Halloween Horror: Angel Heart

When I talk to people about horror movies, this is a title that always seems to come up, so it should come as no surprise that it seemed an obvious choice when I decided to start Halloween Horror. Out of the horror films I've seen, Angel Heart, directed by Alan Parker (Midnight Express, Fame, Pink Floyd The Wall, Angela's Ashes) is quite possibly one of the most disturbing. It is also a truly unique horror film, as I have yet to find anything even remotely similar in nature, which makes it all the more complex, intelligent, and above all, terrifying.

Mickey Rourke plays the role of Harry Angel, a Sam Spade-esque private eye and everyday man living in 1950's Brooklyn. He receives a new case from a mysterious client named Louis Cypher. The case involves Harry investigating the disappearance of a singer named Johnny Favorite, who has not been heard from in twelve years and who apparently owes Cypher for something he did to help his career. He agrees to take the case, but things quickly spiral out of control.

One by one, people who knew Johnny begin turning up dead, and all the evidence points toward Harry as the killer. As the bodies pile up and Harry faces the electric chair, he finds himself in a desperate struggle to track down the real killer and clear his name. The investigation takes on various twists and turns, and without giving away the reveal, it becomes clear that there is something much darker at play.

If that description sounded more like the plot of a classical film noir than a horror movie, that hardly comes as a surprise. Angel Heart is clearly influenced by the film noir of the 40's and 50's and in some ways functions as a tribute similar to Chinatown. Unlike Chinatown, however, Angel Heart is very much a horror story at its core, even if it uses a classical detective story as a means to unravel that horror.

It is a very different kind of horror film, though. There is gore when it is needed but for the bulk of the movie the horror is purely psychological, and comes in large part from the general atmosphere. The opening scene alone has a very bleak tone to it, but as the film progresses there is an increasingly overwhelming sense of dread, all preparing you for the reveal of the true horror at the very end. When we finally get our questions answered in the finale, we are plunged into the realm of psychological horror the likes of which I don't think I have ever seen in anything else.

The acting is amazing. Mickey Rourke might just have one of the best performances of his career as Harry Angel, and Robert De Niro steals the show as Louis Cypher, who manages to be super-eerie just doing an impressin of Martin Scorsese. In fact, De Niro was supposedly so good at the role that even Alan Parker got uncomfortable when shooting his scenes and allowed him to direct himself. Also curiously thrown into the mix is Lisa Bonet coming off of The Cosby Show, who also has quite possibly one of the most disturbingly surreal sex scenes ever put on film.

In addition to the atmosphere, there is a fair bit of disturbing surrealism throughout Angel Heart. Most of it makes sense by the time you get to the end, but even then this may be a rare case where what you imagine is nowhere near as terrifying as what the film eventually delivers on a purely psychological level. A lot of the fear comes from the little things, where their meaning only becomes clear when you finally learn what's really going on (this movie manages to make the simple act of eating a hard-boiled egg seem disturbing).

Now I imagine like me, a lot of my readers are a bit jaded by the lack of decent modern horror movies. There's been a few exceptions here and there but for the most part we've been getting nothing but generic Clichéd slashers and not a whole lot of intelligent horror stories. Still, that seems to be a common pitfall with horror, which makes the ones that are actually good stand out all the more.

Angel Heart is one of those few really good ones, a truly unique horror film of a very different sort. If you're fed up with modern Hollywood mucking up the horror genre, I would strongly recommend you seek out this 1987 masterpiece. You want true horror, I guarantee, without giving anything away, that this film will deliver, and I still have yet to see anything like it at all. Alan Parker's Angel Heart is one that I would definitely consider a must-see for any true horror fan.

How Rear Window Should Have Ended

Rear Window is a very interesting film, and there is no doubt it is a classic in the thriller genre. Jimmy Stewart of course is great in the role of the unfortunate protagonist, as are his co-stars. It also takes a fair bit of talent to be able to tell an entire story with the perspective almost never leaving a single room (outside of a few shots at the very end), and there is some suspense to be found in how he catches the villain. There is just one thing that I've always been a bit critical about, and that is specifically the ending. I've heard a few different justifications for why the movie ended the way it did, but I still feel as though it could have been more interesting.


For those of you not familiar with this film, it was directed by Alfred Hitchcock and released in 1954, starring Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly. My colleague Johnny has already done a review of this film which you can see here, but the basic plot is that Jimmy Stewart is a professional photographer who has been confined to a boring apartment after breaking his leg and getting stuck in a wheelchair. The only thing he can do to occupy himself is look out his rear window into the courtyard and watch other people's daily lives, which all goes fine until he sees clues that lead him to suspect that a neighbor may have murdered his own wife.

All this is interesting, but I found the ending somewhat predictable. Basically, the short version is that Jimmy Stewart figures it out, the bad guy shows up and tries to stop him but ends up getting arrested. What I've always thought is that it might have been more interesting if the plot had taken a different turn. Since the actual murder itself occurs offscreen, and for much of the movie Jimmy Stewart struggles to find any solid evidence, I've often thought it might have been a more interesting twist if it turned out the neighbor hadn't actually committed any murder. I feel like it would be a lot more of a memorable ending if perhaps instead every "clue" the narrator found turned out to have a perfectly mundane explanation, and if anything it was the protagonist himself who drove the neighbor to attempt a murder. Another angle I have considered (though it would be hard to get away with in Hollywood during the 1950's) would be if it was kept ambiguous, perhaps with clues both ways and leaving the audience to speculate. In fact there is even a bit of that in the actual film (we never do find out what the mystery item the neighbor buried in his garden was, or what insight it provided into the murder).

Now granted, I have heard reasons for why the movie went this particular route, and most of them are fair enough. Still, I do wonder if the movie would have been more interesting with the neighbor being a well-meaning individual who is driven insane by the misunderstanding of a stranger. Perhaps if someone ever gets hired to do a remake, these alternative twists might be worth considering.

The Meaning of Mulholland Dr. ...Sort Of

David Lynch's films have a reputation for their subjective nature and their puzzling narratives. One of Lynch's most famous movies, Mulholland Dr., is a great example. This was the first film of his I ever saw, and I went in expecting a straight forward film noir. Boy, was I mistaken, yet within a week or so I felt hungry for more, and picked up a copy of Blue Velvet, and from there every other Lynch movie I could obtain (I now own DVD copies of all of his feature films outside of Eraserhead).

Mulholland Dr. can be described as a surreal deconstruction of Hollywood. It does have a bit of a weird history, supposedly originating as a concept for a spin-off to Twin Peaks, a vision which was never realized due to the show's abrupt cancellation. Later on, Lynch tried to rework it into an independent series, and when he couldn't get the pilot picked up Lynch reworked it further into a standalone movie. The story plays out in a manner vaguely reminiscent of a classical film noir, but opts for a much more ambiguous and subjective tone, with a very enigmatic resolution.

Many have tried to explain the mystery behind this strange film's events. The most common explanation I have heard is that most of the story is a dream experienced by one of the main characters and the final act is her waking up to the reality they have tried to escape (similar to how I explained Lost Highway). I have a slightly different theory of my own. It's far from perfect, and may even be a bit radical, but I think it is an interesting idea to explore.

So my theory would suggest the main narrative starts with the events we see in the resolution. Diane Selwyn is in a relationship with fellow actress Camilla Rhodes, but there are implications that the latter may be in a relationship with the director. Later on, Diane has a "surprise" meeting with Camilla in the middle of the woods and they go to a party through an isolated path. The two of them are alone, and Camilla acts very affectionately toward Diane, the two of them holding hands as they walk. Diane is extremely happy, if a little nervous.

However, when they arrive, things don't turn out so great. Diane tries to be polite, but from the moment they confront Adam she seems left out. As they go inside, Diane is quickly separated from Camilla, who seems more interested in spending time around Adam. Diane tries to be polite about it but then she sees Camilla kissing another woman, and as if this wasn't painful enough for her she then hears Adam announce his engagement to Camilla.

As a result, Diane is understandably hurt. The betrayal of her lover has left her upset and not thinking straight, and in a fit of anger she decides to hire a hitman named Joe to kill her. Joe himself even warns Diane of what she is about to do, pointing out that as soon as she hands over the money "it's a done deal". Diane is certain this is what she wants, but it is clear she is not in her right mind. Shortly after, she starts to have second thoughts and is haunted by the inescapable guilt of her actions. The only thing she can do is reinvent herself, effectively killing herself and becoming an entirely new person. Whether she simply creates a new identity or escapes into delusion as I have speculated happens to Fred Madison in Lost Highway,  I can't say for sure, but the person that was once Diane is gone.

This brings us to the opening scene of the film, wherein the attempted hit is carried out. By chance, a group of drunk drivers crash into Camilla's car, killing her would-be assassins. Camilla herself survives, but at the cost of her memory. Outside of an understanding of English and vague recollections of something happening on Mulholland Dr., she has no memory of her past self. Meanwhile Diane, now under the name of Betty, had fled from Los Angeles but has since decided to return, acting under the guise of an upcoming actress.

Camilla, in her disoriented and confused state, finds herself wandering into an apartment complex where Betty just happens to be staying. She sneaks into Betty's apartment and adopts the name of Rita. When the two women meet again, Betty recognizes Camilla, or at the very least, sees something familiar about her. In essence, Betty, perhaps still haunted by her guilt (despite suppressing it under a cheerful attitude), sees an opportunity to make amends. 

The two women become exceptionally close, just as they were before everything went wrong, and they even begin to rekindle their old romance. However, Rita still has the problem of not knowing who she is. Diane, wanting to redeem herself, tries to slowly ease Rita into understanding the truth of Camilla piece by piece (if only on a subconscious level). Finally, after confessing their love, the two women decide to go somewhere, and end up at the mysterious Club Silencio, where a strange man demonstrates how recorded audio can be used to create illusions of things happening.

This finally inspires Rita to confront the truth, having been prepared for it by Betty. Rita opens the mysterious blue box, and finally learns who she really was. She learns about how much she hurt Betty and what the latter had done to her.

In the final moments of the movie, we see footage of both women together against the backdrop of Los Angeles, reunited at last. With both having confronted the past and realizing what they had done to each other, Betty and Rita--or if you rather Diane and Camilla, have forgiven each other and subsequently have another chance at their relationship.

This is far from a perfect interpretation of the movie. In fact it may well be full of problems I haven't considered. For the purposes of this theory I have focused exclusively on Betty and Rita, and it may be harder to tie in other parts of the movie. Still, I think it is an interesting out-of-the-box approach to look at Mulholland Dr. at least on some level as a story of redemption.