It’s always nice to see someone like Edgar Allan Poe get some love in a cinematic era when caped crusaders and the living dead are the hot items. That’s why we like it when someone like John Cusack and James McTeigue is getting his whack at the classic poet/writer in what is being marketed as a true crime thriller.

That’s what we’re hearing about Relativity’s The Raven, which is set to hit March 9th of next year. Here’s an in-depth synopsis of what you can expect to see in the film.

When a mother and daughter are found brutally murdered in 19th century Baltimore, Detective Emmett Fields (Luke Evans) makes a startling discovery: the crime resembles a fictional murder described in gory detail in the local newspaper–part of a collection of stories penned by struggling writer and social pariah Edgar Allan Poe. But even as Poe is questioned by police, another grisly murder occurs, also inspired by a popular Poe story. Realizing a serial killer is on the loose using Poe’s writings as the backdrop for his bloody rampage, Fields enlists the author’s help in stopping the attacks. But when it appears someone close to Poe may become the murderer’s next victim, the stakes become even higher and the inventor of the detective story calls on his own powers of deduction to try to solve the case before it’s too late.

Take a look at the brand new trailer after the jump.

There’s a scene midway through The Guard where Brendon Gleeson and Don Cheadle have an extended conversation in a pub. Cheadle’s explaining some details of the drug ring and criminals the two are trying to stop. Gleeson looks like a boy being handed his homework assignment and is far more engaged in his beer and the pub’s shoot-’em-up arcade game.

Then you notice that Gleeson’s plastic arcade gun is pressed directly against the screen—he’s cheating. Now if you don’t know anything about arcade games you may miss it, even if you do, you may miss it, and while it doesn’t quite save the scene from being some overly long exposition, it’s a fantastic character touch. And that’s kind of the The Guardin a nutshell: a movie that’s willing to make sacrifices of pacing, plot, and whatever else if it can just have some more fun with its protagonist.

And, for the most part, it works, thanks to Gleeson, who plays Boyle, a roly-poly Irish West County policeman who sees himself as slightly above the law. He’s not the type of fellow who’d commit actual murder, mind you, but he doesn’t mind stopping off at the pub for a quick pint while on duty or even sampling a spot of acid now and then.