The Ninth Gate (France/ Spain/ USA, 1999)
Directed by Roman Polanski
Starring Johnny Depp, Lena Olin , Frank Langella, Emmanuelle Seigner

With the notable exception of Se7en, numerical horror-thrillers are utter rubbish. With their ridiculous twists, over-the-top acting and an overreliance on special effects, they epitomise all that is banal and disappointing about these two genres. You would think that Roman Polanski, the man who gave us Repulsion and Rosemary's Baby, would be able to handle such well-worn material in at least a workable manner. But instead we end up with a ripe old stinker every bit as disappointing as Prince of Darkness.Polanski has always been a fan of absurdist, quirky comedy, being greatly influenced by France's crown prince of absurdity, Eugene Ionesco. While absurdity in and of itself is no bad thing, Polanski has always been at his best when this aspect of his sensibility has been minimised, or at least properly accommodated. You have to admire him for being able to switch between bleak, serious works like Tess and The Pianist, and something more fun and frothy like Frantic. But his out-and-out exercises in comedy have dated very badly, with What? being the worst example.Further doubts are raised by Polanski's attitude towards the source material. When interviewed in 1999 he said that he didn't believe in the supernatural - something you would never have guessed from Rosemary's Baby. He was drawn to the novel El Club Dumas by Arturo Pérez-Reverte because it was an opportunity to play with the clichés of a genre that he enjoyed. The consequence is that we aren't sure how seriously Polanski is taking things, and therefore how seriously we should be taking him.The Ninth Gate starts off quite atmospherically, with good pacing, dusty books and nice gothic colours. Film noir touches are evident throughout, from the archetype of the downbeat detective (or "book detective" in this case) to the enigmatic women in his life. Like so many noirs or Hitchcock films, the blond is enigmatic but for the most part on the hero's side, while the brunette is seductive and passionate to the point of being pure evil.Having set things up quite nicely in the first ten minutes, The Ninth Gate starts to crumble as more and more ridiculous elements encroach. We might swallow the story about the three copies of The Nine Gates, if only because Frank Langella sounds authoritative as he wades through exposition. But subsequent developments are so clouded or convoluted that we quickly give up trying to figure it all out, insofar as there is anything to figure out. It feels like the sort of thing that Polanski could have done in his sleep - and for much of the film, he might as well have done.All the big plot points in The Ninth Gate can be anticipated because they borrow all too heavily from better genre efforts. Having Dean Corso commissioned to search for The Nine Gates is exactly the same set-up as Angel Heart, but with a book instead of a jazz musician. His infiltration of a secret ceremony is lifted from The Wicker Man, and the mansion scenes strongly resemble Eyes Wide Shut, although this may be coincidental. There are also very standard references to The Omen in the use of 666, for instance, The NINE Gates being published in 1666. There is even a nod to An American Werewolf in London, as Corso arrives at the castle in a truck full of sheep.Having given up on taking The Ninth Gate seriously, the next logical step is to try and enjoy it as a comedy, perhaps as an unintentional one. But the comedic elements are so completely at odds with Polanski's execution of the twists that they feel like they have escaped from a different film. The twin brothers, who are played by the same actor via split screen, bumble their way through their lines like a cross between Thomson and Thompson from Tintin and Alf Garnett in Till Death Us Do Part.The silliness of the supporting characters increases as the film moves on. Baroness Kessler, played by Barbara Jefford, is introduced as a formidable character of real threat to Dean Corso - who then slips almost immediately into pantomime villain mode when we discover that she only has one hand. Corso later finds her slumped in her motorised wheelchair having been strangled: he turns the wheelchair around, only for her to go careering through the double doors, like Mason Verger's death in Hannibal two years later.Like many numerical thrillers, The Ninth Gate suffers from dodgy special effects. It's hardly a dull car crash like End of Days, in which Gabriel Byrne demonstrates his demonic power by blowing everything up, and Arnold Schwarzenegger try to stop him with a grenade launcher. But alongside bad continuity and an unconvincingly burnt book, there are at least two examples of dodgy wire work, in which Emmanuelle Seigner floats down into a scene, without any prior clue that she could fly.The Ninth Gate is littered with irritating plot holes which leaving us scratching our heads even in the moments when generic convention could fill in the gaps. There is no explanation of the serpent tattoo on the brunette's back, nor of Boris Balkan's ability to know exactly where Corso is at any one time - which is, conveniently, always within reach of a phone. But more annoying than either of these is Polanski's contempt for the subject matter. It's hard to believe that either Corso or Balkan know or care so much about rare tomes when they treat them so carelessly. They don't bother to handle them with gloves, flip through ancient pages like they were airport paperbacks and carry them around in scruffy bags which get flung everywhere.This care-free attitude spills over into the performances. Johnny Depp had wanted to work with Polanski for some time, but Polanski didn't tell him that he wasn't giving the performance that he wanted - in other words, he was almost completely undirected in the role. To be fair to Depp, he gets the physical stuff right, modelling himself on Raymond Chandler and being more convincing than he is in Secret Window. But otherwise it's pretty phoned-in, with Polanski being unable or unwilling to tease out the greatness that Tim Burton or Terry Gilliam had managed.Frank Langella is no stranger to trashy villains, having played Skeletor in the awful He-Man movie, Masters of the Universe. He does the best with a surprisingly underwritten role, looking a little bit like Michael Redgrave in The Dambusters. Lena Orin has far too little to do beyond flashing her stocking tops in the first half-hour and then dressing up like the actress from Scottish Widows for the satanic ceremony. As for Seigner, she does a good demon stare, but otherwise she's too airy-fairy, wafting through the scenery as if she doesn't really care who she's playing or what she's doing. In any case, it's essentially the same character she plays in Frantic - the quirky outsider who helps the male protagonist, only this time she's the devil as well.The final nail in The Ninth Gate's coffin comes with its ending, which is hopelessly dragged out and completely incoherent. We get to see Langella self-immolate and fail to pass through the Ninth Gate - but that's not the end. Seigner makes love to Depp against the flames with her demon eyes, the camera zooms in on Depp as if he realises who she is all along, and he seems about to scream - but that's not the end. After the two drive back, and Seigner remarks "is that it?" (to which the answer is "no"), Depp goes back to the bookshop and finds the missing page - but that's not the end. Depp then goes back to the castle and the screen fades to white, in one of the most shambolic and unsatisfying endings in 1990s cinema.The Ninth Gate is an example of what happens when a great director indulges themself to the extent that they no longer feel the need to try. As an exercise in supernatural horror it is every bit as rubbish as Prince of Darkness: Polanski's film looks better, but Carpenter's was shorter. In attempting to put his stamp on overly familiar elements, Polanski fails to deliver chills, thrills or knowing laughs. Thank God that he redeemed himself beyond all recognition just three short years later.

Rating:
Verdict: One of Polanski's few bad films

Kiss of the Spider Woman (Brazil/ USA, 1985)
Directed by Hector Babenco
Starring William Hurt, Raul Julia, Sonia Braga, Jose Lewgoy

We tend to think of prison dramas as grimly realistic affairs, as typified by Cool Hand Luke, Midnight Express and Escape from Alcatraz. But there are several examples of prison dramas which have blended the harsh realities of life behind bars with elements of the fantastical or spiritual, to create something a lot more uplifting. Nine years before The Shawshank Redemption set the bar very high, Kiss of the Spider Woman was plumbing the same territory.Although it is at the more fanciful end of the spectrum, Kiss of the Spider Woman deserves initial credit for the amount of claustrophobic tension it manages to generate. Most of the action takes place within the four walls of a prison cell, with only occasional cutaways to the prison corridors or the outside world. Hector Babenco shoots Luis and Valentin's living quarters from every possible angle to make us feel hemmed in, and his cinematographer Rodolfo Sanchez completes the effect with poetic, bittersweet lighting. The pale matt colours, stained walls and rain backlit with blue light reinforced the degraded nature of the characters, achieving a similar effect that Alan Parker managed on Birdy or Angel Heart.Because the film has very few locations or changes in scenery, there is a danger that things could quickly become stagey, something which is reinforced by the source material. Manuel Puig's novel, which later became a play and a Broadway musical, is an often uneasy blend of realism and melodrama which would lend a somewhat histrionic quality to any film version. It is testament to Babenco's skill as a director that he is able to have two often outrageous characters sharing the screen without things ever going over-the-top. If William Hurt was just a little more camp, or Raul Julia just' a little more fiery, then it would feel stagey. But Babenco tells us a lot by showing us relatively little, just he would later do on Ironweed.Kiss of the Spider Woman's main theme is the conflict between escapism and reality, and to what extent the former can help us understand or tolerate the latter. There is a contrast between Luis' love of old movies and fantasy with the iron will of Valentin, who regards films as bourgeois and a distraction from the concrete goals of his revolutionary beliefs. While Luis revels in the mystique of old Hollywood, remarking that he always wanted to play the heroine, Valentin likens the whole experience to "jerking off" and remarks that "you wouldn't know reality if it stuck a spike up your ass!"Having drawn the battle lines quite clearly, it gradually emerges that Valentin is not as ascetic as he would have us believe. For all his talk of political principles, what really sustains him through his time in prison is the memory of a woman he loved. More specifically, it is a case of forbidden love: the woman in question, called Marta, comes from a privileged background. In a flashback we see him having to choose between the only person his heart desires and the political struggle to which he has committed himself. Knowing full well he can never have her, he escapes into the few happy memories he has of her, and the film ends with him imagining their reunion.The story of Luis' movie comes to mirror their circumstances in the cell, a further indication of the role of escapism in dealing with reality. The glamorous and frightened cabaret singer is Luis, who 'falls in love' with the enemy (the governors of the prison) to betray his countryman and equal (Valentin). This is a device found throughout Puig's work: Betrayed by Rita Hayworth explores the validity of Hollywood movies as a guide to living a life ungoverned by church or state, while Eternal Curse on the Reader of These Pages find two men re-enacting melodramatic scenes to find each other's identity.The melodramatic nature of the story reflects both Luis' character traits and, more sinisterly, his intentions towards Valentin. At the beginning we believe that it's all escapist nonsense, too preposterous to require much attention, let alone get angry about. When the accusations come about the film being Nazi propaganda, we brush them off initially as empty rhetoric, but soon the parallels become clearer and we begin to think again.In the latter stages of the story, when Luis is trying to get Valentin to talk, the film becomes a means of leading him to reveal secrets. We question whether Luis has been genuine at all, or whether his desire to escape was far more literal. It's an interesting device to get us thinking about the way that film blends and confuses reality and fiction, and how people can be manipulated by little more than clever storytelling - something expertly practised by Goebbels and his followers.With this plot development, Kiss of the Spider Woman becomes a film about betrayal and the dynamics of exploitation. Luis turns out to be working for the prison governor, whose government wants to expose and arrest the extremists that Valentin is helping. But the dynamic between them is still not straightforward. On the one hand, Luis admits that he has fallen in love with Valentin, and therefore cannot bring himself to betray him (although, of course, he doesn't say this out loud). On the other hand, Luis is tired of being manipulated by the people around him, and promises Valentin that if he is released, he will be his own man. His death is ironic, since he is unable to make this move or to choose between two masters.The film also explores sexuality, specifically in Valentin's attitude to Luis' homosexuality. In the first act, Valentin is incredibly hostile, calling Luis a "faggot" at every possible moment. In one scene, he pulls Luis' legs apart and lets forth a blistering tirade about how he would still be a men even he had the guts to cut off his genitals. But as the film moves on, and Luis opens up to Valentin with several acts of kindness, a level of respect grows between the men until the issue of sexuality no longer seems an issue. The film's treatment of sexuality is arguably more shallow than Puig's novel, but it does at least get its sexual politics right without looking like it is consciously trying to do so.The two central performances in Kiss of the Spider Woman are both of a high calibre. Raul Julia is the more understated of the two, but he is a fiery and compelling screen presence, and we believe in his character right from the beginning. With William Hurt, it takes a little more time. When we first meet him, he is swanning around in a turban and dressing down, looking like David Bowie in his video for 'Blue Jean'. But though his character is undoubtedly effeminate, this is not a clichéd Hollywood gay performance, all mincing and hinged wrists. Hurt is very convincing, and in the latter stages takes on a Ralph Fiennes quality: the sunken-in eyes and slicked-back hair are reminiscent of Fiennes' performance in The English Patient.All that is good and bad about Kiss of the Spider Woman can be found in its recreation of Hollywood movies. Babenco carefully recreates the sepia visuals and big-gestured acting styles, resisting the temptation to be arch and snigger at them under his breath. But while he never falls into the traps that Peter Bogdanovich did in At Long Last Love, he ends up being so overtly affectionate that we are the ones who end up sniggering. One cannot help laughing at the club-footed resistance member cornering the cabaret singer whilst holding a dog, because it's played so assuredly straight that it becomes absurd.There are other flaws as well. The film reveals its main development (i.e. Luis' betrayal) far too readily, and after this one little detail the film starts to unravel. Once the action moves to outside the prison, a lot of the tension goes with it, like lifting the lid off a prison cooker. Because things are running out of steam so markedly, the film tries to recapture that tension with a shootout, a move which partially succeeds but also smacks of desperation. In its actual ending, involving Valentin slipping into a fantasy involving his lost lover, the film falls into the trap of confusing the movie version of love with the true love the characters experienced. It opts for pure escapism over anything more emotionally rewarding.Kiss of the Spider Woman is an engrossing and intense prison drama, undone only by its melodramatic moments and rambling ending. The central performances are believable and compelling, and Babenco's direction does justice to Puig's novel by achieving a decent balance between the gritty and theatrical. It's not Babenco's finest work, and in the grand scheme of prison dramas it has long since been eclipsed by The Shawshank Redemption. But the film has lost very little of its emotional power, and still makes for intriguing viewing.

Rating:
Verdict: Powerful but by no means perfect

Kill List (UK, 2011)
Directed by Ben Wheatley
Starring Neil Maskell, Michael Smiley, MyAnna Buring, Emma Fryer

It's fast becoming a cliché of my reviews to say that a sign of a promising filmmaker is their ability to retune generic conventions to create something both unique and conscious of its place. Like Guillermo Del Toro's Cronos some 18 years before it, Kill List is a triumph on these terms, moving between distinct genres in a smooth and disturbing manner. And while it never entirely live up to the hype, Ben Wheatley's second film is nonetheless a nuanced, brutal and remarkable thriller.Kill List's relationship with genre is such that it can move between the territories of three completely different films in a way which is totally seamless. It begins very much in the verité, kitchen-sink style: the dinner party scenes are shot with intimate hand-held cameras, and contain the same level of repressed, explosive tension which is present in the work of Mike Leigh. In its middle act it moves firmly into hitman thriller territory, showing our two male characters going about their business and struggling to pass the time in between jobs. Finally it moves into full-blooded supernatural horror, with an ending which, while somewhat incoherent, is strange and terrifying.The film's relationship with horror is anchored in two particular films. The first is Angel Heart, Alan Parker's stylish and graphic re-telling of Faust which retools the conventions of film noir. There is the same feeling of the world, or perhaps the devil, slowly closing in on our troubled central protagonist. Like Harry Angel, Jay unknowingly refuses every offer of help and disregards any chance of salvation. While Harry turns down an egg, saying that he has a thing about chickens, Jay threatens the leader of the Christian group at the hotel, saying he will make him swallow a plate if he doesn't stop playing his guitar.The other horror reference point for Kill List is The Wicker Man (although, as I mentioned in my review, its status as a horror film could be disputed). The main comparison is in the role of a pagan or supernatural cult, drawing our protagonist to a certain place and time where he will, to coin a phrase, cast off his former nature. There is a subversion of The Wicker Man's climax in the ending of Kill List: rather than being sacrificed by the cult, he is subversively accepted, with the murder of his final victims being an initiation. But the film utilises pagan-esque imagery through, particularly in the recurring image of the three-pronged gallows.In terms of its contribution to the horror and thriller genres, the film attempts to do what Dead Man's Shoes did for the revenge thriller. Shane Meadows' gripping film, perhaps the best of its kind since Get Carter, pushes the revenge conventions as far as it can, and then pulls the rug out from under us with an ending which shows the deep humanity which has been destroyed by what has unfolded. Kill List doesn't quite achieve that level of power, but it still manages to find the human suffering in amongst the brutal violence and generic conventions, and for that it deserves to be praised.In its opening sections, Kill List examines the mental and psychological state of soldiers returning home after military action. Jay loves his family but is unable to readapt to the demands of modern life. When his son asks for a bedtime story, he recalls a mission in the Middle East, changing the place to 'Baghdadistan' in a vague attempt to claim it wasn't real. Even something as simple as doing the shopping is beyond him; at the beginning of the film his partner berates him for coming back with nothing but tins of tuna and wine. These scenes tread close to the closing section of The Hurt Locker (amongst others), but they don't feel half as choreographed or forced.The film, and its opening section in particular, hangs on the brilliant central performance of Neil Maskell. Having worked solidly in small supporting roles - including an appearance in Basic Instinct 2 - this could be the performance which brings him the attention he deserves. Jay is a complex ball of violent energy, being equally well-meaning and sociopathic, and displaying the same impulsive passion for violence as Sonny Corleone in The Godfather. You spend the film trying to figure him out, wondering exactly what happened in Kiev, while all the time being terrified that if he looks at you the wrong way, you could be next.

When it becomes a thriller, Kill List uses the various killings of Jay and Gal to hold up a mirror on society's attitude to violence. There is an implication that the targets are involved in creating or distributing extreme forms of pornography; although we never see the evidence, we come to believe that children are involved. The film is a snapshot of public outrage at sex scandals and paedophilia, with each of the people on the list being associated with such acts: one is a priest, one a librarian, and one an MP. Jay is the expression of the public's anger, the embodiment of all those vitriolic texts and letters to tabloid newspapers. By having him go so far to achieve his goal, the film demonstrates that, if provoked in a particular way, we are capable of acting without any concept of mercy, morality or restraint.When Ben Wheatley was interviewed about Kill List, he compared it to the Arthurian legends, particularly the stories of various knights proving their worth to join the Round Table. This would explain the connection with witchcraft and ties in further with The Wicker Man, with Jay's actions being one elaborate ruse to bring him into a demonic cult. The brutal nature of Jay's murders, coupled with the shocking death of his final victim(s), subvert whatever moral implications his actions had. In going so far in the name of what he thought was right, he has sunk further into the darkness; he has proved his worth, and been left a broken shell.

There are subtle hints throughout the film that Jay may be the mark in this elaborate and macabre operation. When we first meet Gal, we find him likeable and jovial enough, but during the scenes in the hotel we begin to suspect that he may be more deeply involved. The meetings in the hotel, where Struan Rodger pays Jay and Gal for the killings, are akin to the scenes in Angel Heart where Louis Cyphre engages the services of Harry Angel. Finally, all of Jay's victims to heard to say "thank you" before he kills them - something which has drawn criticism because of its relationship to the violence.Kill List's biggest asset is its amazing sense of atmosphere. Its brilliant sense design, masterminded by Martin Pavey, creates an almost Lynchian level of unease. The film is deeply unnerving and intensely claustrophobic, and the recurrence of bells in Jim Williams' soundtrack hints at both the death knolls of the victims and the slow death of Jay and Gal as they journey deeper into the abyss. The moments of humour in the film, such as Gal explaining why they use an Astra rather than a BMW, are both brief moments of relief and every bit as awkward as the events around them.Even for seasoned horror fans, the violence in Kill List is incredibly brutal. It is perhaps the most brutal depiction of violence since Irreversible, which starts with someone getting their head smashed in with a fire extinguisher. The argument for the violence in Kill List is the same as it was 9 years ago: it is brutal and repulsive because there is nothing about these actions that are justifiable. One's tolerance of the violence will depend on the strength of one's stomach, something reinforced by the unflinching nature of Wheatley's camera. The knee-capping sequence is the real test, and many will regard this as being over-the-top.The more unsatisfying element of Kill List is its ending. In terms of narrative and genre, it adds up; there is nothing nonsensical or absurd about what happens to Jay and Gal. But this is also the point where the camerawork becomes deficient, and the film threatens to tip over into the more histrionic and boring end of found-footage. The tunnel sequence is really, really terrifying, but by the time we get to the fight it has started to drag, and the constant cutting to black does become annoying.Kill List is a remarkable second feature which is destined for cult status among horror fans. It fulfils the promise of Down Terrace as a film which is mindful of its place in genre but which also has thematic and character ambitions beyond that. It isn't quite the masterpiece that critics have claimed: the ending is a little incoherent, and many people will struggle to sit through the brutal violence. But there can be no denying its worth as a socially pertinent and deeply scary horror film, which at its best gives Angel Heart a run for its money.

Rating:
Verdict: Tense, tough and truly terrifying

Angel Heart (USA, 1987)
Directed by Alan Parker
Starring Mickey Rourke, Robert De Niro, Lisa Bonet, Charlotte Rampling

Alan Parker is that most contradictory of characters, the journeyman auteur. In a career spanning four decades he has made a film in almost every conceivable genre, from musicals (Bugsy Malone) to prison dramas (Midnight Express), and from war films (Birdy) to offbeat comedies (The Road to Wellville). While the results have not always been cohesive or agreeable, when he is on form he achieves that rare balance of distinctive directorial vision and respectful treatment of a given story.After working with Peter Gabriel on Birdy, the film which launched the career of Matthew Modine, Parker turned his hand to film noir in the form of Angel Heart. Based loosely on the novel Falling Angel by William Hjortsberg, it combines the hardboiled pulp fiction of Raymond Chandler with the supernatural threat of The Wicker Man, held together by Parker's sumptuous visuals and a powerful central performance by Mickey Rourke. While not a complete masterpiece, it remains a highly compelling work of 1980s cinema which is more than worthy of its cult status.On a basic level, Angel Heart is a throwback to the classic noirs of the 1930s and 1940s, with a plot straight out of a classic gumshoe detective story. In the film a private detective meets a mysterious client, who offers him a large sum of money to find a man who owes him some form of debt. As the detective snoops around, he finds himself pulled further and further into a dark new world, and eventually comes to realise that he is more closely connected to the client than he previously thought...When written out like this, Angel Heart can seem incredibly hackneyed, the sort of script which had been hanging around studios for years being constantly re-written. But the film is fully aware of its place in the genre, tipping its hat to other recent attempts to reinvigorate or redefine film noir. There is, for instance, a direct nod to Chinatown in the scene on the beach: Harry Angel is given a nose shield which he clips to his sunglasses, mirroring the image of J. J. Gittes with his bandaged nose.Both Chinatown and Angel Heart use the conventions of pulp and film noir to provide a firm grounding for their audience, giving some form of reassurance as they indulge in ideas or flights of fantasy which are uncommon for their genre. In the end Angel Heart is the weaker film, since its relationship to such conventions is so close that, on a narrative level at least, it never manages to rise above it. But there is still much pleasure to be had from watching all the pieces fit together, and much terror to be found in Parker's various stylish indulgences.Judged purely on its visuals, Angel Heart is as memorably full-on and sumptuous as Pink Floyd - The Wall five years earlier. As with that film, there is a contrast between the pale and faded colours of the 'normal' world (in this case New York City) and the richer, fuller tones which gradually emerge as both film and character tip over into madness. Parker's long-time cinematographer, Michael Seresin, floods these sequences with reds and blacks which wouldn't look out of place in the work of Dario Argento, and his capturing of shadows rivals anything on The Third Man.These visuals hint at one of the great successes of Angel Heart as a thriller, namely the level of atmosphere it creates. The three or four scenes involving Robert De Niro are uncharacteristically quiet; they occur in churches, offices and deserted cafés, places in which Parker can play on the pauses and grant De Niro's every word the emphasis it deserves. This, coupled with his threatening characterisation, creates the sense of some great evil hovering over everything that occurs between his meetings with Mickey Rourke. Like the dark shadows on a Francis Bacon painting, we feel threatened by this intangible, amorphous sense of doom, which feeds the paranoia of the audience until we are begging for relief.The plot of Angel Heart is rooted in the age-old story of Faustus, which involves a man selling his soul to the devil in return for success - he gains the world at the cost of the one thing that is truly and inalienably his. The character of Johnny Favourite, who never appears on screen, stands in for Faust as a man determined to have fame and fortune at any price. But where Faust seeks no harm to others in his quest for hedonistic fulfilment, Favourite is "as close to true evil as anyone wanted to come" and is driven to desperation in his bid to renege on the deal.The film is full of religious imagery relating to both Christianity and voodoo. Some of the Christian imagery is obvious: you don't call characters Harry Angel and Louis Cyphre without good reason. In one of their conversations, Cyphre describes how an egg can represent the human soul; he then proceeds to devour an egg he had peeled with his long fingernails, like the devil wearing down a victim and going in for the kill. Other images are more subtle and inventive, like the recurring shot of fans and elevators - ordinary, everyday objects which carry connotations of death and descent into darkness.

As with the paganism depicted in The Wicker Man, the voodoo elements in Angel Heart are not intended necessarily to be taken as chapter and verse. The intention is less to describe exactly what voodoo entails and how it is practised, and more about conveying a clash of cultures, in this case between atheism and the supernatural in general. Angel's contact with voodoo in New Orleans is the first time he entertains the idea that Johnny Favourite was anything more than an elaborate hoax. In a subversion of Christianity, it is faith in a life after death that leads him not to God but to the Devil.Being both a hardboiled thriller and a supernatural horror movie, Angel Heart contains a certain amount of graphic violence. Such scenes include a live chicken being cut open and its blood being poured over Lisa Bonet, Angel being beaten up by anonymous mobsters, and the numerous murders which occur. Though not an out-and-out shocker in the mould of Hellraiser, there is more than enough in Angel Heart to make you wince and shiver.Fortunately, precious little of this violence is salacious or gratuitous. The most terrifying moments in Angel Heart are those which use such imagery in an artier, more abstract way to unnerve the viewer psychologically. As the film goes on, Angel begins to suffer vivid nightmares involving an apartment window, red light and a man screaming - a simple image which becomes steadily more unsettling. There is a further link with Pink Floyd - The Wall in the scene where Angel and Epiphany make love in the leaky apartment. The image of water slowly turning to blood is a close cousin of 'The Thin Ice' sequence with Bob Geldof drowning in the swimming pool.The performances in Angel Heart are every bit as memorable as the imagery surrounding them. Although De Niro hovers menacingly over everything, it is Mickey Rourke who defines the film in what remains his finest performance. Harry Angel may be a dishevelled flatfoot, but Rourke brings so much more to the party, from his snarky facial expressions to a deep world-weariness: whether down-to-earth or downright hysterical, Angel feels so much more than just an archetype. The supporting performances by Lisa Bonet and Charlotte Rampling are also pretty convincing, especially from the former in a full-on big-screen debut.Angel Heart does for the pulp thriller what Black Swan did for the giallos of Dario Argento. It takes a number of familiar elements from a given genre and affectionately cranks them up to a point of near-hysteria, resulting in a film which is intensely atmospheric and deeply unnerving. Like Black Swan, there are moments which are ridiculous, and it's hardly the most consistent film ever made. But when it works, it works beautifully, resulting in a breath-taking balance of art, faith and fear.

Rating:
Verdict: Sumptuous, stylish, strange and scary