Eric Draven may have returned from the grave to take revenge for his own and the murder of his young bride, but before he comes to what he thinks to be the end of his hunt he has to descend to hell, where he meets for the first time his true nemesis throning above it, as befits a devil.
When ex-cop turned small time crook Lenny Nero receives a warning that his former love Faith is in danger he doesn’t hesitate to help her, but in order to do so he first has to descend to hell and face his nemesis who resides on top of his rock music hell.
The Crow and Strange Days share remarkable similarities*, most notable of which is the likeness not only of their heroes paths but of their images of hell. Or rather purgatory as these are not the pits but the flames they have to go through to reach either redemption or final damnation.
This imagery of the realms of hell as modern night clubs probably owes more to the Marcel Camus classic Orfeu Negro, in which a modern Orpheus has to make his way through the Brazilian Carnival, turned into his personal version of hell, in a vain attempt to save his Eurydike, than it owes to Jean Paul Sartre’s observation that “hell is others”.
Still, 
the truth behind these visions,
as What dreams may come (a further take on the tale of Orpheus and Eurydike) points out in a less subtle manner, presenting the gateway to hell as a ships graveyard in which the souls of the damned man the rotting skeletons of sunken tankers and battle ships evoking memories of Exxon incidents and uncountable armed battles, is always the same: Mankind is the world’s scourge; Hell, that is not others, it is all of us.
*Incidentally both Strange Days and The Crow were scored by Graeme Revell, maybe we should check for a cloven hoof.
I never really thought about the similarities between Strange Days and The Crow because I watched them so far apart. Interesting though. Both films are great.
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