From the archives: Sin City

This feature was originally published in late 2005 in ZERO magazine...

Comic books, graphic novels, call them what you will but Frank Miller’s ‘Sin City’ stories are amongst the most striking and original examples of the art form. They are visceral, beautiful, sexy and excruciatingly violent. The news that they were to be adapted into movies was not met with universal approval by the fan community, but as has been well proven screaming geeks on the internet wield little influence over movie producers.

“Instead of trying to turn it into a movie, which would be terrible, let’s try and turn cinema into this book.”

Robert Rodriguez.

Auteurs do not exist in popular cinema but a few people come close and one such individual is Robert Rodriguez. Rodriguez is the restless director, writer and editor of the ‘Mariachi’ films and ‘From Dusk ‘Til Dawn’, the movie that made A-list material of George Clooney, tequila sexy and horror movies profitable business once more. So when Rodriguez and ‘Sin City’ were mentioned in the same sentence the movie became a substantially more appealing prospect, and his announcement that he intended to use the source material as his script and storyboards resulted in more drool spattered keyboards than the dream I had about Rick Wakeman having a stroke. Indeed it is a testament to Rodriguez’s artistic integrity that not only did he endeavour to faithfully translate Miller’s stories to celluloid, but also insisted on Miller receiving co-director’s credit, a move which was opposed by The Director’s Guild Of America. In response Rodriguez resigned from the DGA, a move that would him his next job helming the adaptation of Edgar Rice Burrough’s classic science fiction fantasy ‘Princess Of Mars’, and duly credited Frank Miller as co-director prompting in 2012 a beautiful 'what-if?' scenario. Rodriguez at the time had said that he intended to give his John Carter movie the look of a moving Frank Frazetta painting.

This wasn’t Miller’s first foray into movies (he penned the lamentable screenplays for the disappointing Robocops 2 and 3) but 2005 has undoubtedly brought Miller to the masses with ‘Sin City’ conquering the world and the return to form of the Caped Crusader, ‘Batman Begins’ being heavily influenced by Miller’s own dark take on the Dark Knight in his graphic novel ‘Batman: Year One’. Little wonder then that another of his works is receiving the big budget Hollywood treatment with Zack Snyder (fresh off his debut success with Dawn Of The Dead ’04) currently filming ‘300’, based on Miller’s graphic novel of the same name depicting an episode during the Persian invasion of Greece where 300 Spartans held off a force of over 100,000 Persians at Thermopylae. It remains to be seen whether his vision will be as flawlessly adapted as was ‘Sin City’. Opinion may be divided on the 'quality' of the adaptation but 300 proved to be an even bigger worldwide hit than Sin City.

“When we started casting this strange things started happening, people were turning up who looked like my drawings.”

Frank Miller

Rodriguez is proving himself, like his compadre Tarantino before him, to be a director who can redefine actors’ careers. The sheer quality and profile of the cast of ‘Sin City’ harkens back to the ensemble disaster movies of the seventies such as ‘The Towering Inferno’ but issues such as top billing on the poster are irrelevant with Rodriguez’s artistic vision elevating the project to a level way above a simple all star vehicle like ‘Ocean’s Eleven’ and giving A-list stars and fading character actors a new dimension in which to play.

Bruce Willis has a habit of recreating himself in groundbreaking movies and his turn as the physically ailing Hartigan, a cop entering the last hour of his thirty year career, ranks alongside his portrayal of over the hill boxer Butch Coolidge. Willis’s movie star career forms a perfect arc beginning with ‘Die hard’ and charting his maturation through ‘Pulp Fiction’ and now ‘Sin City’, all his other movies form the links between these massive punctuation points.

Phoenix-like is perhaps the most appropriate way to describe Mickey Rourke’s performance as Marv, a sympathetic monster to rival Karloff’s, and the best example of acting through latex since Howard Sherman’s Bub in ‘Day of the Dead’. After a post eighties downturn in his fortunes (see ‘Harley Davison And The Marlborough Man’) and a brief career as a boxer Rourke has, with quiet dignity, been re-establishing himself as a character actor with roles in a number of well received films such as ‘Man On Fire’, ‘Spun’, Rodriguez’s own ‘Once Upon A Time In Mexico’, and as a transvestite convict in ‘The Animal Factory’. If there had been any lingering doubts that he is not one of the most charismatic and gifted actors of his generation then Marv has smashed them to a bloody and bony pulp.

‘Sin City’ is littered with flawless performances by household names, often in the smallest of roles. Rutger Hauer is onscreen for only a couple of minutes each but leaves an indelible mark in his role as the twisted Cardinal Roark. Most remarkable of all is Elijah Wood as ‘Kevin’, in terms of screen time a small role but significant and memorable as Wood defies any risk of typecasting after his several years in the public eye as a Frodo-sexual to beat the snot out of Rourke’s ‘Marv’ and disturb audiences world-wide as a sociopathic cannibal with the voice of an angel.

Brittany Murphy picks up where she left off in ‘Spun’ and again proves herself the queen of battered wife chic and Jessica Alba shows why she’s such hot Hollywood property as well as proving that she’s a really, really good dancer.

The only disappointing aspect of the casting is that Leonardo Di Caprio turned down the role of Junior/Yellow Bastard. Nick Stahl did a creditable job of creating the loathsome character but I for one would have got a real kick out of seeing Leo play a disfigured and castrated child molester.

‘Sin City’ the movie concentrates on three of Miller’s stories "The Hard Goodbye" (Marv,) "The Big Fat Kill" (Dwight and the hookers) and "That Yellow Bastard" (Hartigan and Nancy), as well as the short "The Customer is Always Right" which forms the pre-credit introduction. That sequence was filmed in one day as a test in order to show Frank Miller the possibilities of what can be achieved by making a 100% digital movie. By no means the first movie of its kind it is definitely the first to use the technology to create a living world that services the plot and the source perfectly, essentially delivering Rodriguez’s vision of converting our cinema screens into the moving image of Miller’s imagination.

Over the years we’ve seen many comic book adaptations come and go, some good ones, some colossal turds and with Hollywood desperately short on originality the comic form is increasingly ripe for the plunder, ‘A History Of Violence’ being the latest graphic novel adaptation to hit our cinema screens. Now we know it can be done right, and we know our tales of excruciating violence, bloody vengeance and hot chicks with Uzis can have artistic merit AND be mainstream.

‘Sin City’ is the way and with an unrated director’s cut on DVD released in the US in December and ‘Sin City 2’ coming in 2006 let there be plenty more light.

2012 update: Sin City 2 never happened and the terrible reception to Miller's solo directorial effort The Spirit has damaged his cache somewhat but Rodriguez has recently stated that shooting may commence in mid-2012...

From the archives: Wild at Heart

This feature originally appeared in ZERO magazine circa 2005.


It’s difficult to believe that it is fifteen years since I took an unwitting female companion to see Wild at Heart at the cinema ,because it seems like only yesterday. I remember it distinctly. The lights went down, the strains of Schubert’s ‘Im Abendrot’ boomed from the speakers and those credits splashed across the image of intense flames. The fire and the classical music faded to be replaced by a disorientating view of an ornate ceiling and the familiar sound of Glen Miller’s “In the Mood”. Sailor Ripley (Nicholas Cage) dressed like a cool Potsy from ‘Happy Days’ skips down a marble staircase and is confronted by a man in a suit who declares his intention to do harm, and everything explodes. The music becomes a thrash hammer accompanying the brutal blows as Ripley smashes the antagonist’s head again and again and again on the brass railings, his blood splashing starkly against the pale steps. Thus does ‘Wild At Heart’ introduce itself to the unsuspecting viewers and declare boldly, “You’re not gonna fucking believe this movie and it will stay with you forever!”

It has to be the craziest first three minutes of a film I’ve ever seen.

The combination of the intense, hymn-like music and the vision of boiling flames has a unique effect on the viewer. It is hypnotic. The subsequent rapid transitions in image and sound and the shocking switch into brutal violence and thunderous music is dizzying. That is how ‘Wild At Heart’ works. It keeps you off balance because you can’t bear to look away, even when you want to or have to.

David Lynch has forged his career from keeping us off balance and the juxtaposition of diverse sounds and images in just one of his techniques. The explosive sound of ‘Slaughterhouse’ by little known metal monsters Powermad (they sadly split shortly after their debut album was released) punctuates the action and almost always accompanies Sailor’s violent paroxysms. Powermad are now a little part of movie history. Shortly after Sailor is released from a correctional institute for the murder of the man on the steps he and his girl Lula elope, much to the chagrin of Lula’s mother. Whilst attending a Powermad show (an opportunity for Sailor to show his Elvis style kung-fu dance moves) an unwise patron of the club makes a move on Lula and refers to Sailor as a ‘faggot’ for wearing a snake-skin jacket. Sailor exclaims “This is a snake-skin jacket, symbol of my individuality and belief in personal freedom!”  After making an example of the fool he proceeds to sing Elvis Presley’s “Love Me” to a delighted Lula, with Powermad themselves providing accompaniment.

Cinema just does not get any better than this.

Lynch has a long-standing connection with more extreme forms of music, as reflected by the soundtracks to both ‘Wild At Heart’ and ‘The Lost Highway’. Using such diverse elements as Angelo Badalamenti and Rammstein to create emotional soundscapes that not only accompany but also enhance the onscreen imagery is not unusual in film. Lynch simply does it better than most. Another great example is the use of ‘Wicked Game’ by Chris Isaak. The music seems to haunt the lonely highway when we see Lula menaced by the spectre of her mother in the form of the wicked witch (one of many references to the Wizard of Oz) and the lovestruck couple happen upon a devastating car crash. Incidentally it is that car crash that gives Lynch an opportunity to demonstrate his fascination with the brain as we see a bewildered Sherilyn Fenn put her fingers into the wound in her head, remove a piece of brain and bemoan, “I’ve got sticky stuff in my hair! Has anyone seen my hairbrush?” It echo’s the scene in ‘Blue Velvet’ where a shot police officer stands with exposed brains like a malfunctioning android. Lynch has used the brain, head and mind as powerful symbols throughout his career. The Elephant Man was killed by the weight of his own head, in his version of ‘Dune’ he eschews the book’s attitude to physical combat in favour of mental discipline used to kill. ‘The Lost Highway’ and ‘Mullholland Drive’ ponder identity and mental illness. Lynch says the brain is “just like a plate, but the nervous system and the mind is, uh, It's the thing that traps us and ultimately frees you." He regularly gives lectures and speaks on ‘Consciousness, Creativity and the Brain’.

So is he a genius or just crackers? Or both?

He did bring us the backwards-speaking and funky-walking dwarf in Twin Peaks.

He also has started his own foundation dedicated to raising $7 billion so he can make transcendental meditation available for students, and build a university for world peace in Washington, D.C.

He cast Isabella Rossellini (his wife at the time) in the role of Dorothy Vallens, the brutalised lover/victim of Dennis Hopper’s terrifying Frank Booth in arguably his most disturbing film ‘Blue Velvet’. On voyeurism Lynch said, "I'm convinced we all are voyeurs. It's part of the detective thing. We want to know secrets and we want to know what goes on behind those windows. And not in a way that we would use to hurt anyone.” Through ‘Blue Velvet’ he makes us voyeurs. It’s difficult to watch but we can’t look away. It’s also maniacally funny, because if you don’t laugh at the sight of Dean Stockwell miming ‘In Dreams’ to Frank Booth you’d probably cry. The marriage with Rossellini did not long survive the release of ‘Blue Velvet’. She cited his increasingly bizarre behaviour (including laughing hysterically during the filming of the ritualistic rape scene) as cause for the split.

Interestingly Robert Loggia wanted to play Frank Booth. Lynch later cast him as the similarly disturbing Mr Eddy in ‘The Lost Highway’, continuing the tradition (as he did with Willem Dafoe’s Bobby Peru character in ‘Wild At Heart’) of populating his worlds with the most terrifying and powerful tyrants.

Lynch described ‘The Lost Highway’ as a “psychogenic fugue”, another example of his fascination with the mind and psychosis. Ironic as a self induced fugue state is one of his creative techniques for brainstorming ideas, brought on by epic quantities of very strong, sugary coffee and doughnuts. It would be easy to forget that Lynch also has a keen sense of self-deprecating humour. Witness his performance as Gordon, Agent Cooper’s deaf boss in ‘Twin Peaks’, nor is he above self parody, evidenced by the achingly slow version of his signature white lines on the highway in ‘Straight Story.’

Ultimately David Lynch’s movies conform to a template of his own making and ‘Wild at Heart’ fits that template perfectly. Lynch said it was “about finding love in hell – which might be a theme in all my movies!”

It’s a fairy tale, a romance, a violent road movie, a rocking good time and it’s required watching.

Stab it ‘n’ steer!

900 million pounds

When the Department of Health, spurred on by the then-new coalition government, announced that all regional offender health teams would be canned I was disappointed, frustrated and generally pissed off at the looming spectre of redundancy. However, on a certain level, I understood. Countless millions were squandered under labour through regional development agencies that accomplished little more than swelling the egos of a whole host of self-congratulatory ingrates and arse-lickers, something which the Department of Health has more than its fair share of. Of course one always takes an elevated view of ones own worth in these things but deep down I knew that the gravy train had to be stopped and that the natural order of things is for the baby to be thrown out with the bathwater and for everything to have a fucking good re-booting.


I've said it before and I'll say it again here and now, I am an idiot.


When I look at the people who presided over the culture of cock-sucking, bottom-feeding waste, they were the ones left standing.


And they were the ones who kowtowed to the new regime, threw out millions of pounds worth of reporting and recommendations and, at the cost of several more millions, rebadged it all and rolled it out as something newer and shinier.


And they of course are the ones who last year underspent the DH budget by £900,000,000.


Nine-hundred million Earth pounds.


That is 3600 dinners with the PM.


Holy fuck!


And I, and hundreds like me, was made redundant because the Department of Health had to save some money.


It's a tough thing to swallow but then of course we have tories in Number 10. Every line that has been spun about the NHS, the criminal justice system and beyond is a pack of lies and the bullshit continues to make us gag and splutter. Today the petrol stations are running out of fuel due to panic buying and a government commissioned report condemned schools, parents and advertisers for the riots of last summer.


Schools. The same schools that have been fundamentally undermined and devalued by 30 years of Polyfilla policies.


Parents. Whose parents? Most of the rioters were in their twenties and thirties! The fifteen year olds involved may have been there with their parents and who knows, are probably shitting babies out on the floor of Schu as they ransack it but seriously... parents to blame? Before anything else? Before any broader analysis?


And finally advertisers. The fact that adverts suggest we live in a capitalist utopia is a dream that nobody (normal or grounded) truly believes, only the fat fucking pigs in the City of London buy it and they encourage it and love it and worship it like an even bigger, fatter fucking pig whose udders they repeatedly deep throat in their orgasmic throes of delirium at having fucked the proles, raped their ragged arses and left them to take root in the ditches in which they were born, like the filthy mandrake roots with which they share their squalid IQs.

That is the big three then. No mention whatsoever of thirty and more years of irresponsible social policy on the part of successive tory, labour and tory again governments. Governements that, thanks to Thatcher's example, saw the teet and not only chased it, but in doing so bulldozed over any decent, moralistic bystanders and institutions in the pursuit of self-satisfaction and the life-enhancing cheese from Satan's cock. Meanwhile we devolve further because the adverts tell us we're cunts if we can't afford to buy little Jimmy a Big Trak and we have no self-esteem if we can't blow a Cadbury's Flake like a first class hooker. There is hope though because when I crash my car into a group of school-children after being blinded by rage at the next pack of fucking lies that the BBC fails to challenge, their parents can always ring Billy Murray and his whorebag actor 'real lawyer' mates and sue me further blind, right to the point where I fail to spot Mr Big in the showers and get seventeen pounds of dick hammer up my arse.


Which, strangely, is how I feel right now.

2019: After the Fall of New York

It's sunday morning and, after a pre-9am visit to the recycling site in Bradford, I heard on Radio 4 that a Downing Street aide has been selling access to the Prime Minister and to 'Osborne and Cameron dinners' for around £250,000 a pop. For this, the aide promised the undercover reporters, their concerns can be addressed by the Downing Street Policy Department. In other words yet more evidence that our government are a set of disgusting pimps busy whoring out the country to the wealthy and corrupt. In the face of this new, but entirely unsurprising revelation, I resisted the urge to pull over, drop my dunnies and curl one out on the white lines. Had I done so the inevitable consequence would have been that I flag down the first Range Rover Sport I saw, drag out the occupant and beat their head like a cracked egg and feast on the goo inside. Fortunate then that I forced myself home to sob into a bowl of muesli (my willpower also got me past the MacDonalds sausage muffin) whilst watching some delightfully crappy 1980s Italian exploitation garbage. In this case 2019: After the Fall of New York.

In the early eighties Italian hack film-makers were privy to a startling alchemical recipe and the director of 2019 was definitely in on the secret. Giallo journeyman Sergio Martino had already tasted a moderate degree of grindhouse notoriety with Mountain/Slave of the Cannibal God, a vehicle for an aging Ursula Andress set against a backdrop of jungle adventure, genital mutilation and Stacy Keach. Sadly on this occasion the taste was ruined by the at-the-time seemingly ubiquitous-to-the-genre scenes of genuine animal cruelty and the impression that Andress was deeply miserable about the entire experience and sour-faced throughout.

Martino's next foray into tasteless genre film-making was Island of the Fishmen, in many ways his genetic splicing of The Island of Doctor Moreau with some Shadow Over Innsmouth. Elevated by the presence of Barabara Bach and the by now permanently slumming Richard Johnson (amazingly once considered for the role of James Bond) it's an all round hoot.

Sergio's zenith in the field of low budget craporamas would come in 1983 with the marvellous 2019: After the Fall of New York.

Take the plot of Escape From New York, but hollowed out and filled with the key premise of Children of Men, along with some essential staples such as cheap gore, a leading man that makes Michael Beck look like John Gielgud, a truck load of rats and a healthy sprinkling of dwarfs. Once these cornerstones are established then terribly dubbed and lumpen dialogue only add to the magic. Cue some sloppily staged fights, a raft of tramp-chic costumes, oodles of illogical behaviour and a moving demonstration of heroic self-sacrifice and BOOM. My shit is itching ever so slightly less thinking about those Bullingdon Club cunts and their sleeper hold on everything righteous and beautiful about this decaying country.

Death to all tories.

From the archives: The Stink of Flesh

Back when zombie movies were really hard to come by this was the second indie effort I chanced my arm on after Feeding the Masses, I wrote this for a Horror site  where it must have been read by at least seven people. Reviving it here I hope to double that readership.

Low budget indie zombie movies always appeal to me on a puerile level and this one featured Billy Garberina, star of another ultra low budget effort of which I am very fond, Feeding the Masses. Although slightly thinner plot-wise than Masses the detail and dynamics of the characterisations, and the higher levels of innovative gore, ensure that The Stink of Flesh now occupies a spot similarly close to my heart.


Matool is a loner who has been surviving the apocalypse of the undead thanks to his wits and more than competent use of his hands, feet, hammer and nine inch nails. More recently however a new strain of more mobile and capable hyper-zombie have been making his hand-to-hand melee approach somewhat more risky. After picking up a young kid,  the sole survivor from the den of a thinly veiled paedophile, Matool is himself picked up (after being knocked out) by Nathan. Back at their place Matool meets Nathan's wife, Dexy, and becomes willingly involved in their 'alternative lifestyle' in which Dexy's sister Sassy (complete with malformed conjoined twin Dorothy and played by the niece of Gunnar 'Leatherface' Hansen) is also deeply involved. The situation is further complicated by the arrival of three special forces troopers and Nathan's unhealthy obsession with the female zombie he has chained up in his shed.


The lack of budget is evident but thanks to lashings of fun effects, blood and throat tearing The Stink of Flesh is never anything short of entertaining. The action is deftly handled and original, the hyper-zombies owing less to 28 Days Later and the Dawn remake, more to Umberto Lenzi's Nightmare City and the kung fu zombies of Versus. The cheesy acting (especially by the great Garberina) only lends a greater weight of charm to the sharp and pointed script, it is obvious the cast (with the possible exception of Nathan) are amateurs but they are obviously having fun and they exercise total dedication to their buddy's film. Their buddy in this case is Scott Phillips, screenwriter of cult classic Drive and his cameraman is Richard Griffin, director of Feeding the Masses.


The Stink of Flesh was made for just $3000 and it was worth every sweat-soaked cent so viva EDP Productions. I'll be keeping a close eye on their output from now on, especially their unofficial Star Wars spin-off Moisture Farmers.


Incidentally the extras are a heap of fun, particularly the commentary track which provides a warm and witty accompaniment to the feature.

From the archives: Feeding the Masses

These days one look at amazon reveals that there seem to be at least 834 new low budget zombie movies being released on cheap DVD EVERY MINUTE. I wrote this seven or eight years ago when such finds were extremely rare and usually had to be sourced from America.

"No-one remembers the guy who filmed the Hindenburg disaster, but we all remember the footage."

I totally love zombie films of all shapes and sizes but there is a reason why I like some way more than others. A lot of people rate Lucio Fulci's 'Zombie' (AKA 'Zombi 2' AKA 'Zombie Flesheaters') very highly and I do like it a lot for the gore factor but my favourites are the ones that drive home the apocalyptic message through exploring the reaction of characters as the world around them is falling apart. The first ten outstanding minutes of the remake of Dawn of the Dead (and the incredible credits sequence set to Johnny Cash's When the Man Comes Around) is a great example of what I'm talking about. My favourite bits of Romero's first two zombie flicks are the media bits, perplexed newscasters struggling to report on and rationalise the end of the world. It makes for fantastic drama. The Ddddy of them all of course is the original Dawn of the Dead with the chaotic TV studio scenes and that's the perspective that 'Feeding The Masses' attempts to tackle, that of the weary TV workers feebly attempting to document disaster in the face of personal danger, conflicting emotions and government interference.

Our main protagonists are..
Torch, cameraman for a small TV station in Providence, Rhode Island, he wants to record the end of the world for posterity instead of filming features on the effects of the zombie plague on mom-and-pop businesses such as coffee shops;
Sherry, aspiring TV journalist who wants to be a serious journalist and save the lives of viewers by reporting accurately the true extent of the zombie outbreak;
James, video engineer who hasn't slept in days and is feeling a bit under the weather, more so since the Government took over the TV station;
Roger, military escort to the TV crew, he REALLY wants to get in Sherry's pants.

As society collapses around them James ends up in charge of the Station under the close eye of a government agent with dreams of TV stardom, Roger and Sherry find they are not on the same wavelength and Torch leaves his weed at home. Meanwhile the army are shooting everything that moves, the virus is becoming more virulent by the day, and one of the gang is hiding some disturbing fetishes.

"When I lost my wife to cancer six months ago it was the worst moment of my life... until I saw her reanimated body being dreagged down Main Street behind a motorcycle!"
Customer testimonial for www.findadeadspouse.com.

As soon as the film opens it is obvious that this is no 'Dawn Of The Dead', it looks and sounds exactly like the indie film it is but that just seems to add to its charm, its all very Troma in fact, but Troma on Digital Video and with a more sophisticated sense of humour. It's a good job too because it's the sense of humour and sharp script that elevate the film well above other, way more expensive efforts at the zombie genre. The faux advertisements that punctuate the action are hilarious and reminiscent of Ed Neumeier's darkly witty ads in Robocop and Starship Troopers, and the film delights in taking stabs at the Fox News obsession with maps and alert levels and assuring us that the government is in control and has our best interests at heart.

As in The Stink of Flesh the acting performances vary in quality but overall are buoyed up by the deliriously wild-eyed and infectiously energetic Billy Garberina. The gore is functional rather than spectacular and a few cheap CGI effects simply do not work but all of that is largely irrelevant thanks to smart writing by Trent Haaga and creative direction from Richard Griffin. The DVD extras are great and provide a cool insight into the lengths indie film-makers will go to to see their vision come to fruition.

Bottom line, if you expect gloss on your movies and cannot suspend disbelief when confronted with a bit of cheese then avoid. However if you want to watch a refreshing take on a beloved genre and can forgive low production values for the sake of good gags and entertaining characters then you may just find that, like me, you've stumbled across eighty minutes of fried gold.

From the archives: The Exorcism of Emily Rose

In the week that yet another crap exorcism related film (The Devil Inside) comes from a major studio why not check out this old review of another crap exorcism related film. From a major studio.

The Exorcism of Emily Rose

The version I watched was the 'Unseen' extended edition (not unbloodyseen enough for my liking).

To cut a long story short the movie addresses the thorny issue of whether a presented behaviour which is disturbing and contrary to normal personality traits should be viewed as a symptom of mental illness or evidence of something more profoundly spiritual resulting from an external source and that can only be addressed through spiritual means. It's kind of like the science versus faith debate at the core of the snoretastic scifi bore Contact.
Unfortunately it suffers from the exact same problem in that it falls firmly behind the churchy argument and totally demerits any argument to the contrary through an alarmingly glib dismissal in which our protagonist, a feisty female defence attorney who normally defends evil men, paraphrases the input from a shady doctor thus, "So someone who's crazy doesn't know they're crazy?", to which he provides a Eureka moment and thereby dismisses one hundred years hard earned knowledge of psychiatry. By this reckoning anyone classed as mentally ill, but displaying insight, can reasonably be argued to be possessed by the devil!

All of this hogwash wouldn't matter so much if the film didn't portray itself as a true story with a valid moral point of view. Sadly it does and, as such, stands as a monumental bucket of snot that, if anyone bright actually got suckered in by it, could set back the treatment of mental illness in less enlightened areas by a couple of hundred years.

Interestingly the story upon which the movie is based is that of a European girl whose backwards family drafted in the local priest to exorcise the devil from her body, ultimately resulting in her brutal and tragic death. In Europe the tragedy of this case is generally accepted as a result of blinkered narrow-mindedness and ignorance of the realities of chronic schizophrenia. Amazingly the movie flips that on its head and declares that science and medicine are hopeless in the face of the demonic possession that can afflict anyone, anytime.

Utter, utter bullshit and a big fat zero out of five.