UNSUNG HORRORS: THE NINTH GATE

Every once in a while, a genuinely great horror movie—one that would rightfully be considered a classic, had it gotten more exposure and love at the box office—makes an appearance. It comes, no one notices, and it goes. But movies like this are important. They need to be treasured and remembered. If intelligent, original horror is supported, then that's what we'll begin to receive, in droves. We need to make these movies a part of the legendary genre we hold so dear. Because these are the unsung horrors. These are the movies that should have been successful, but were instead ignored. They should be rightfully praised for the freshness and intelligence and craft that they have contributed to our genre. 

So, better late than never, we’re going to celebrate them now… one at a time.

Dir. Roman Polanski
1999
Artisan Entertainment
United States

"I'm entering uncharted territory. Taking the road that leads to equality, with God. You can't come with me. I must travel alone. But you may look on, and marvel. ... There have been men who have been burned alive or disemboweled for just a glimpse of what you are about to witness."

Personal feelings about Roman Polanski aside, his early dabbling in the horror genre is still cited today as inspiration for multiple filmmakers. It seems four out of five horror directors cite Rosemary's Baby as an influence either on any one of their particular films, or their career in general. The more studious may cite Repulsion or The Tenant, and the real nerd will name-drop Knife in the Water, which while not all-out horror still maintains quite a bit of tension and discomfort. It was for this reason that his 1999 return to horror with The Ninth Gate at first elated those with an awe for Polanski, though audiences didn't really turn out in droves. This one seemed in the bag, really – Depp was on a hot streak and Polanski was returning to the genre. But for whatever reason, it never took off, and that is a damn shame.

Johnny Depp plays Dean Corso (the surname being Italian for "run"), a sort of collector, investor, investigator, authenticator, and tracker of extremely rare books. (No idea if this is an actual, real-life profession, but, I'm certainly willing to go with it, as it sounds way better than my job.) His chosen profession gets him into all sorts of "unscrupulous" conflicts, but he always seems to come out on top, with a non-grin, and a lot of green in his pocket for his troubles. 

After swindling the children of an invalid man with a very valuable book collection, Corso meets with Boris Balkan (Frank Langella), a client with another very unique job. You see, Balkan has spent "a lifetime" amassing a collection of books devoted to the occult. He boasts there is no larger collection in the world. Among these books is The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows, written by Aristide Torchia in 1666(!) in Venice. Though three copies exist, only one is authentic. Allegedly The Nine Gates was based on the Delomelanicon, a previous tome written by Satan himself. The legend goes that the sole genuine copy of The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows has the power to raise Satan up from the underworld. Balkan pledges to pay Corso nearly as much as he wants should he travel to Europe and examine the other two copies to determine which of them is genuine. His journey finds him embroiled in sex, murder, and even Hell itself. (All the best European holidays do.) And whether or not he finds what he is looking for, there's no coming back.

The Ninth Gate's story is mapped out using perhaps my favorite underutilized sub-genre of horror, which would be noir – a man chasing a mystery that leads him into unfamiliar and diabolical territory. Sure, you could argue that every horror film has a mystery at its core, but those that follow the very established tropes – the detective in over his head, the femme fatale, the client firmly entrenched in the horror that awaits his hired help – deserve special mention. Other films of equal power and unfortunately equal lack of appreciation previously befell In the Mouth of Madness and Angelheart, both about private detectives who find themselves in very unfortunate circumstances. 

Depp signed onto The Ninth Gate back during the phase of his career when he hadn't yet lost his soul to the Mouse House and was willing to take on riskier roles. And during the late '90s, having come off both Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas and Donnie Brasco, he had nothing really to lose and everything to gain from working with a living legend such as Polanski. And if you're going to hire someone to play a complete douchebag who still manages to earn sympathy from your audience, there's no one better than Depp. 

Do you believe in the supernatural, Mr. Corso?

I believe in my percentage, Mr. Balkan.

Regardless of how lazy and uninspired his role choices have been over the last decade, there's no denying Depp was great, and could still be under the right circumstances. Corso will literally yawn as you speak to him, or clean his glasses without bothering to hide his complete disinterest in small talk. His mustache/goatee and glasses cause him to skew a bit older (likely the intention, as it complements the salt-and-pepper hair), and it helps to explain his extremely cynical and jaded view of...well...everything. Money leads his life, which he lives in isolation – no wife/girlfriend, and certainly no friends, which Balkan is quick to notice, point out, and appreciate. His only "friend" – if you can call him that – is Bernie (James Russo), co-owner of Corso's rare book store, though the importance of this friendship is certainly determined later once Bernie meets an untimely end.

Langella, who has done consistently great work in every genre (once having played Dracula), does a very fine job of playing a psychopath masquerading as a boring aristocrat. It's easy to ham it up in some if his lesser projects, like Masters of the Universe, but it's a lot more rewarding, I'm sure, to equally lose oneself entirely in a performance while under the tutelage of someone like Polanski. Though a large portion of his performance is relegated to a voice on the phone, Langella is still capable of presenting a dominating presence. Emmanuelle Seigner as "The Girl," and your requisite femme fatale (one of two), knows her role: be sexy and be mysterious. She plays it well. "I like books," she tells Corso, though her choice of reading materials (How to Make Friends and Influence People) certainly isn't along the same lines as the titles Corso is used to tracking down. And this strange choice of reading material may or may not hang, ironically, in the back of your mind as The Girl's true identity is eventually revealed. As for the other femme fatale: Lena Olin as Liana Telfer out-sexes sex itself. She is gorgeous here, mid-forties not withstanding, and she's ably both sultry and dangerous. (Or maybe I'm a sucker for garters.)

Composer Wojciech Kilar, one of my personal favorites (and responsible for the wonderfully operatic and over-the-top score for Frances Ford Coppola's take on Dracula) turns in some pretty wonderful work here. His themes alternate from ominous and pulse-pounding to nearly whimsical and clumsy. His theme for Corso alludes that the man isn't the most intelligent, as his musical accompaniment suggests a sort of doddering man who is haphazardly wandering from one clue to the next. This doesn't exactly match up with the actual on-screen version of Corso, who I would argue is actually more unprepared than outright stupid, but then again, that's the beauty of interpretation. 

As for the film's direction, well, I'd be incorrect, simply put, if I were to say Polanski was at the top of his game here. But those people who call his direction over The Ninth Gate lacking are equally misguided. He was never a director who did or tried interesting things with the camera (for the most part, anyway, as there's a fun in-camera gag where Corso is knocked out), as he was always more interested in drama – in spending time with his characters and having the audience join them on their journey. In that regard, The Ninth Gate fits well into his filmography. Corso runs afoul of many different characters - both benevolent and malevolent – but his goal is never deterred. It's his journey we're undertaking here, and we get to experience his sexual misadventures, his close calls, and even his utter befuddlement in the events that surround him. In the earlier exchange where he avoids labeling himself either as a believer or refuter of the supernatural, it seems to me that Corso might just be a believer after all. As he becomes embroiled in the events, he certainly comes off as disturbed and fearful, but never altogether surprised. You could argue that Polanski's interpretation of the Corso character is of a man who is eager not to authenticate The Nine Gates, but instead to determine the actual existence of the devil. After all, what is it they say: If God exists, then surely so should the Devil? If Corso is out to determine the existence of a god, he can surely do that by locating one lousy fallen angel. (I suppose you could also argue that The Ninth Gate is about fate, but that's kind of fucking boring, seeing as how you could argue every film is about fate.)

Not having seen every Polanski film, I still think I'm safe in saying he generally keeps his humor separate from his purposely darker stories. But in The Ninth Gate, he seems absolutely willing to have some fun, as I suppose the rather silly nature of the story he is telling needs to be lightened up occasionally. He is never without respect for this unorthodox mystery, but at the same time he likes to pop up from time to time and state, "Don't take this too seriously." Despite this, Polanski isn't exactly throwing pies and asking who's on first. Yes, there are some fun characters who show up to provide whimsy, but Polanski's idea of humor is a character confined to a wheelchair, recently dead, motoring unguided through a set of double doors and directly into fire, or Liana, post-coitus, telling Corso, "Don't fuck with me," and Corso responding, "I thought I just did?" Some of The Ninth Gate's humor has darkness and edge. At its core it's mean-spirited and even a little angry, and it fits right in.

Partly based on the novel El Club Dumas by Arturo Pérez-Reverte, and as previously mentioned, Polanski has fun with his version of Dean Corso, who slowly becomes more and more obsessed with his assignment, though he's not entirely prepared for where it will bring him. A good detective Corso may be, he's still entirely in over his head.

No matter how many plays or Dickens tales he adapts for the screen, to horror fans (and I mean this in every respectful way possible) Roman Polanski is always going to be the man who directed Rosemary's Baby – considered to be one of the greatest horror films of all time. And because of this, every announcement of a new Polanski film will have fans scanning the log line hoping to see his return to the genre. It's not impossible, nor even unlikely, that he'll return to the genre that put him on the map. 

I know I'll certainly be waiting.

[Reprinted on Daily Grindhouse.]

WEDDING CRASHERS

A wedding photographer took this picture from a rooftop to get a bird’s eye view of a wedding in progress. Something seemed odd about the balcony in the top right portion of the photograph. 

 So the photographer zoomed in...

PHINEAS GAGE

On September 13, 1848, Phineas Gage (a railway worker) was packing a hole with gunpowder, adding a fuse and sand, and then packing the charge down with a large tamping iron. The gunpowder ignited and the iron bar shot through his left cheek bone and exited out the top of his head, and was later recovered some 30 yards from the site of the accident. Within minutes he was up and walking. A few days later he had fungus of the brain. A couple of weeks after, 8 fluid ounces of pus from an abscess under his scalp was released. Damage to Gage’s frontal cortex had resulted in a complete loss of social inhibitions, which often led to inappropriate behavior. He was no longer the same Gage that his friend’s and family knew. Today his skull and the iron bar that shot through it are on display at Boston’s Warren Anatomical Museum.

THE DREAMCATCHER

I would have never known had I not seen it with my own eyes. The dream catcher. Not the things we hang in our windows, those awful summer camp crafts projects made of sticks and ropes and feathers and such. No. The dream catcher whom nobody has dared to see, imagine or come to understand. To call it a person would be an insult to all things real. Then again it is as real as the people it claims. More so the children…

You see I had lost my child many years ago. Lost in the true sense…to the unknown. As he played in the woods behind our cabin in the rural hills of Maine. A place so remote we typically went months during the winter sheltered in our modest log cabin, living off the earnings we had saved throughout the summer on rations and supplies we stocked in fall.

It all happened one cold and crisp autumn day. One of the last few a child his age could go out and play before the winter confined us. He begged me to go outside knowing how once winter sank its teeth into the air he would have little or no chance to run and play. Understanding this I allowed it as we worried not of strangers as there were none to worry about. I was preparing some of the food we would need preserved for the upcoming solitude as he exited the house for the last time. After about an hour or so I failed to hear the distant sounds of childlike imagination being brought to life through stick swords and tree monsters. I looked out the window and saw nothing. My son (no stranger to wandering off) prompted me to grab my coat and go in search. After about five minutes of calling his name…Charlie!…CHARlie!…CHARLIE!!! I began to panic.


Three weeks, five police searches and two helicopter flyovers later the storm hit. Charlie was lost and all efforts to search were called off. I was alone and had nothing to comfort my thoughts but the chance that somehow…some way he was still alive. Out there…somewhere. Chance…like a candle in a hurricane. Then the dreams began.

At first they woke me. Blurry visions of being half awake…not so much the sight but the sounds. Charlie calling for me…daddy…daddy…Only to come to my senses and plunge back into that despair. More than once I thought of ending it all…but that candle…that fucking candle would not go out. I could only think of one worse fate than the loss off my son. That would be to leave this world only to have him return. I could not let that happen…I had to know.

After a few weeks the dreams became more and more lucid. I could now see Charlie but not how I remembered. Almost like a ghost…transparent. But unlike a ghost, all grey and muted, he was golden. Almost like looking at a light bulb through a piece of parchment. He called for me…daddy…daddy…I’m here! I’m here with the dream catcher. I now had a new tormentor…my own mind.

It was now March and the weather finally broke. An entire winter of merciless wind and snow. Piled high well above the edges of the roof was the remnants of the worst winter anyone can recall. I needed to get out. Months of dreaming and pacing and planning. What would I do, where would I go? Nobody to calm my already shaken nerves, no thing to keep me grounded. Was I mad? Perhaps but it would not stop me from trying.

I packed all I could carry knowing I would find my boy, in any state…or die trying. The first days trek carried me deep into the forest. I spent a good week (or what seemed like it) wandering farther into the unknown. I had no sense of direction or care for it anyway. After all I was searching for something that had no location. Each gust of wind brought me in a new direction…a faint whisper of “daddy”, “I’m here”, “daddy”, “I’m here”. Was it real or just the cruel residue of my dreams. At this point I cared not. I had nothing left to lose.

Then I saw it…or more so him. My son. Not the boy I had known growing up all those years, running and playing and full of life. No. This was what was left.

Hung between two trees, by hands and feet was the skin of my child…pulled taught and hardened by the cold blustery winter. As I approached, the sun shone from behind creating the warmest glow I have ever seen. Fiery gold piercing through the holes that were his eyes, and nose, and mouth. I stumbled, devoid of all energy to face him. As I wept, knowing he was gone, and in the cruelest way…a gentle breeze blew from the direction of the sun behind him…his hide softened and bowed to the breeze, filling his empty shell with form. The wind whispered through his mouth…daddy…I’m here…I’m here with the dream catcher…

TEOS RECOMMENDS: THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF ROSALIND LEIGH

In a cinematic time in which the masses have lost their patience for nearly everything that doesn’t involve massive amounts of blood or a brand title they recognize from years past, it seems almost incorrect to say that there is still life burning behind the slow-burn movement. Guys like Ti West, and James Wan, or standalone films like Citadel or The Awakening, are keeping the movement going thanks to their contributions of slow-going horror, established on a foundation of tone and atmosphere rather than full-on scare. Those two things are more important to a horror film than anything else. If you can establish a mood that never allows your audience to settle back into their seats, then you’re onto something.

That’s how I felt watching the directorial debut of Rodrigo Gudiño, editor of Rue Morgue Magazine.

The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh finds Leon (Aaron Poole) coming back to his childhood home following the death of his mother, Rosalind (Vanessa Redgrave, who never appears on-screen in any traditional way). Inside her almost castle-like interior of a house, Leon finds an army of religious relics – angels, Virgin Marys, and crosses. They litter every room – some less than six inches, and some twice as tall as himself. Among this collection of religious iconography, he finds a lone VHS tape labeled as “God’s Messengers.” Its contents feature shaky amateur footage of a religious cult, led by a Nick-Cave-lookin’ fellow who it would seem has the power to beckon stone sculptures to life. This, coupled with the demonic animal that apparently lives in the overgrown brush outback, and you have yourself one haunting night to remember.

If you can appreciate films for anything beyond mindless time-wasters, you’ll be immediately struck by Gudiño’s direction. For a directorial debut, the film is gorgeous.  The camera moves incredibly fluidly around Rosalind’s house, accompanied by a haunting voice over seemingly narrating her journal she purposely left behind for Leon to find. Another thing you may notice: though the film’s concept you could argue is a tired one, I’d argue it’s been quite a while since you’ll experience a film that feels like this. Part experimental, part traditional horror, The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh feels at times like something The Exorcist and Legion author William Peter Blatty would have undertaken as director.  His direction on his own novel adaptation The Exorcist 3: Legion as well as The Ninth Configuration feels the same way as it does with here. The images captured are haunting and beautiful and heartbreaking and unnerving all at the same time, though there is nothing obvious or overly horrific on-screen.

Like House of the Devil, or I Am A Ghost, Rosalind Leigh is a one-man show. Except for characters on the phone, or on choppy camcorder footage, or unseen on the other side of the door, it is just Leon, son of Rosalind Leigh, wandering around her old, archaic house, wondering if that one particular statue of the Virgin Mary is moving around from room to room by itself.

At no point does Rosalind Leigh not feel like a dream. Leon’s sparing interaction with who sounds to be an estranged girlfriend over the phone never feels…right. Nor does the strange man who knocks on the door in the middle of the night to express his condolences over Rosalind’s death, and to warn about the strange animal that has allegedly been sighted on the property. This scene, too, doesn’t quite feel right. None of these people act as if they have any semblance of humanity whatsoever, but know enough about it to skate by.

Fair warning, Rosalind Leigh’s pace is not for every one. In fact, once the one-hour mark comes and goes, and it doesn’t appear the film is laying down any real, concrete development or revelations, it might cause some viewers to tune out. With this kind of approach to filmmaking, that’s inevitable.

Nor, either, will those people enjoy the film’s conclusion. Because there really isn’t one – not in the traditional sense where Leon finds his mother’s bones, or her lost prized necklace, or some other lame icon that has prevented her from resting in peace. Like the Polanski films that defined slow-burn horror, it’s not so much about the conclusion as it is about the journey. It’s about sticking with this one solitary character as he wanders around a dark house in the middle of the night clutching a lit candle. It’s not just a night of death but of rebirth.

I’ve corresponded with Rod Gudiño several times over the years and I can say without hesitation he is a fine fellow and quite personable. Beyond that, I can’t say I know much about the man from a personal standpoint. Beyond reading the last paragraph of every review for this film (which is my style—people give away too much shit these days), I haven’t done any kind of research behind the film’s origins and inspirations. Having said that, The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh feels intensely personal. It feels like a film made by a person who wanted to do more than just marry together a bunch of elements caused by nothing by budget restrictions.

In a way, it feels less like a film and more like an exorcism.

THE MOMENT OF DEATH

The Moment Of Death:
1. The heart stops.
2. The skin gets tight and ashen in color.
3. All the muscles relax.
4. The bladder and bowels empty.
5. The body temperature begins to drop 1 1/2 degrees Fahrenheit per hour.

After 30 Minutes:
6. The skin gets purple and waxy.
7. The lips, fingernails, and toenails fade to a pale color.
8. Blood pools at the bottom of the body.
9. The hands and feet turn blue.
10. The eyes sink into the skull.

After 4 Hours:
11. Rigor mortis has set in.
12. The purpling of the skin and the pooling of the blood continue.
13. Rigor continues to tighten muscles for another 24 hours or so.

After 12 Hours:
14. The body is in full rigor mortis.

After 24 Hours:
15. The body is now the temperature of the surrounding environment.
16. In males, the semen dies.
17. The head and neck are now a greenish-blue color.
18. The greenish-blue color spreads to the rest of the body.
19. There is a pervasive smell of rotting meat.

After 3 Days:
20. The gas in the body tissues forms large blisters on the skin.
21. The whole body begins to bloat and swell grotesquely.
22. Fluids leak from the mouth, nose, ears, and rectum.

After 3 Weeks:

23. The skin, hair, and nails are so loose they can easily be pulled off the corpse.

24. The skin bursts open on many places on the body.

25. Decomposition will continue until the body is nothing but skeletal remains, a process that can take a month or so in hot climates, and two months or more in cold climates.

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