TF scored an early screening of the trailer for The Raven at Comic-Con earlier this year and now .

Hot on the heels of that trailer, director James McT﷽🍸eigue has also whipped the horses and started the press bandwagon rolling properly.

The film is des🦹cribed as a gritty thr🌟iller, in which 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 for a string of brutal murders.

Sounds gruesome and McTeigue says he won't be puꦅlling any punches. Asked if he'll be shying away from an R rating he told Fangoria, “No, 🐽uh-uh."

"I’m not trying to compete with Saw ; Saw is very particular and we’re more in the psychological suspense-thriller mode rather than a straight-out horror film,” he said before adding, “I would say the tone is more like a film like Se7en , that’s where it falls.”

Poe was an alcoholic and a drug user and McTeigue says the film🌠 doesn’t shy away from that. So how did John Cusack get into that mindset?

“He lost weight to give himself the drawn sort of Poe look, he grew a goatꦺee and died his hair a little blacker than it usually is, to really get into Poe’s physical spa𒀰ce,” McTeigue reveals.

“And then, John always talked about how🐠 he was friendly with Hunter S. Thompson and he could see parallels between Hunter and Poe, and I think that helped inform the character for John.”

The Raven also stars Alice Eve, Brendan Gleeson and Oli♏v♍er Jackson-Cohen and opens in 2012.