I was going to torture myself and see Venom (2018) yesterday, but that didn’t end up happening. So here’s a catch-up. Double your Satan, double your fun.
Halloween films #7 and #8… The Devil’s Messenger and The Ninth Gate.
What a surprise it was to me when a Lon Chaney Jr. film popped up that I’d never heard of. Boy, there’s a reason for that.
The Devil’s Messenger is not a proper ‘film’ per se, but rather 3 episodes of an obscure/forgotten Swedish TV show cobbled into a loose narrative that.
Now Mulholland Drive – the David Lynch film – was supposed to be a television pilot… but was edited into a feature. And that worked super well. It rules.
This, uh… didn’t.
Logline from IMDB: Satan enlists the help of a suicide victim in Hell to lure unsuspecting earthly victims to their eternal doom.
We get an unfrozen ice woman, nuclear war scare mongering, and a prophetic death dream or three.
Mild praise elements instead of fully shitting on something that you’ll never watch:
Some great shots, Lon Chaney Jr. hamming it up as the goddamn devil.
The Hell sets are interesting — particularly the waiting room aspect… echoes of Beetlejuice?
It legitimately doesn’t connect or add up to much — maybe the TV series did.
Straight up: Skip it.
Somebody did this to cash in on Lon Chaney Jr.’s legacy.
I am obligated to post a link to “Werewolves of London” at the simple mention of his name so… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDpYBT0XyvA&list=RDiDpYBT0XyvA&start_radio=1&t=3
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NEXT:
If you think Johnny Depp as an intellectual rare book dealer walking around large empty spaces and paging through Satanic texts in exotic European locales… man, is there a movie for you!
I believe in the slow burn, really… I do.
But this one is another patience-tester.
The third act has some payoffs.
Since [name of director redacted*] made the thing there are some incredible shots, Depp’s performance is good, and soundtrack definitely works.
The writing, however…
We get visual homages to The Third Man (1949), bad 90s wirework effects, and Johnny Depp looking confused.
As a man who thinks there’s no such thing a long take that’s too long…The Ninth Gate is an exercise in one’s ability to stay awake for its over 2 hour runtime.
Eurotrash arthouse in parts, cheesy American studio picture in others… having watched half of a few Roger Corman produced 60s/70s flicks in the past few weeks, it feels much closer to those than even, say, a Hammer horror flick in terms of total execution.
*the late Sharon Tate’s husband
I need to watch something great. These two took it out of me. Not great.
Neither one is worth a dollar. Skip them. Watch End of Days instead.
Recommendations for further viewing: Rosemary’s Baby (1968), Race With the Devil (1975), Spawn (1997), End of Days (1999)