The Crow: Midnight Garden
Genre: Supernatural/Thriller
Director: Nathalie Biancheri
Writer: Jack Brown
Based on the comic by James O'Barr
Cast: Brendan Fraser, Sophie Thatcher, Happy Anderson, Clarke Peters, Violet McGraw, Ione Skye, Cara Buono, Jon Bass, Peter Greene
Plot: October 30, 1978.
A solitary crow flies high above the city of Seattle, Washington, finally landing on the iconic Space Needle. 600 feet above the city, the crow caws into the night as a storm approaches the Emerald City.
Violet (Violet McGraw) sneaks out of her house in the middle of the night, careful not to wake up her sleeping mother Rose (Ione Skye). Violet walks down the street while listening to a local college radio station playing Joy Division - her favorite band - on her little portable radio. She sees the lights of a police car and ducks behind a tree to not be stopped for a curfew violation. Violet walks all the way to a community garden - her favorite place. She lays in the garden, surrounded by flowers, illuminated in the moonlight. Suddenly a man's shadow blocks the light, alerting Violet. She tries to stay calm and ask what the man wants. No response. Violet screams as she is attacked.
The next morning, Seattle PD Detective Joe Salk (Brendan Fraser) arrives at the community garden. Police tape blocks off the entrance to the community garden. Joe is angry when he sees Violet's brutalized corpse. He looks around and quickly notices that her shoes and underwear are missing from the scene. Rain begins pouring from the heavens. Joe frantically tries to get the crime scene covered, but the rain begins washing away any hope of DNA or fiber evidence.
Joe attends the autopsy of Violet's body. He gets sick as the coroner describes the shocking amount of violence the girl went through before her death. Joe vomits in a garbage can. As he wipes hip mouth, he thinks he hears Violet whisper his name. Joe hears screaming and crying from the hallway where officers are holding Rose back, not wanting her to see Violet's body. Joe tells them to let her go. Rose storms into the room and sees Violet's body and the violence she suffered. Joe asks Rose why Violet was in the garden instead of in her bed at home. Rose confesses that Violet has always been a bit troubled since her father left and frequently snuck out of the house at night, although she never knew where exactly she went off to. Rose asks Joe to promise to catch the killer. Joe tries not to promise, but Rose insists that he promise. Joe looks over at Violet's body and makes the promise to catch Violet's killer.
Joe leaves the building and fires his gun at a dumpster. Other officers rush over to see the source of the gunfire. Joe yells at them that they just heard a car backfire and to go back inside.
October 30, 1988.
A gravestone rests in a Seattle cemetery. The engraving reads "Violet Corbeau. 1966-1978. Beloved Daughter Taken Too Soon." A hand reaches out of the ground. It's Violet (Sophie Thatcher) who has seemingly aged in real-time over the last 10 years of purgatory in the grave. Violet is confused when she sees her name on the gravestone. She walks away from the cemetery. A crow flies over and lands on her shoulder as she walks.
Joe Salk wakes up from yet another alcohol bender. He makes coffee and goes into his office, trying not to make noise to wake up his family. The wall is covered in crime scene photographs and pieces of his investigation on the case that was the one who got away. At the center of it all is a school photo of the victim - a young girl named Violet. His wife Sharon (Cara Buono) becomes upset that Joe is once again focused on the case of Violet's murder. She tells Joe that she has stood by for a decade now hoping he would become the man she married again. Joe doesn't know what to say. A crow lands on the window sill as Joe combs through files.
Joe later visits the grave and finds the hole in the ground and an empty casket. Violet's mother Rose arrives with flowers on the 10th anniversary of Violet's death. Rose first becomes angry at the sight of Joe, then becomes distraught when she sees that someone has seemingly stolen Violet's body from her grave. Rose reminds Joe of his promise to catch Violet's killer. Joe says that he didn't forget - he thinks about Violet every second of every day.
Violet visits what used to be the community garden, which is now a vacant lot taken over by drug dealers and prostitution. The users lay among the weeds, completely strung out. Violet finds the exact spot where she was killed. She has flashes of memory from her death, but cannot see the face of her killer. A drug dealer comes over to her and offers to sell her crack cocaine. Angry about what has happened to her old favorite place on the planet, Violet attacks the drug dealers. One pulls out a knife and stabs her in the chest. Violet cannot feel any pain and pulls the knife out. Her wound quickly heals. She then stabs the drug dealer with his own knife. The others run away.
Joe is at the police station looking over what little evidence was found at the crime scene 10 years earlier for the thousandth time. His superior Captain Gil Proyas (Clarke Peters) sees this and chastises him. Proyas reminds Joe that there are new crimes and new murders in Seattle every single day that aren't going to solve themselves. Joe doesn't respond to Proyas, who then walks away. Joe finally finds something that catches his interest - a notorious child molester named Lester Millen, who had a thing for girls who looked a lot like young Violet, was released from jail shortly before Violet's murder.
Joe leaves the station, intent on finding Lester, hoping that will lead to something - any sort of resolution for Violet's case. Violet, herself, confronts him in an alleyway behind the station. Joe is surprised and pulls his gun. Once he gets a look at her, Joe holsters his sidearm assuming Violet is just another young punk and tells her to take a hike. Violet asks Joe if he ever figured out who killed her. Joe is completely surprised by the question. He demands to know who she is, but she rushes off. A crow lands where she had been standing. Joe gets in his car - although he does take note of the Joy Division button the girl was wearing.
Lester Millen (Jon Bass) watches from his car as young children play at a playground. He reaches his hand down his pants, but is interrupted by Joe getting into his car. Joe aims a gun at Lester's hand in his pants. Joe shows Lester a picture of Violet's dead body at the crime scene. Lester becomes annoyed, commenting that the macabre picture is ruining his "mood". Joe drags Lester out of the car and begins beating him in front of the children at the playground, who all run off calling for their parents. Joe eventually regains control and stops the assault. He assures Lester that he will be watched closely and if he's seen anywhere near children again it will be the last place he ever visits.
After Joe leaves, Violet confronts the beaten Lester. She demands to know if he killed her. Lester is hysterical, insisting he may be perverted but that he would never kill anyone - he doesn't have it in him. Violet asks the crow if Lester deserves to continue to live his life as a child molester and pervert. The crow shakes its head to Violet. She nods to the crow. Terrified, Lester speeds away from Violet. She jumps on the hood of his car. He barrels through the streets of Seattle, trying to shake her off. She stands up and begins kicking in his windshield. Once a hole has been made, she reaches through and pulls him out of the moving car. The car swerves toward an oncoming bus. Violet jumps up away from the car, which crashes into the bus, killing Lester. Violet drags Lester’s body back to the playground.
Joe is back at the station when he looks again at the crime scene photographs of Violet. He registers her missing shoes and the Joy Division button on her jacket. Joe tries to rationalize the situation and ignore any supernatural component, but he becomes convinced that Violet has become a sort of specter or ghost.
Lester's dead body has been found at the playground - sprawled out on the merry-go-round, with his guts twisted around repeatedly. Joe is called to the crime scene by Captain Proyas. Joe tries to pretend he isn't familiar with Lester, but Proyas confronts him, informing him that he is a suspect in the murder as he was seen angrily questioning Lester earlier. Joe tries to explain that he was simply questioning Lester on the case, nothing else. Proyas suggests Joe keep things by the book until Internal Affairs has a chance to look into the matter. Joe throws down a spent cigarette, which ignites a large flaming crow on the ground. Joe looks at Proyas and comments that whoever killed Lester has too much free time.
Violet finds Joe’s house. The door is wide open. Inside, the house has been cleaned out aside from Joe’s belongings. Sharon has clearly packed up the rest of the family’s stuff and left Joe. Violet explores the house until she finds Joe’s home office. Inside the office, she sees the pictures of her posted all over the wall. She is overwhelmed by memories and emotion.
Richard Harold Davis (Happy Anderson) watches TV coverage of Lester’s murder in a large dark basement. Guns, whips and various torture devices hang on the walls. Richard is angered by the news of Lester’s death. Screams and cries of young girls are heard in the distance. Richard grabs a cattle prod and walks toward the cries. Several young girls are kept in cages. He threatens to shock them if they keep making noise. One girl doesn’t stop crying, so Richard shocks her with the cattle prod. She cries louder. He takes his belt off and enters the cage. He beats her with the belt until she is too weak to even cry.
Joe Salk returns home, instantly realizing that Sharon and the kids have left him. Resigned, Joe sits in his favorite chair - the only piece of furniture remaining in the living room. Joe spots the crow sitting on the window sill. In disbelief, Joe rubs his eyes. When he looks again, Violet is standing in front of him. She tells him that she doesn’t have much longer so she needs him to find the killer faster. Joe rants that he has taken every angle that he can think of on the case and it has gotten him nowhere. Violet asks if there was anyone else at the garden that night. Joe sighs, saying no witnesses and no DNA evidence. Violet tells him that there was a police car that stopped someone near the garden the night of her murder - they may have seen something.
Joe storms into the station and begins digging through filing cabinets. He is stopped by Captain Proyas, who demands to know what Joe thinks he’s doing. Joe says that some other officers stopped someone near the community garden October 30, 1978 and he needs to know who they stopped. Proyas helps Joe look through the files until he finds that night’s shift log. Proyas tells Joe that the only logged traffic entry in that vicinity was from Officer David Pstashinki. Joe asks where he is. Proyas regretfully says that Pstashinki is on his deathbed, dying from bladder cancer.
Joe speeds to Cherry Hill Hospital and demands to see Pstashinki. A nurse leads Joe into the hospice wing. Joe walks down the hall - room after room of people anticipating their own deaths - until he finds the room of David Pstashinki (Peter Greene). Joe wakes up Pstashinki and asks him about October 30, 1978. Pstashinki sighs, saying he knew he would eventually have to confess to his mistake that night. Pstashinki tells Joe that he and his partner spotted a car on the side of the road that night near the community garden. It was toward the end of their shift - both tired, ready to go home. They started to run the plates on the car in case it was stolen. Then this big guy came out of the brush, saying he was just stopping to take a leak. The guy passed a field sobriety test and said the girl's shoes in the car were his daughter's. It was only the next day that the missing shoes on the dead girl made it all click for him. Pstashinki confesses that he was too ashamed and embarrassed of letting a killer go right after the crime that he and his partner have both taken it to their graves. Joe demands a name. Pstashinki says he never once forgot the name of the man... Richard Harold Davis. Joe storms out of the hospital room. Pstashinki shouts after Joe to please forgive him. Pstashinki sees a crow land next to his bed as the life slips out of his body and his vital signs monitor flatlines.
Joe calls the station from a payphone in the hospital lobby. He asks Proyas for the address of Richard Harold Davis. Proyas gives him the address and asks if he wants any backup. Joe tells Proyas that he needs to do this to make everything alright again. Joe goes back out to his car, finding Violet and the crow sitting on the hood of his car. Joe tells Violet that he has an address to check out. Joe, Violet and the crow drive to the address, finding a rundown, abandoned house on a large property on the outskirts of Seattle. They check out the interior of the house, which is in a state of total disrepair. As they walk in, the crow makes a slight caw. Violet tells Joe that the man in the hospital is dead. Joe regrets not forgiving Pstashinki. Searching through the house, they find a lot of animal skulls but not much else. Joe looks out an upstairs window and notices that there is a barn on the far end of the property with a light on inside.
A torrential rainstorm falls as Joe and Violet make their way down a slope toward the barn. Joe slips in the mud and loses his gun. As Joe frantically searches the mud for his gun, Violet and the crow forge on ahead. Violet bursts through the doors of the barn. Nobody appears to be inside, but she does notice a trap door. She moves toward it, but is caught in a bear trap. She rips the trap off her leg and continues toward the trap door. As Violet and the crow go down a set of stairs, Richard shocks the crow with his cattle prod. Richard grabs the immobilized bird and bites its head off. Violet suddenly feels the effects of her wound from the bear trap and yells out in pain. Richard looks at her, commenting that she is older than he prefers but he can make an exception. He then notices her Joy Division pin. This triggers his memory. With Violet on the ground holding her leg, Richard goes to a chest and pulls out the shoes he took off young Violet’s feet after he killed her. Richard begins to drag Violet by the hair toward the cages. Joe, having heard Violet’s yell, gives up on finding his gun for now. He moves closer to the barn, finding a sledgehammer outside, commenting that it will have to do. Joe sneaks down in the basement where he tells Richard that his days of murdering helpless young girls is over. Richard drops Violet and pulls out a gun. Joe charges at Richard with the sledgehammer. Richard fires his gun at Joe, hitting him multiple times. Joe keeps coming though, slowly. He swings the sledgehammer at Richard, hitting him in the face. Richard’s face quickly heals, revealing that he has absorbed some of the crow’s abilities when he bit its head off. Joe, bleeding out from the gunshot wounds, apologizes to Violet for not finding Richard sooner. Violet tries to forgive him, but he dies before she can muster the words. Now with another death to avenge, Violet regains her powers. She takes Richard’s cattle prod and repeatedly shocks him, but it doesn’t hurt him. She manages to trick Richard into getting trapped in one of his animal traps. Violet lets out a scream. Suddenly a murder of crows descend upon the barn. The crows attack Richard, devouring him. Richard screams in pain as the crows pick the flesh off his body. Eventually the screams stop. Richard Harold Davis is dead and will never harm another young girl. Violet frees the girls from Richard’s cages. When they make it back outside, police sirens approach. Captain Proyas and several officers converge on the location, finding the girls, Joe’s body and what is left of Richard Harold Davis’ picked apart corpse.
Violet goes to see her mother, who she realizes has never recovered from Violet’s death a decade prior. Violet calls her ”mom”. Rose breaks down in tears, hugging her daughter. Rose sobs that she thought Violet was dead all these years. Violet explains that she is dead, but the crow brought her back to make things right and make her killer pay for what he did. Rose asks Violet if she succeeded. Violet nods her head. Violet tells her mother that she has to leave, but asks Rose to try to be happy even without her. Violet returns to the cemetery. She transforms back into her younger self as she climbs back into her own grave.
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