut to a variety of ECW survivors (geez, I say that like they survived a war… maybe they did) where they all talk about their “brain damage” with varying levels of severity that will make probably even the most grizzled wrestling fan shiver.

I suppose the thing that prevents me from giving this full throated kudos would be the fact that it just travels repeatedly over well trod ground. There was no real insight in the ECW part of the tale (he and Paul Heyman were really sympatico and a lot of his ideas all made it on the screen). You get a cursory look at the infamous Tommy Dreamer feud, the stuff with Sandman and his son. A tiny bit about his ECW return. A bit about WCW; not much. Some talk about his WWF stint, not only as a manager, but as a member of the office… and the need to turn it down to go back to full time wrestling (more time on this would have been fascinating but it gets less than five minutes). Almost nothing about his return to WWF / WWE (save that he had heat from the last time and Vince McMahon didn’t see anything in him). A mention of TNA allowing him to sort of eventually leave national TV in a better way than WWE would have afforded… but hardly more than a mention. He was NWA champion in TNA! How did that make him feel? He apparently was really emotional that they put the strap on him if the reporting of the day is to be believed. How did he feel when they took it off of him in preparation for the Spike TV debut? Hello? Anyone? Bueller? No mention of that. No talk about his thyroid issue that led to weight issues and probably the end of his TNA run.

The other scene besides the grim CTE section (and just the body issues in general; there is a part where I dare you not to wince where he shows off the LACK of extension in his arms and shoulders) that evoked some poignancy explored his estrangement issues from his parents; his mom calculating times where she could call him on the phone in order to purposefully get his answering machine only, his father never telling Revn that he loved him. That’s sad, probably relatable to a lot of people; you could show a non wrestling person any of that and they could relate or find empathy, I’m sure.

Overall, the film is about someone who SURVIVED the wrestling business, and that’s not something a lot of his contemporaries managed. I would have liked to see the film delve more into his non ECW endeavors… there’s a part where he and Chris Jericho both talk about the glass ceiling in WCW and how the both of them were just under the main event acts in terms of popularity… Raven was on the cover of WCW / NWO Revenge, and that’s a video game that appealed even to NON wrestling fans… selling near two million copies… and HE got to be the face of that! That’s a pretty big deal. He laments not getting to hold the world heavyweight championship in WWE, and that goes to show you how deep that sort of “you only succeeded if you succeeded in WWE” programming goes; this is a smart fella and he definitely has a place in the annals of wrestling history, but even he is bummed he didn’t get a main event run there.

Would I recommend this film?

That’s a tough call. I don’t think there’s a lot here for people as deep in the weeds as I am. If you haven’t heard the stories a million times, if you are a more casual fan of that time period, I think it’s fine, even good. The film should be praised for being so open about drug use and the damage done to wrestling bodies. There are no big exclusions as far as talking heads… Stevie Richards apparently refused to take part, but I don’t think you’re missing a lot from that end.

I’ll make no bones about it; I was always a Raven fan. Even if there were no revelations here, watching it was certainly a decent way to spend an afternoon.

“Waitaminute, I have money AND cars.”