God Only Knows!:- The Pit and The Pendulum (1991)

"The Pit and The Pendulum" (also released for a short time under the title of "The Inquisitor"), is a 1991 adaptation of Edgar Allan Poes short story of the same name.
Directed by Stuart Gordon, this film is a closer adaptation of the original story than the classic 1961 adaptation starring Vincent Price, although the film does incorporate elements of other stories by Poe, most notably "The Cask of Amontillado".

The year is 1492, and the Spanish City of Toledo is in the grip of terror. Friar Tomas de Torquemada (Lance Henriksen), the Grand Inquisitor, leads a holy mission to rid Spain of all sinners and heretics, which he and his cronies approach with murderous and sadistic glee.
The opening scene features Torquemada directing his henchmen to open the tomb of a long dead nobleman, whose dessicated corpse is then informed it has been found guilty of heresy and is sentenced to receive 20 lashes. once the sentence has been carried out, the bones are ground up and Torquemada has them placed in an egg timer. When he informs the noblemans wife that due to her deceased husbands supposed heresy, their fortune and lands are being confiscated by the church, she denounces him as a thief, which earns both her and her children a trip to the inquisitions torture chambers.

Later, as Torquemada presides over the noble womans execution, a young woman in the crowd begs him to show mercy, and as soon as he sees her, Torquemada becomes enthralled by her beauty, which leads him to have her arrested for witchcraft. Over time, Torquemada finds himself becoming more and more lustful towards her, so he offers her  a bargain, if she will submit to his lustful desires, he will release her husband.

Throughout the film, Torquemada is seen dabbling with a design for a new torture device, the eponymous "Pit and the Pendulum", consisting of a razor sharp blade which swings from a pendulum and slowly lowers down to slice a victim positioned below it in two, and a pit hidden under a trap door below the victim, which opens to reveal the pit is filled with spikes.
Torquemada explains that he requires the creation of new and more vicious torture devices as people become used to the same tortures, so therefore he has to make sure that the threat of torture remains terrifying to sinners and heretics.

Co stars in this film include Oliver Reed, making a cameo appearance as a cardinal sent by the Pope to investigate the rumours that Torquemadas tortures are becoming too depraved for the Vatican to stomach, and Jeffrey Combs as  Francisco, a cleric in the employ of the Inquisition who takes some pleasure in watching others tortured and killed.

The film is a character driven piece of supernatural horror, although there are elements of dark humour in there, one particularly chucklesome example of this is when a witch is being taken to execution and Francisco apologises to her that they didnt have time to torture a full confession out of her before she was executed.

Although little more than a "direct to video" film, which never had a cinema release proper (it was shown at a few film festivals), and suffers from some bargain basement special effects, it is nonetheless a very good film, with Henriksen putting in a brilliant performance as the fanatical and evil Torquemada.

I give it 8 out of 10 sacrificial lambs.

God Only Knows!:- Constantine (2005)

Constantine is a 2005 supernatural horror flick based on the popular DC/Vertigo comic "Hellblazer".

Centred around the exploits of the demon hunter/exorcist John Constantine, the film tells the story of a plot by supernatural beings to bring about the end of the world or something along those lines (the story itself is actually based on a few different story arcs from the comic which have been amalgamated together to form a new but similar plot line).


Keanu Reeves, still basking in his post Matrix glory, stars as Constantine himself, bringing to the role his usual wooden performance style which oddly enough seems to fit this role somewhat well, being as that Constantine is a bit standoffish with anyone he meets and always operates according to his own agenda.

Shia LeBeouf provides some sidekick action in the form of Chas Kramer, and once again old Shia manages to play him in the exact same way he has played every other character he has ever been cast as, namely as a goofy pseudo-teenager with a bag full of wisecracks and over the top over reactions to things (but hey,the kids can relate to that!- KER-CHING!).

Tilda Swinton does her usual aloof performance in the role of Gabriel, an androgynous half demon/angel whose only real role in the plot is to basically be a complete asshole (and show the world her hideous bunions).


Rachel Weisz manages to cram in TWO roles in this film, firstly as Isabella, a devout catholic woman incarcerated in a mental hospital because she hears voices and sees things (SPOILER - she dies right at the beginning) and secondly as Angela, Isabelles twin sister and a hard nosed bible thumping cop who eventually ends up being both a love interest (That ones for the girls, cos you gots to make it a date movie) and a third leg in Constantines attempts to destroy all evil.










Yeah, its not sounding good thus far is it?, well, oddly enough, I do actually like this film, mainly because the story is quite entertaining once you get into it. There are other characters in the film, including a memorable and brilliantly acted appearance by Peter Stromare as Satan, but other than that all the secondary characters end up falling straight into the category of "exposition generators" or "cannon fodder" (mostly cannon fodder).

The plot itself is the usual "Good v Evil" type affair, but given the modern slant in which none of the characters fit into the usual "hero" or "villain" archetypes because as we all know, everyone has feels and wants to be hugged/get on better with their parents/wants to get laid etc...
Constantine spends the entire film trying to unravel a plot by a mysterious supernatural being who intends to bring about hell on earth by breaking "the rules" (an agreement set up between God and Satan which expressly forbid supernatural beings from direct interference in human affairs, you know, because he works in mysterious ways and all that shit) and directly influencing events which will lead to a doorway to hell being opened allowing the demon armies of hell to pour forth on to the earth and do horrid things to humans and so on.
Curiously enough, although Satan gets off his rotund red backside and makes an appearance in the plot, the almighty himself phones his contribution in (our God is an awesome God!...*sigh*, although apologists would probably say that as God is perfect, he refuses to break the rules of engagement, the theocractical arguments against that pertaining to this work of celluloid fiction are a discussion for another time).

So to sum up, Constantine is not very good on the first watch, as the intertwining plot lines can make for some difficulty in enjoyment, however on subsequent watches the film starts to grow on you, and not in a bad way because at heart is is nothing more than a simple but enjoyable enough action film with some religious elements thrown in to make the story more interesting and relatable.
One thing i will note of this film though, and this also applies to most films with religious overtones that are set in the modern age, is that they all seem to assume that Catholicism is the only interpretation of Christianity worth a damn...jus sayin' :)


I give it 7 out of 10 sacrificial lambs.

 

God Only Knows!:- Rosemary's Baby (1968)

Rosemary's Baby is a 1968 film based off of the book of the same name which was published in 1967.
A Horror/Mystery film at heart (its surprising how most films with a religious theme tend to fall in to either mystery, horror , or a combination of the two catagories) , the story of an ordinary young married couple just starting out in life takes a few rather sinister twists as the plot advances, culminating in a rather disturbing and not terribly happy ending.

Mia Farrow stars as Rosemary Woodhouse, a pretty but somewhat naive young woman who alongside her husband, moves into an apartment block in downtown New York.
Rosemary's husband, Guy (played by John Cassavetes) is a struggling young actor who is waiting for his big break, and thus as a couple they don't really have much money between them, but, they decide to settle down and start a family nonetheless.
The other residents of the apartment block, mostly elderly couples, seem to take great delight in having the young couple living there, and busy themselves with "helping" the newlyweds out in any way they can, which annoys Rosemary as she sees their help as interference. Guy dismisses her concerns and says that the old folk are just being friendly, and points out that in all fairness, they could use the help.

Things take a strange turn when not long after Guy finally gets his break by securing a part in a big budget Broadway production. On the night that Guy and Rosemary attempt to conceive the baby that they had planned for, Rosemary has a vivid dream in which she finds herself being raped by a horrifying monster. She wakes up screaming but Guy manages to calm her down.

Not long after, Rosemary finds that she is pregnant, and once again, the elderly residents clamour round to provide assistance by giving her "vitamin drinks" and advice about coping with pregnancy, and, although she initially follows their advice, she begins to get worried when she starts feeling ill so on the advice of her doctor, she stops taking any of the vitamins etc that the elderly folk give her, although things suddenly begin to get more sinister when Rosemary's doctor dies in mysterious circumstances and is replaced by a doctor who advises her the exact opposite of the previous one.

Rosemary eventually gives birth but unfortunately for her, the baby is far from what she was expecting....

Mia Farrow delivers a brilliant performance as the young and naive Rosemary, and it is a pleasure to see her character rapidly learn the harsh truths of the world that surrounds her.

The other characters of the film, who are pretty much nothing but interchangeable support characters, John Cassavetes included, provide the much needed and numerous "prods" required to advance the story, although special mention has to go to the characters of Minnie and Roman Castavete, whose eccentric performances bely their sinister motives throughout the piece.

To sum up, Rosemary's Baby is a finely crafted piece of film which has often been imitated but rarely bettered, and although both the original book and this film did spawn sequels, none of them were as popular or as well liked as the original.

I give this film 9 sacrificial lambs out of 10

God Only Knows!:- "The Sin Eater" (2003)

Kicking off a short season of films with a religious theme:-


"The Sin Eater" , also released under the rather ambiguous title "The Order", Is a 2003 Religious/Mystery/Horror film Starring the late Heath Ledger, Peter Weller, Mark Addy and a slew of other people, none of which Ive ever heard of.


The film itself is strangely categorised as a "mystery-horror" type film, although I'm not quite sure where the horror element comes into it, and as for the mystery portion, well, its not a very good or surprising one is all I'm going to say, just to spare those of you that haven't seen it from moaning about spoilers.

The plot is fairly simplistic, a young priest from a dying priestly order which concerns itself with banishing ghosts, demons and other such things that the Catholic Church now considers embarrassing finds that his mentor and surrogate father figure has died under mysterious circumstances, and during the course of his investigations, he finds out that a conspiracy involving the upper echelons of the holy see has a lot to answer for, especially when he runs across something thought only to exist in times past turns up in the 21st century.

Heath Ledger stars as Alex Bernier, the principal character of the piece , and he pulls it off quite well, sure, Alex ain't no Joker, but at this point in his career, old Heath hadn't really been in too many films, much less where he was the headliner.

Peter Weller puts in a good performance as the enigmatic Cardinal Driscoll, proving that even though he generally doesn't appear in many films, he can still deliver a good performance.

Mark Addy provides a good effort as Alex's sidekick, the Irish priest "Thomas Garrett", although for some really odd reason the scriptwriters decided to permeate his dialogue with the phrase "spaghetti-O", which although intended to act as a friendly nickname for Alex, instead ends up just being annoying and sticking out like a sore thumb.

The storyline, to me at least, seems to be a little rushed in places, but does manage to remain coherent enough so that you don't get lost along the way, although some elements of plot development seem to be a bit extraneous, for example the exposition about Mara's background, seem like they are leftovers from an earlier and much more ambitious script draft that were somehow missed when the dialogue was being trimmed down.
Dialogue wise, some of the scenes, particularly ones featuring the character Mara, are very wooden, its clear that Ledger and the actress playing Mara didn't have much chemistry as they exchange pieces of romantic speech in a very awkward manner.

For what it is though, "The Sin Eater" isn't a bad film, but its by no means a good one. At the box office it performed badly, and reviews of it generally tend towards the middling, its only real point of notoriety came from complaints received by 20th Century Fox about its content and depiction of the Catholic Church.


I give it 7 out of 10 sacrificial lambs.