movie review 8mm

Joel Schumacher ‘s “8mm” is a dark, dank journey into the underworld of snuff films, undertaken by a private investigator who is appalled and changed by what he finds. It deals with the materials of violent exploitation films, but in a non-pornographic way; it would rather horrify than thrill. The writer is Andrew Kevin Walker , who wrote “Seven,” and once again creates a character who looks at evil and asks (indeed, screams), “why?” The answer comes almost at the end of the film, from its most vicious character: “The things I do–I do them because I like them. Because I want to.” There is no comfort there, and the final shots, of an exchange of smiles, are ironic; Walker accepts that pure evil can exist, and that there are people who are simply bad; one of his killers even taunts the hero, “I wasn’t beaten as a child. I didn’t hate my parents.” The movie stars Nicolas Cage as an enigmatic family man named Tom Welles, who works as a private investigator and comes home to a good marriage with his wife ( Catherine Keener ) and baby. He specializes in top-level clients and total discretion. He’s hired by the lawyer for a rich widow who has found what appears to be a snuff film in the safe of her late husband; she wants reassurance that the girl in the film didn’t really die, and Welles tells her snuff films are “basically an urban legend–makeup, special effects, you know.” The film follows Welles as he identifies the young woman in the film, meets her mother, follows her movements, and eventually descends into the world of vicious pornographers for hire, who create films to order for a twisted clientele. Joel Schumacher has an affinity for dark atmosphere (he made “The Lost Boys,” “Flatliners” and the two of the Batman pictures). Here, with Mychael Danna’s mournful music and Robert Elswit’s squinting camera, he creates a sense of foreboding even in an opening shot of passengers walking through an airport.

The purpose of the film is to take a fairly ordinary character and bring him into such a disturbing confrontation with evil that he is driven to kill someone. Tom Welles, we learn, went to a good school on an academic scholarship, but although his peers “went into law and finance,” the rich widow’s attorney muses, “You chose surveillance.” Yes, says Welles: “I thought it was the future.” Mostly his work consists of tailing adulterers, but this case is different. He meets and talks with the mother of the girl in the film, traces her movements to Hollywood, and then enlists a guide to help him explore the hidden world of the sex business.

This is Max California ( Joaquin Phoenix ), who once aimed high but now works in porno retail; the film suggests that the Los Angeles economy takes hopeful young job-seekers and channels them directly into the sex trades. Through Max, Welles meets Eddie Poole ( James Gandolfini ), the kind of guy who means it when he says he can get you whatever you’re looking for. And through Eddie, they meet Dino Velvet, a vicious porn director played by Peter Stormare–who was the killer who said almost nothing in “Fargo,” and here creates a frightening set of weirdo verbal affectations. The star of some of his films is Machine ( Chris Bauer ), who doesn’t like to remove his mask.

We expect Welles to get into danger with these men, and he does, but “8mm” doesn’t treat the trouble simply as an occasion for action scenes. There is a moment here when Welles has the opportunity to get revenge, but lacks the will (he is not a killer), and he actually telephones a victim and asks to be talked into it. I haven’t seen that before in a movie, and it raises moral questions that the audience has to deal with, one way or another.

I know some audience members will be appalled by this film, as many were by “Seven.” It is a very hard “R” that would doubtless have been NC-17 if it had come from an indie instead of a big studio with clout. But it is a real film. Not a slick exploitation exercise with all the trappings of depravity but none of the consequences. Not a film where moral issues are forgotten in the excitement of an action climax. Yes, the hero is an ordinary man who finds himself able to handle violent situations, but that’s not the movie’s point. The last two words of the screenplay are “save me,” and by the time they’re said, we know what they mean.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

Amy Morton as Mrs. Mathews
James Gandolfini as Eddie Poole
Catherine Keener as Amy Welles
Anthony Heald as Longdale
Joaquin Phoenix as Max California
Nicolas Cage as Tom Welles
Peter Stormare as Dino Velvet
Andrew Kevin Walker

Directed by

Joel Schumacher

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8MM Reviews

I believe 8MM to be (Schumacher's) masterpiece and certainly, it's further evidence that Cage is one of the great dramatic screen presences when used properly and when dialing down his patented eccentricities

Full Review | Nov 26, 2020

Cage himself is rarely convincing in the part of a man in over his head; his dialogue is forced and his anger and rage are almost comical.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/10 | Sep 9, 2020

By the end, the overwrought dialogue provokes unintended laughs, and even Cage -- aided by memorable work from Phoenix, Peter Stormare and James Gandolfini -- can't save it.

Full Review | Mar 21, 2019

Mr. Cage has become such a wet-eyed purveyor of moral anguish that he makes Mr. Pitt look calm, cool and collected.

8MM is technically proficient and strongly acted, but when it comes to staking out any moral or intellectual claims, it clearly isn't up to snuff.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jan 21, 2019

It deals with subject matter that holds your attention, even if it never frays your nerves as much as it could have.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jan 8, 2019

Poorly developed, 8mm is anything but a pretty picture.

Full Review | Sep 17, 2008

I can't say I warmed to the results, but I was solidly held for the film's two hours.

A movie that keeps jumping the gate and finally unravels all over the floor.

Full Review | Jul 22, 2008

Sets a new record for gross stupidity.

Full Review | Original Score: F | Jul 23, 2007

Director Joel Schumacher aims for a psychological depth that the script can't sustain.

Full Review | Nov 24, 2006

There's no faulting Cage's committed, intense performance, but his slide from professional, internalised concern into personal, self-righteous rage still leaves a nasty aftertaste.

Full Review | Jan 26, 2006

Walker at least has a solid premise here. Too bad the script didn't find its way to another David Fincher who could understand it.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 6, 2005

Want to know what happens when an A-list director and A-list movie star attach themselves to a direct-to-cable screenplay? This.

Full Review | Jul 21, 2005

It's pretty sad that a big star/big budget film about a gritty piece of life that should powerfully effect the viewer at the gut level fails so miserably.

Full Review | Original Score: D | Apr 9, 2005

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/5 | Mar 14, 2005

An exploitation movie about an exploitation movie.

Full Review | Aug 7, 2004

Unpleasant.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/10 | Jun 14, 2004

The repartee between Cage and Phoenix is the high point in the film, which otherwise made me want to go take a long hot shower.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | May 20, 2003

It is good work by Schumacher, but hard to watch nonetheless.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 8, 2003

Flickering Myth

Geek Culture | Movies, TV, Comic Books & Video Games

8MM: The Polarizing Mystery Thriller at 25

February 26, 2024 by admin

Hasitha Fernando revisits 8MM on its 25th anniversary…

Filmmaker Joel Schumacher has churned out an impressive slate of movies in the past, that include the likes of St. Elmo’s Fire , The Lost Boys , Falling Down and The Client . However, one of his most underrated efforts celebrates its anniversary today and that film is none other than 8MM . The movie, which takes a deep dive exploration into the seedy world of snuff films, proved to be unpopular with critics but struck a chord with audiences going on to earn a cult status. As 8MM celebrates its anniversary we take a look at what went down 25 years ago, during the making of the divisive crime drama…

Sony had concerns regarding the script they’d bought

Writer Andrew Kevin Walker has churned out scripts which dealt with dark subject matter in the past, but the scribe simply outdid himself when he wrote the script for this film. The movie follows Tom Welles, a private investigator who is tasked with determining the authenticity of an 8MM film, depicting the horrifying murder of an innocent girl. The character’s journey takes him deep into the dark underbelly of the illicit snuff film industry, leaving him scarred for life and questioning his own sanity. Although the studio purchased the script, they were confused with what they had, fearing the content was too dark and the film would be a box-office flop. Because of these reasons studio exec Amy Pascal took a lot of heat at the time for green lighting the polarizing effort.

David Fincher was the first choice to direct the movie

That’s right. The auteur filmmaker himself was the first to be courted to helm the movie, as per the studio’s preference. Having successfully directed Walker’s script for an equally dark affair with Se7en , to great acclaim, Sony thought that Fincher would be the best fit to tackle the controversial themes explored in Andrew Kevin Walker’s script for 8MM . In addition to Fincher the studio also looked at William Friedkin ( The French Connection ) and Paul Verhoeven ( RoboCop ) as potential candidates to direct the movie, but nothing fell into place.

Joel Schumacher was on a sabbatical when he was contacted about the movie

After wrapping production on the much-maligned Batman & Robin film, Joel Schumacher was set to helm Runaway Jury , a John Grisham adaptation for Warner Bros. However, even with the involvement of A-listers like Edward Norton, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Sean Connery the filmmaker declined the offer, opting to instead take a sabbatical to Mexico to recover from the burnout he experienced directing his last Batman outing. When he returned, Schumacher contacted his agency regarding potential job offers that eschewed summer blockbusters and was informed that Sony’s Amy Pascal and John Calley were on the lookout for a filmmaker brave enough to take a crack at a property they described as “dangerous”, and this aroused Schumacher’s interest. Shortly after he agreed to undertake the challenge and the movie was officially green lit.

Russell Crowe expressed interest in the project early on

After his breakout role in the 1992’s Romper Stomper Russell Crowe gained international recognition for his starring role in the 1997 neo-noir crime thriller L.A. Confidential . Crowe showed a keen interest in working with director Joel Schumacher on 8MM when the film was slated to be a “dirty, handheld gritty thriller”. However, when Nicolas Cage’s agent contacted Schumacher and told him that Cage wanted to do the film as well, the filmmaker faced a tough choice; should he do the movie as a low-budget handheld thriller with Crowe, or should he work with Cage along with a probable bigger budget? Schumacher then contacted John Calley at Sony and told him to resolve this dilemma, and Calley agreed that the latter option would be the best way forward.

Andrew Kevin Walker was a huge in-demand writer back in 1999

1999 was a helluva busy year for screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker. The scribe wrote or worked as a script doctor for a total of three movies that year. First to open was 8MM , which was followed by Fight Club where Walker rewrote a whole bunch of material at the request of Brad Pitt and director David Fincher, both of whom he’d worked with during the production of Se7en . The last film he worked on that same year was the Johnny Depp gothic horror flick Sleepy Hollow , which was released in November while Fight Club debuted the month prior. Talk about being involved with some truly unique efforts all in one year.

Creative differences & behind the scenes drama

From the get-go the studio expressed their concerns regarding the dark subject matter of the film. Sony even asked Andrew Kevin Walker to change the script in order to lighten its tone and make it more audience friendly, but that didn’t sit well with the scribe. Once Joel Schumacher entered final negotiations to direct Walker felt rewriting his script would no longer be necessary. But nothing could be further than the truth because Schumacher also supported the studio’s idea to water things down a bit and with the help of writer Nicholas Kazan, he did just that. This infuriated Walker so much that he literally walked away from the film and started to disown the effort even later, despite its popularity two decades later. Of course, Schumacher politely brushed off Walker’s behavior by stating, “he was in a bubble and in-demand with other projects at the time.”

The plot bears similarities to several movies that debuted before

Whilst Andrew Kevin Walker’s script was an original work it seemed that the writer was certainly influenced by several efforts that hailed from the past. The plot of 8MM bore an eerie resemblance to the George C. Scott vehicle Hardcore which debuted in 1979 which saw a private detective attempt to track down his daughter after seeing her in a porno movie. The film’s story also bore some similarities to the 1996 Spanish movie Thesis , which also dealt with the world of snuff films.

The film was originally rated NC-17

Let’s face it 8MM was quite a disturbing movie that dealt with some heavy subject matter, so it came as no surprise that the movie originally received an NC-17 rating from the MPAA. It took director Joel Schumacher and his team multiple rounds of editing and a fair amount of effort to tone it down to an R-rated film that would be acceptable by the MPAA. But this whole MPAA drama does make one wonder, how dark and disturbing Andrew Kevin Walker’s original version of the script was if the movie based on the rewritten script ended up getting an NC-17 rating. Food for thought.

Negative reviews, box-office success & cult status

8MM was made on a moderately large budget of $40 million headlined by one Hollywood’s bankable stars at that time, and in spite of the R-rating and the dark themes explored in the film it ended up with a worldwide box-office haul of over $90 million, which was essentially double the movie’s production budget. This was a total win-win for everyone involved but sadly the flick didn’t receive glowing reviews from film critics.

In fact, a vast majority of the reviews skewed towards the negative but the effort did garner a big fan in the form of Roger Ebert who summarized his thoughts about the movie in this manner, “I know some audience members will be appalled by this film, as many were by Se7en . It is a very hard R that would doubtless have been NC-17 if it had come from an indie instead of a big studio with clout. But it is a real film. Not a slick exploitation exercise with all the trappings of depravity but none of the consequences. Not a film where moral issues are forgotten in the excitement of an action climax. Yes, the hero is an ordinary man who finds himself able to handle violent situations, but that’s not the movie’s point. The last two words of the screenplay are ‘save me’ and by the time they’re said, we know what they mean.”

Over the past two decades 8MM has gone on to achieve a cult-like status that no one expected, especially with a movie of this nature. However, the flick’s unusually mesmerizing quality has lured hardcore fans to revisit and reappraise the property from time to time. Even director Joel Schumacher had said, in later interviews, that he was immensely proud of what he accomplished with the film, and we couldn’t agree with him more.

What are your thoughts on 8MM? Let us know on our socials @FlickeringMyth …

Hasitha Fernando is a part-time medical practitioner and full-time cinephile. Follow him on Twitter via @DoctorCinephile for regular updates on the world of entertainment.

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“8MM” is a movie that keeps jumping the gate and finally unravels all over the floor. A murky melange of borrowings from far superior pix like “Seven,” “Hardcore” and “The Silence of the Lambs,” this overly dark and often gratuitously nasty film about a PI investigating the source of a supposed “snuff movie” raises issues it later junks in favor of mainstream thrills and is toplined by a perf from Nicolas Cage that isn’t up to the job. With direction from Joel Schumacher that swings abruptly from faux modern noir to regulation Hollywood thriller, this looks like a tough sled in the domestic marketplace for Sony, which chose to preem the movie at the Berlin fest — perhaps wisely, as foreign looks to contribute a sizable portion of whatever money it makes.

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Buffs expecting another stygian psychothriller from scripter Andrew Kevin Walker (“Seven”) are going to be massively disappointed. Walker’s latest effort is frequently simplistic in its emotions and far more routine in structure: Though his theme is again Evil with a capital E, “8MM” has none of his previous work’s clammy tension or gut-curdling moments. After initial curiosity, general auds are likely to be turned off by the coldly manipulated content, which certainly pushes the envelope for a major studio production.

Popular on Variety

Cage plays Tom Welles, a surveillance specialist who lives a comfortable existence in Harrisburg, Pa., and is well regarded in his profession but is still waiting for his break into the big time. A family man whose work keeps him away from home too often for the likes of his wife, Amy (Catherine Keener), he’s hired by Mrs. Christian (Myra Carter), widow of the state’s richest businessman, to discover the identity of a teenage girl seemingly murdered by a masked man in an 8mm movie she found in her late husband’s private safe.

Opening reels are promising, with the pic settling into tightly-constructed, procedural mode as the methodical, businesslike Welles, who believes “snuff movies” are a modern myth, treats the big-bucks assignment as a missing-persons case that will pay for his baby daughter’s future education.

Establishing by way of the film’s stock that it was made some six or seven years earlier, Welles finally identifies the girl as Mary Anne Mathews, who has been missing since ’93. The trail leads to her mother, Janet (Amy Morton), and thence to L.A., where Mary Anne went in search of fame and fortune in the movies.

Checking out Hollywood’s adult bookstores, Welles makes the acquaintance of porn shop owner Max California (Joaquin Phoenix), who he hires to guide him through L.A.’s hard-core S&M movie scene. Phoenix’s louche, quipping performance brings a welcome touch of humor to the picture as it enters “hard-core” territory, with brief but surprisingly graphic glimpses of the product Welles views to find clues to Mary Anne’s history.

Welles finally gets a major break that leads him to porno moviemaker Eddie Poole (James Gandolfini), who clearly recognizes the girl’s picture, and then to New York S&M specialist Dino Velvet (Peter Stormare). More and more convinced that Mary Anne actually died in the movie, Welles hires Velvet to make a movie of his prescription, on condition that he can attend the shooting and meet Dino’s star performer, the leather-masked Machine (Chris Bauer).

It’s here, 75 minutes in, that the movie suddenly jumps the rails after its lengthy setup. For no convincing reason, the script perfunctorily dumps Phoenix’s character and leaves Cage, whose performance to this point could most kindly be described as one-dimensional, to carry the movie forward. From this point on, it largely settles into a tenebrous action-thriller, with a villain suddenly unmasked in the woodpile, Cage and his family imperiled, and a final couple of reels in which both Walker’s script and Schumacher’s direction careen all over the commercial highway.

Whereas Paul Schrader’s “Hardcore” was fueled by a parent’s moral indignation at the discovery of his daughter’s descent into iniquity, “8MM” has a central figure whose growing anger at the trade he’s investigating is due more to his indecision over whether he should step away from the job and forfeit a large check. Sidestepping any real examination of Welles’ conflicts, the script simply settles for a remark from Max: “You dance with the devil, the devil doesn’t change. The devil changes you.” Right.

As Welles, Cage simply doesn’t have the range to beef up an underwritten part, which changes from buttoned-down professional to screaming moral avenger in the space of a reel. Phoenix’s Max, the only shaded character in the film, and the only thesp with whom Cage establishes any kind of chemistry, is a severe loss at the two-thirds point from which the picture never recovers.

Gandolfini and Stormare are routine as the pornographers, with the latter over-acting badly, and Keener, whose presence throughout the movie is mostly at the other end of a phone to Cage, is undercut by a role that veers from kissy-kissy wife to irritating grouch. Far better is Morton, in a quietly affecting perf as the missing girl’s mother. Sole touch of real class is provided by vet Carter, as Christian’s restrained, dignified widow.

As would be expected from a Schumacher production, the crew mostly delivers on the technical side, with Robert Elswit’s widescreen lensing always well composed and Gary Wissner’s production design packed with detail. Sole lapse is Mychael Danna’s score, which is as eccentric in tone as the movie it accompanies.

Production: A Sony Pictures Entertainment release of a Columbia Pictures presentation of a Hofflund/Polone production. Produced by Gavin Polone, Judy Hofflund, Joel Schumacher. Executive producer, Joseph M. Caracciolo. Co-producer, Jeff Levine. Directed by Joel Schumacher. Screenplay, Andrew Kevin Walker.
With: Tom Welles - Nicolas Cage Max California - Joaquin Phoenix Eddie Poole - James Gandolfini Dino Velvet - Peter Stormare Longdale - Anthony Heald Machine - Chris Bauer Amy Welles - Catherine Keener Mrs. Christian - Myra Carter Janet Mathews - Amy Morton With: Jenny Powell, Anne Gee Byrd, Jack Betts, Luis Oropeza, Rachel Singer, Don Creech, Norman Reedus. Camera (Deluxe Color, Technicolor prints; Panavision widescreen), Robert Elswit; editor, Mark Stevens; music, Mychael Danna; production designer, Gary Wissner; art director, Gershon F. Ginsburg; costume designer, Mona May; sound (Dolby/SDDS), Thomas Nelson; stunt co-ordinator, Eddie Yansick; assistant director, Alan Edmisten; casting, Mali Finn. Reviewed at Berlin Film Festival (competing), Feb. 18, 1999. MPAA rating: R. Running time: 119 MIN.

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Directed by Joel Schumacher

You can't prepare for where the truth will take you.

A small, seemingly innocuous plastic reel of film leads surveillance specialist Tom Welles down an increasingly dark and frightening path. With the help of the streetwise Max, he relentlessly follows a bizarre trail of evidence to determine the fate of a complete stranger. As his work turns into obsession, he drifts farther and farther away from his wife, family and simple life as a small-town PI.

Nicolas Cage Joaquin Phoenix James Gandolfini Peter Stormare Anthony Heald Chris Bauer Catherine Keener Myra Carter Amy Morton Norman Reedus Jenny Powell Anne Gee Byrd Jack Betts Luis Oropeza Rachel Singer Don Creech Fran Bennett Wilma Bonet Luis Saguar Walter K. Jordan Norm Compton Brian Keith Russell John Robb Devan Brown Doris Brent Robert Amico Kiva Dawson Rachel Wolfe Suzy Nakamura Show All… Torsten Voges Tahitia Dean Texas Terri Vernon Guichard II Emily Patrick Nancy Vee Lisa Vanasco Bridgett Vera Jennifer Harris Burton Richards Jovanna Vitiello David U. Hodges William Lawrence Mack Lorena M. Santos Connie Mercurio William Buck Kerry Corcoran Mario Ernesto Sánchez Claudia Aros Ava Lee Scott Deborah Smith Ford Jacklyn Lick Carla Moon

Director Director

Joel Schumacher

Producers Producers

Joel Schumacher Judy Hofflund Gavin Polone Jeff Levine

Writer Writer

Andrew Kevin Walker

Casting Casting

Mali Finn Terrence Harris Emily Schweber

Editor Editor

Mark Stevens

Cinematography Cinematography

Robert Elswit

Assistant Directors Asst. Directors

Alan Edmisten David Hallinan

Additional Directing Add. Directing

Eli Richbourg

Executive Producer Exec. Producer

Joseph M. Caracciolo

Lighting Lighting

James Plannette Billy Craft Donald Dowd Russell Engels

Camera Operator Camera Operator

Rick Raphael

Additional Photography Add. Photography

Debbie Arrowood

Production Design Production Design

Gary Wissner

Art Direction Art Direction

Gershon Ginsburg Jason Weil

Set Decoration Set Decoration

Gary Fettis Colin De Rouin Mychael Bates Masako Masuda

Special Effects Special Effects

Al Griswold Richard Wood

Stunts Stunts

Eddie Yansick Bill Anagnos Tanner Gill Ralph Ferrara Carrick O'Quinn John Robotham Chad Stahelski

Composer Composer

Mychael Danna

Sound Sound

Kim Maitland Anthony Milch Joe Divitale Carl D. Ware Tom Nelson John Leveque Willie D. Burton Nerses Gezalyan Becky Sullivan Gary A. Hecker

Costume Design Costume Design

Makeup makeup.

Linda Grimes

Hairstyling Hairstyling

Joseph Coscia Peter Tothpal

Global Medien KG Hofflund/Polone Columbia Pictures

Germany USA

Releases by Date

19 feb 1999, 26 feb 1999, 26 jun 1999, 05 mar 1999, 06 mar 1999, 09 mar 1999, 10 mar 1999, 13 mar 1999, 19 mar 1999, 25 mar 1999, 01 apr 1999, 07 apr 1999, 09 apr 1999, 10 apr 1999, 15 apr 1999, 16 apr 1999, 23 apr 1999, 29 apr 1999, 30 apr 1999, 01 may 1999, 05 may 1999, 06 may 1999, 07 may 1999, 13 may 1999, 14 may 1999, 20 may 1999, 21 may 1999, 05 apr 2000, 10 dec 2016, 15 sep 2022, 03 dec 2002, 25 mar 2008, 15 sep 2012, 01 nov 2017, 28 nov 2018, 31 may 2002, 30 jan 2010, releases by country.

Theatrical 18
Theatrical R 18+
Theatrical KNT/ENA
Physical 18A DVD
Theatrical 18+
Theatrical 15
Theatrical K-18
Theatrical 16
Digital VOD
Digital Netflix
Premiere 18 Berlin International Film Festival
Theatrical IIB
Premiere Jakarta
Physical Blu-Ray
Theatrical VM18
Theatrical R18+
Physical C DVD

Netherlands

TV 16 SBS 6
Physical 16 DVD

New Zealand

Philippines.

Theatrical R-18
Theatrical M/18
Premiere 18+
Theatrical R21
TV 15 Markíza

South Korea

Theatrical 19

Switzerland

Theatrical R

United Arab Emirates

Physical DVD

123 mins More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by Patrick Willems ★★★ 6

I'm here for Peter Stormare as a demonic porn producer with a crossbow

Review by nathaxnne [hiatus <3] ★★★★ 9

I will not hesitate to say that I don't really understand '8MM' except in the broadest terms. 'Se7en' was a hit, so let's get another script the person who wrote that also wrote and make a Hollywood Blockbuster out of it! Everyone wins! What they actually made, as far as I can tell, though, is the world's straightest but most awesome parody of Paul Schrader's 'Hardcore' with Nicholas Cage as George C Scott, as made by someone who was coming down off of the sugar rush of making the world's most delirious Batman films ever and who essentially made another Batman film without Batman but with Batman Villains and also with Joaquin Phoenix as a Boy Wonder sidekick who works…

Review by matt lynch ★★½ 4

Hunting for weird underground movies you tend to come across a lot of bizarre porn, stuff you just didn't realize would be someone's fetish at all (like girls stuck in quicksand or crushing snails in stiletto heels, or cosplayers doing CPR). I've occasionally seen some downright disturbing shit, but the worst nightmares this seems to be able to come up with (outside of snuff of course) are like latex and enemas and Peter Stormare. But despite its absurdly prudish grasping for some outré kink hell, this does manage to manufacture some moments of genuine dread and real empathy for its victims, especially in the scenes involving the dead girl's mother. You also get a taste of some early Mega Cage. There might've been a truly, exquisitely ugly version of this material, but Joel Schumacher probably wasn't the guy to handle it. A bad movie I like.

Discussed on Episode 40 of The Suspense is Killing Us .

Review by Nakul ★★★½

"What did you expect, a monster ?"

Joel Schumacher's 8MM got mixed reviews when it was released, but i think it's aged quite well!! Little sentimental & sometimes silly but it's a really solid, sleazy and dark neo-noir thriller, written by Andrew Walker (SE7EN) and shot by the great Robert Elswit. Also the cast is super stacked: Nicolas Cage, Joaquin Phoenix, James Gandolfini, Peter Stormare & Anthony Heald. Some fine early era Cage Rage, too. The last scene of Gandolfini sucking a gun is so goddamn chilling. The man was a treasure.

Review by Vishwas Verma 🟠🟢🔵 ★★★★ 6

Kinda CLASSIC.

A very Nicholas Cage thing. Disturbing, effective, subjective thriller (of course, it's by the writer of Se7en). A dark, graphic view into the underworld of pornography. Joaquin Phoenix's performance was outstanding and James Gandolfini was good too.

I was surprised after checking the low ratings/reviews, It was very dark and gritty and possibly Schumacher's best work.

Review by hugefilmguy ★★★½ 4

I'd let Joaquin Phoenix whip me

Review by Rafael "Parker!!" Jovine ★★★½ 12

So rumor has it that Schumacher was sooo drained in disappointment and drowned in frustration after finishing the turd that is Batman and Robin that he was seeking for anything bleak or entirely opposite to the neon vomit that was the 1997 stuff that served as the final nail in the coffin in the awful superhero movies from the 90s (Blade notwithstanding). And so he was given the script for this film and he went full in.

Now, this movie is not as fascinating as that story but its not as awful as many people seems to painted as in here. Sure, it often feels like a discounted version of Seven written by the screenwriter of that movie and instead…

Review by Blake Bergman "Various Spaghetti" ★★★½ 8

"8MM" is a late 90's neo noir venue from director Joel Schumacher staring Nicholas Cage within the leading role. Cage stars as a private investigator who goes down a long and dark tunnel surrounding the underbelly of the pornography world and its possibly deepest subtyped endeavor that could be possibly established, the disturbing mythos of the "snuff" film. As pornography obviously has its nuanced builds of different drivers of what people are attracted to, the idea of "snuff" extracts the darkest thoughts of human mentality as it centers on themes of death for purposes of arousal. As arousal itself has buildings of animalistic automations within in that can exceed clear rationality in moments of action, one can only guess the…

Review by Tony the Terror ★★★★½ 2

I somehow missed this when it first came out probably because I was too busy partying to watch a movie and I’m kinda glad that happened because I just don’t think I would have appreciated this then like I do now. What a beautiful fucking mess it is!

I love that this was trashed by critics at the time for being too violent and sleazy because it’s really not bad at all by today’s standards and actually not as violent as many movies would be just a few years later when the torture porn train pulled out of the station. The looks on Nic’s face as he watches the honestly pretty tame snuff film are an absolute treasure of Cageness.…

Review by Meli🐢🌻🎧 ★★★★ 7

Throwback to when my mom wanted to watch a movie with me but she didnt want me to pick the movie because I alWayS cHoOse hORriBle trAimatIzing tHings so she picked THIS instead because of course it's such a pretty wholesome movie🥰🥰🥰

She hasn't complained about my picks ever since then lol

Review by pd187 ★★★★ 7

i love this dumb movie to death but watching it with joel schumacher commentary was a mistake cuz his boring npr-interview monotone droning on & on about the bounty of philosophical meanings revealed by his unintentionally campy se7en ripoff was beyond intolerable.. at 1 point he refers to himself in the company of "john ford, john huston, alfred hitchcock, walt disney, and elia kazan" - not as influences, as peers!! some good nic cage anecdotes - apparently he hates gossip, which schumacher calls "shit du jour"

Review by Mario 🟠🟢🔵 ★★★½ 6

Humanity is one fucked up race. One Movie Every Day 2021

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Looking Back on ‘8MM’ – The Horror Masterpiece That Almost Was

As the world becomes increasingly desensitized to extreme media, it’s easy to imagine unsimulated death as the disturbing final frontier of both horror and pornography. While there has never been a confirmed case of murder-on-tape being intentionally distributed for commercial purposes, the idea of snuff films has captured the imagination of writers and filmmakers for decades now. Several scary movies have attempted to explore this terrifying concept, with varying degrees of success, but the most notable of these might just be Joel Schumacher ‘s controversial 8MM , a flawed but memorable thriller that comes frustratingly close to being a horror masterpiece.

Revealing the dark intersection where art, sex and death meet, 8MM was originally conceived by critically acclaimed screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker as a bleak neo-noir/horror hybrid. Walker was already in demand after having written David Fincher’s Seven , so it’s no surprise that the studio paid a whopping $1.75 million for the script to 8MM . While the producers were convinced that they had a certified hit on their hands, they also suspected that the story’s graphic content might alienate their target demographic, and that’s where the trouble began.

The studio inevitably asked Walker to tone down the script’s heavy subject matter, but when Schumacher came onboard the project the writer believed that the two of them could fight the higher-ups like he had previously done with Fincher on Seven . Unfortunately, Schumacher agreed that Walker’s dreary vision was way too dark for general audiences and chose to rewrite some of the movie alongside Nicholas Kazan .

This led to a public falling out between the writer and director, with Walker abandoning the set and disowning the completed film, claiming that they had butchered his screenplay. The original script is actually available online, and while the plot changes aren’t quite as drastic as the writer suggests, there is a pretty big difference in tone. According to Walker, “the problem was that it wasn’t sustaining the misery or suspense as much,” which led to a more conventional end product.

While it’s easy to judge Schumacher for siding with the studio (especially once it became popular to criticize him after Batman & Robin and The Phantom of the Opera ), you have to remember that he had previously given us classics like The Lost Boys and Falling Down , and wasn’t necessarily trying to sabotage Walker’s story. At the end of the day, the director was justifiably concerned about the film not finding an audience due its intended portrayal of gore, sexual assault and even pedophilia.

The worst kind of video nasty.

Naturally, production went on regardless of the behind-the-scenes drama, with Nicolas Cage personally expressing interest in the project, resulting in a much larger budget. Joaquin Phoenix was also brought in to co-star, as well as Peter Stormare and even James Gandolfini . While the completed film only hints at the depravity behind Walker’s original story, the excellent cast and stylish direction make 8MM a delightfully eerie detective story that’ll likely leave you feeling dirty once the credits roll.

If you haven’t seen the movie, Nicolas Cage stars as Tom Welles, a private eye hired by a wealthy widow to discover if the alleged snuff film in her late husband’s collection is the real deal. The ensuing investigation leads Welles all the way to Hollywood, where he reluctantly partners with porn-store clerk Max California (Joaquin Phoenix) in order track down the origins of the mysterious film. Falling down a perverted rabbit hole, the duo eventually uncovers a seedy underworld of extreme pornography, misguided artists and violent sadists.

Even in its toned-down form, 8MM boasts quite a few legitimately chilling moments. From the near-casual presentation of deeply unsettling categories of illegal porno (everything from “cats” to “kids”) to the final reveal about who produced the mysterious snuff film and why, the movie is at its best when exploring the negative impact of extreme media on the human psyche, ultimately suggesting that evil is much closer to home than you might think.

The experience is made even more compelling by Cage’s performance as a decent man slowly descending into madness, with his character becoming obsessed with this horrific case. As the investigation intensifies, Welles goes from extreme disgust at the mere idea of entering a porn shop to thoroughly combing through hours of depraved footage in an attempt to find evidence, with Cage doing his best to convey the character’s subtle transformation into a desensitized husk of a human being.

The rest of the cast is also great, with Phoenix’s charming portrayal of Max California being one of the highlights of the film. His budding friendship with Welles contrasts with the constant degeneracy surrounding them, especially when you meet characters like Stormare’s Dino Velvet, a scene-chewing pornographer with delusions of grandeur. James Gandolfini and Amy Morton are also excellent additions to the ensemble, and there’s even a surprising appearance by a young Norman Reedus .

Not your average standoff.

Personally, I think Chris Bauer really stands out in one of the film’s most haunting moments, as we discover that despite our monstrous expectations, the sadistic actor/murderer “Machine” is just an ordinary man underneath the spooky leather outfit. Surprisingly enough, this scene wasn’t featured in the original screenplay, making it one of Schumacher and Kazan’s greatest contributions to the story.

These believable elements make 8MM stand out as an exploration of the banality of evil instead of a run-of-the-mill thriller. The final reveal that the snuff film wasn’t actually part of some grand conspiracy is especially poignant, with the case turning out to be another example of bored rich people doing evil things just because they could. Not only is this the most realistic answer to Welles’ investigation, but it also has the most disturbing implications, as we’re aware that something like this could very well happen in the real world, if it hasn’t already.

Of course, the film has its fair share of flaws, especially during the weirdly-paced second act that relies on disappointingly conventional car chases and shoot-outs to keep things moving. A lot of this seems out of place considering the horrific setup that came before, and I feel like the movie would have benefited from a consistently darker tone. Visually, the film does a good job of establishing this grimy underworld, but it’s clear that Schumacher was approaching the material from a less-horrific point of view.

Regardless, 8MM was ultimately a box-office success, winning over most audiences even if professional critics weren’t all that impressed. Several reviews actually suggested that the production was just a David Fincher away from being a good movie, claiming that Schumacher didn’t really get the material and that the rewrites destroyed the final product. I don’t necessarily agree, as a lot of the film’s issues were already present in the original script, and Schumacher added a lot of flare to the story, as well as my favorite scene. That being said, I do think that a darker tone and a quicker pace would have led 8MM to being remembered as a horror masterpiece alongside hits like Walker’s own Seven or even The Silence of the Lambs .

Walker has said that he’s still waiting for a remake to faithfully adapt his original take on the story, and while I’d absolutely love to see it produced as either a 90s period piece or an updated digital thriller, I think Schumacher’s 8MM is an underappreciated movie that comes frustratingly close to greatness. It may drag in a few scenes and it doesn’t quite live up to its horrific ideas, but there’s an undeniable sense of dread accompanying Welles’ investigation that makes this a hellish ride still worth taking today.

Born Brazilian, raised Canadian, Luiz is a writer and Film student that spends most of his time watching movies and subsequently complaining about them.

We Spent Friday the 13th Weekend Staying Overnight at the Real Camp Crystal Lake

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You can stroll past the A Nightmare on Elm Street house. You can take a picture of yourself dead at the bottom of the stairs from The Exorcist . And you can even shop inside the actual mall from the original Dawn of the Dead . But what Camp No-Be-Bo-Sco in Hardwick Township, New Jersey offers is something far more immersive. Their in-house tourism branch Crystal Lake Tours allows horror fans to actually camp at the real Camp Crystal Lake.

An active Boy Scouts camp to this very day, Camp No-Be-Bo-Sco was the filming location for Sean Cunningham’s Friday the 13th , the real campground playing the role of the fictional Camp Crystal Lake for the original 1980 horror classic. It’s a fact that the camp shunned up until around 2011, when they finally decided to embrace their role in horror history and give fans the opportunity to actually step inside one of the greatest slasher movies of all time.

For the past 13 years, Crystal Lake Tours has been offering up filming location tours as well as overnight stays at Camp No-Be-Bo-Sco, and these special events (often on Friday the 13ths) are the ONLY way for horror fans to hang out at the real Camp Crystal Lake. Situated deep in the woods at the end of a long, long, long road, it’s a location you better not find yourself at unless you’ve been invited and you’ve got a high-priced ticket tucked away in your backpack.

It’s a costly experience, there’s no denying that – tickets for this past Friday the 13th weekend’s overnight stay were over $800 each, while standard tour tickets range from $99 to $170 – but to call Crystal Lake Tours a tourism company hardly feels fitting. It’s got all the hallmarks of a tourist trap, including a robust merchandise booth that’s loaded with everything from hats and t-shirts to shot glasses, pens made of actual reclaimed wood from the camp’s cabins and even a massive steel fire pit with the words ‘Crystal Lake Tours’ etched into each side, but you will find zero capitalistic cynicism during your stay. Because every dollar you pump into our “Camp Crystal Lake” is funneled directly back into their Camp No-Be-Bo-Sco.

As one of our highly knowledgeable guides pointed out as we ventured down the path to Alice’s Cabin from Friday the 13th , “there’s no movie without this camp and there’s no camp without the movie.” He went on to explain that all the money made from the various Crystal Lake Tours events over the years has ensured that Camp No-Be-Bo-Sco continues to thrive for all the children who pass through its gates every year, with horror fans quite literally helping the camp to renovate, rebuild, and keep Camp No-Be alive. Not only is every dollar funneled back into the camp but No-Be also donates money and supplies to other adjacent campgrounds, allowing both sick children and inner-city kids to have life-changing experiences at summer camp. “It’s all about the kids” is something you’ll often hear the tour guides say.

“This is where….” is the beginning of another sentence that commonly emerges from their lips, but diehard fans of the original horror classic would hardly even need a tour guide to point out iconic locations like Camp Crystal Lake or the bathroom cabin where Marci got an axe to the face. That’s because the Camp No-Be-Bo-Sco of 2024 looks remarkably similar to the Camp Crystal Lake of 1980, with most of the main filming locations still standing and appearing to have been trapped in time by Cunningham and his film crew all those decades ago. The sprawling campground is packed with recognizable filming locations, with the real “Crystal Lake” serving as the stunning central point for the various movie-used cabins. The massive Catfish Mountain, also seen throughout the movie, looms over the proceedings.

So what exactly do you get to see during the average Crystal Lake Tours event? You’ll be able to step inside Alice’s Cabin, Brenda’s Cabin (where Kevin Bacon got an arrow through the throat), and what the team refers to as the Main Cabin, the location used for Friday the 13th ‘s strip Monopoly scene. You’ll also be shown the exact spot where young Jason Voorhees emerged from Crystal Lake and pulled Alice underwater, as well as the archery range location that was used to foreshadow Brenda’s death. Along the way, Camp No-Be’s tour guides will load you up with Friday the 13th fun facts – did you know, for example, that the camp was active with Boy Scouts while the movie was being filmed?! – while also pointing out other locations used by the filmmakers during the production, including the cabin Tom Savini and his assistant Taso Stavrakis stayed in and the building they used for their makeup effects workshop.

Other stops include the generator cabin you’ll see a couple times in the movie, as well as the storage building that was used for the film’s 1950s-set opening scene wherein Mrs. Voorhees makes her very first kills. Like all the other locations I’ve previously mentioned in this article, it’s more or less been trapped in time for the past 100+ years, looking virtually identical to the way it looked when Cunningham, Savini and Bacon were in town back in September 1979. And if you want to take your tour a step further and visit nearby filming locations like the Blairstown Diner , which remains an active diner and has been fully decorated to embrace its horror past, your tour guides will give you a map to help track down those locations as well.

All of the on-site locations can be visited during the standard tours that Crystal Lake Tours offers up, but the “Overnight VIP Tours” are something far more special. In addition to the full Camp Crystal Lake Tour, the overnight stay also includes dinner at night and breakfast the following morning, with a screening of the original Friday the 13th and an overnight stay in either a movie-used cabin or a tent on Crystal Lake taking the experience to a whole nother level. If you’re reading this article, you’ve probably seen the original Friday the 13th countless times. On VHS, DVD, Blu-ray and 4K, on television, and probably once or twice up on the big screen. But watching Friday the 13th on the edge of the actual Crystal Lake is a whole different experience entirely. It’s precisely the kind of experience that horror fans live for, adding a whole new facet to our collective love for a movie we simply cannot get enough of.

Before the movie started this past Saturday the 14th, one of our tour guides took a moment to point out something pretty remarkable. He noted that the frogs that inhabit the real Crystal Lake will actually respond to the frogs heard on screen in the movie, today’s frogs and their 1970s amphibious ancestors essentially “communicating across generations.” I can assure you he wasn’t high and none of us were either – No-Be has a strict zero tolerance policy on drugs and alcohol, so don’t even try it – but it was a bit of mind-blowing insight that stuck in my head throughout the entire 95-minute viewing experience. And I’m glad I wasn’t high because there’s something about hearing something rustling around in the woods behind you, while you’re watching Mrs. Voorhees stalk around the woods on screen, that sends a particular kind of chill up and down your spine. And boy is that a cool feeling.

But back to the frog comment for a second. While some may roll their eyes at the thought of real frogs communing with long-dead movie frogs ribbiting in the background of a 1980s slasher, it was precisely the sort of insight that makes the Crystal Lake Tours experience so uniquely special. The guides are deeply informed about Friday the 13th even if they’re not horror fans themselves, and they take seriously their task of selling just how singular the experience truly is. They know it’s a once-in-a-lifetime event for every horror fan that attends and they’re constantly encouraging you to take a moment to really feel it. You can watch the movie anywhere at any time. But there’s truly only one place on Earth you can watch it with the frogs of Crystal Lake as your fellow moviegoers. I may never watch Friday the 13th on Crystal Lake again. But I’ll be thinking of those frogs every time I watch at home.

The highlight of our one-night stay at Camp Crystal Lake, however, came after the tour ended and after the movie finished playing. The fire died out – and yes, it was housed in one of those aforementioned fire pits emblazoned with the Crystal Lake Tours logo… branding is another strong suit of the Crystal Lake Tours team! – and the rest of the attendees retired to their cabins to catch a few hours of sleep before a new day began. But my girlfriend and I used that opportunity to soak in the peace and quiet of Crystal Lake at midnight. Not a person in sight. Not a cellphone glow to be seen. Just the stars filling the night sky and the nearly full moon reflected off the calm waters of Crystal Lake. Sometimes standing and staring up at the sky and other times sitting on a rock, we spent over an hour out there before tucking ourselves into our sleeping bags in the Main Cabin, soaking in the one-of-a-kind energy of the place where all those happy young actors were faux-slaughtered all those years ago.

“Visiting for the daytime tour is one thing. Staying overnight is a whole other bag,” my girlfriend explained in an Instagram post that sums it up better than any attempt I can make right now. “When we were sitting alone by the water after midnight after everyone else went to bed, just the two of us, listening to the sounds of nature without any cars, planes, or people, it was like we were on another planet. For that one hour where it felt like John and I were the only two people in the universe, that is something I will carry with me forever.”

The peaceful serenity was soon shattered by the snores of horror fans that echoed off the walls of our wood cabin, our fellow campers sounding more like bears than human beings for the precious few hours before our 6:30am wake up call, but the Crystal Lake Tours team even made sure we were prepared for that. Packed inside a provided backpack that served as our survival kit for the weekend was a pair of ear plugs. They’ve truly thought of everything.

After being woken up by the sounds of nature and loading up on coffee and a delicious homemade breakfast of eggs, pancakes, and enough candied bacon to kill us faster than a vengeful mother ever could, we were given the opportunity to say goodbye by canoeing on Crystal Lake before heading back to our normal lives. It was an opportunity I nearly passed up in the rush to start our drive back home, but one of our tour guides talked some sense into me. “No regrets. We want to make sure that there’s nothing you regret when you’re back home next week.” And with that, we canoed across the entirety of Crystal Lake with the morning sun shining bright in the sky. There were no attempts to frighten us with jump scares like the one that memorably ends the movie. It’s not that kind of place. Here you’ll find only tranquility and pleasant memories that will last a lifetime. And yes, you can take some of the actual lake water home. They’ve got little glass bottles ready for you. “We’ve got plenty to go around,” they joke.

While the Friday the 13th franchise has been mired in a legal mess for about as long as Crystal Lake Tours has been running these kinds of events, with various key figures battling over who gets what and how large their share of the pie ends up being, there’s a beautiful purity to what’s going on at the real Camp No-Be-Bo-Sco that stands in stark contrast to everything else we’ve been writing about the franchise for so many years now. Nobody here is looking to make a buck, even if the vast sea of branded merchandise may initially suggest otherwise. When you buy a ticket to a Crystal Lake Tours event, and when you load up on merchandise in their shop, there’s a distinct feeling that you’re doing something good for society. Every dollar spent is going to a great cause, making it all feel more like a donation than a purchase. And you don’t need me to tell you how rare of a feeling that is in 2024.

Camp No-Be-Bo-Sco is all about the kids, but Crystal Lake Tours is all about the fans. And together, we’re preserving heaven on Earth for all of us for generations to come.

If you’re unable to visit Camp No-Be-Bo-Sco but would like to buy some merchandise or make a donation, you can do so over on the Crystal Lake Tours official website at any time.

But if you’re ever able to make the trip to New Jersey, trust me when I say that it’s one of the coolest horror fan experiences in the world. There’s truly no other fan event quite like it.

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Directed by Joel Schumacher

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Description by Wikipedia

8mm is a 1999 American-German crime mystery film directed by Joel Schumacher and written by Andrew Kevin Walker. The film stars Nicolas Cage as a private investigator who delves into the world of snuff films. Joaquin Phoenix, James Gandolfini, Peter Stormare, and Anthony Heald appear in supporting roles.

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Den of Geek

Looking back at Joel Schumacher’s 8MM

We continue our look back at the work of Joel Schumacher, with his Batman & Robin follow-up, 8MM...

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“ He’s a producer-slash-director-slash weirdo. He’s like the Jim Jarmusch of S&M.” – M ax

After the horror that was Batman & Robin , you couldn’t blame Joel Schumacher from stepping away from that genre of filmmaking completely and going down a road of drama/thriller. After all, he had success with it in the past. Nothing could go too wrong, right?

Following the death of her husband, wealthy widow Mrs. Christian (Myra Carter) comes across an 8mm film in his safe, depicting the murder of a teenage girl by a man in amask. Unsure as to the origin of the tape or if it is, in fact, real, she instructs her lawyer, Daniel Longdale (Anthony Heald), to hire the services of private investigator, Tom Welles (Nicolas Cage), to find out the truth.

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After searching through missing persons files, he matches the girl on the tape to that of teenager Mary-Anne Mathews (Jenny Powell). With a connection made, he makes a visit to her mother Janet’s (Amy Morton) house and discovers Mary Ann’s diary, which explains that she ran away to Hollywood to make it in the movies.

Before he leaves the house, Tom asks Janet if she wants to believe the fairytale that her daughter is in Hollywood following her dream or wants to know what really happened to her. She tells him she wants to know the truth, so he begins his journey to find it.

Knowing he will have to pretend to be interested in the genre of film that was kept in Mr. Christian’s safe, Tom flies to Hollywood and makes contact with a employee of an adult video store, Max California (Joaquin Phoenix), who puts him in touch with a talent scout called Eddie Poole (James Gandolfini), who introduces him to director Dino Velvet (Peter Stormare), who specialises in the type of snuff movie found in the safe, with his star being the masked man.

Hoping to prove what really happened, Tom poses as a client wanting to have a hardcore bondage movie made and he arranges to meet with Velvet in New York. When he arrives, the masked man, known as Machine, overpowers him and Mrs. Christian’s lawyer appears, explaining that he was the one who arranged for the movie to be made and has warned Velvet in advance that he would be contacting him.

Realising the film in the safe was, in fact, real, Velvet produces a beaten Max and demands that Tom bring the movie to them. When he does, the three burn the film and kill Max anyway.

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Before the three can turn on him, Tom lets Velvet and Machine know that Mr. Christian paid a million dollars for the movie to be made, much less than they received. Now knowing that Longdale kept the biggest part of the pie from himself, the three begin to fight with Longdale and Velvet, eventually being killed and Tom escaping.

After his brush with death, Tom contacts Mrs. Christian and tells her the truth behind the movie and urges her to go to the police. When he arrives to take her to the station, her butler informs him that the news of what kind of man her husband really was had driven her to kill herself, leaving only two envelopes, one with the remainder of Tom’s fee and one for Mary Ann’s family.

Still angry and upset, Tom decides to get vengeance on the remaining people involved with the movie, tracking down Poole and killing him, and the tracking down Machine. Before he kills him he takes off his mask, revealing a very unremarkable man underneath.

A few months later, Tom receives a letter from Janet thanking him for his help and, although at first she hated him for telling her the truth, they were the only two who really cared about what happened to her daughter.

I’m going to say straight off the bat, 8MM is probably one of my least favourite Schumacher pictures. Although the story itself is a solid enough thriller, it just leaves a nasty taste in the mouth after. Now, this is partly due to the subject matter in hand, but also because I just don’t feel it was handled in the right way.

Firstly, there is the story. Written by Andrew Kevin Walker, who is probably best known for his script for Seven , 8MM was a much darker, thought provoking film when the rights to it were first bought.

Being as it was, the studio wanted Walker to tone it down, but he refused and when Schumacher was brought on he was thrilled, as he thought he was finally working with somebody on his wavelength. Sadly, this was not the case and Schumacher made his own changes to the script which lead to the much publicised feud between the two and ended up with Walker walking off the set and disowning the film.

Had Walker’s original script been kept, I believe the movie would have been much more interesting and tense and, as with his previous work, would have left you with a sense of unease rather than a sense of dirtiness.

Secondly, is the casting. I’m going to jump straight in here and say that I think in the leading role of Tom Welles, Nicolas Cage was miscast. This is nothing against him personally. When he wants to be, Cage is a brilliant actor. Although his recent choices have been far from ideal, he could still turn it around and get back to his Leaving Las Vegas Days . However, saying that, in this movie he does just seem to be going through the motions and in some cases overacting to the point where you end up rolling your eyes thinking is he for real?

What I think this lead role needed was somebody not unknown, but not the star Cage is. But then again, I also realise that a movie is sold on its leading star, not on its integrity.

The supporting case does, in fact, prop Cage up on many occasions and I cannot fault the casting there. I do think, though, some were underused and, just as you get to understand where they fit in the story, they come to a rather sticky end, which again I can see why they did that ,but at the same time I don’t see why everybody had to die.

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The eventual point of this movie was for justice to be done for the girl who died, yet not one person was tried and convicted and, although key players were taken out of the picture, the actual industry was still going, Personally, I wanted a bit more justice than just an eye for an eye.

The one thing I cannot fault about this movie is the way it looks on screen. Schumacher really does have an eye for making things look gritty and dirty and this was perfected in many ways when he directed Falling Down .

In 8mm he takes it a step further and you feel the saturation of the movie cover you and, although in this case it isn’t very pleasant, it does exactly what it needs to do.

It seems, however, I am not the only person in the world not to be impressed by the movie. When it was released the critics really gave it a pounding, as did the audience, with the movie not making its budget back upon US release, but finding a bit of a larger audience worldwide, which made it a modest success. It was followed up by a direct-to-DVD sequel with which none of the original team or cast were involved.

Although down but not out, Schumacher’s next project was a step away from his work here and focused more on the relationship between two very different men.

Next time, I will be looking Flawless.

8MM Key Info:

Released: 26th February 1999 (US) / 23RD April 1999 (UK) Distributed By: Columbia Pictures Budget: $40,000,000 Box Office Gross: $96,398,826 Best DVD Edition: 8MM DVD

Revisiting Joel Schumacher’s The Incredible Shrinking Woman
Looking back at Joel Schumacher’s DC Cab
Looking back at Joel Schumacher’s St. Elmo’s Fire
Revisiting Joel Schumacher’s The Lost Boys
Revisiting Joel Schumacher’s Cousins
Looking back at Joel Schumacher‘s Flatliners
Looking back at Joel Schumacher’s Dying Young
Looking back at Joel Schumacher’s Falling Down
Revisiting Joel Schumacher’s The Client
Revisiting Joel Schumacher’s Batman Forever
Looking back at Joel Schumacher’s A Time to Kill
Revisiting Joel Schumacher’s Batman & Robin

Carley Tauchert

February 26, 1999 FILM REVIEW 'Eight Millimeter': A Straight-Arrow on Mean and Twisted Streets Related Articles The New York Times on the Web: Current Film Video Selected Scenes and Trailer From the Film By JANET MASLIN EW YORK -- Joel Schumacher's "Eight Millimeter" delves into the perverse underworld of the pornography business, shocking audiences with the realization that sex and violence can be so dull. Though the film moves, according to production notes, "from the lurid sidewalks of LA's Hollywood Boulevard to the squalor of New York's meat-packing district," it's also a story that ends with leaf raking on a suburban lawn. Christine Loss/Columbia Pictures Nicolas Cage, right, as a private detective looking for a runaway teen-age girl, and Joaquin Phoenix as a pornography clerk, in "Eight Millimeter." Nicolas Cage, seriously miscast in the role of a straight-arrow family man, plays Tom Welles, a private detective from Harrisburg, Pa. Tom's life is changed forever, as they say, by an assignment involving a rich and recently deceased tycoon. The man's genteel widow has found a film reel in his private safe, and it looks as if the film depicts the authentic slaughter of a teen-age girl. While watching this film, the star winces and cringes like someone who has never even seen Nicolas Cage strut through "Face/Off" or "Leaving Las Vegas" or "Wild at Heart" with worldly swagger. After having been reminded sufficiently that Tom loves his wife (Catherine Keener, in a surprisingly drab, one-note role) and baby daughter, "Eight Millimeter" sends him hunting for the victim and her killer. The screenplay, which is by Andrew Kevin Walker but lacks the heartfelt kinkiness of his "Seven" script, plants clues as regularly as a crumb trail through a forest. Tom uses missing persons records to identify the girl as Mary Anne Matthews. Then he visits her mother and happens to discover Mary Anne's diary inside a plastic bag and hidden in a toilet tank. Mary Anne helpfully explains that she is headed to Hollywood with a boyfriend, hoping for a career in show business. Her note prophetically ends: "Don't worry about me. Love, Mary Anne." Later on, at a church-run shelter, a nun helpfully hands over Mary Anne's suitcase and a set of new clues. ADVERTISEMENT This finally takes the film where it wants to be: in the midst of sleaze and shady characters, including Joaquin Phoenix as a scene-stealing porn shop clerk who becomes Tom's sidekick and helper. Advised to wear a leather jacket and start asking for the hard stuff, Tom throws himself into this research and encounters an assortment of sinister miscreants. The screenplay has fun giving them names like Machine, Max California and Dino Velvet. Schumacher enlists James Gandolfini, Peter Stormare and an assortment of piquantly nasty props to give this part of the film some dramatic color. Visually, it delivers careful lighting effects in darkly Stygian settings, with the occasional chic trace of aqua or lime. What is unrelievedly drab about "Eight Millimeter" is Tom himself. The film seems to intend Tom to discover a darker side of his own nature while investigating this case, but it barely makes his reactions apparent. It's never clear what this buttoned-down character is experiencing in the midst of the film's wild, wicked stimuli, especially after "Eight Millimeter" takes a third-act turn for a standard thriller plot. Cage does manage to vanquish hefty villains while handcuffed to a bed, but what is he thinking? For a more wrenching account of a man reluctantly dragged into the porn world, George C. Scott did it far better in Paul Schrader's "Hard Core," a film with the searing ad line: "Oh my God, that's my daughter." Whether in outrageously flamboyant Bat-mode or directing John Grisham stories ("The Client," "A Time to Kill") with cool proficiency, Schumacher almost invariably breathes more life into his material than he has here. It's a lot easier to tick off the forced, farfetched touches in "Eight Millimeter" than to count the ones that ring true. "Eight Millimeter" is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). Though it includes profanity, partial nudity and ugly violence, its depictions of pornography are relatively discreet. PRODUCTION NOTES: 'Eight Millimeter' Directed by Joel Schumacher; written by Andrew Kevin Walker; director of photography, Robert Elswit; edited by Mark Stevens; production designer, Gary Wissner; produced by Gavin Polone, Judy Hofflund and Schumacher; released by Columbia Pictures. Running time: 120 minutes. This film is rated R. WITH: Nicolas Cage (Tom Welles), Joaquin Phoenix (Max California), Catherine Keener (Amy Welles), James Gandolfini (Eddie Poole), Peter Stormare (Dino Velvet), Chris Bauer (Machine), Anthony Heald (Longdale), Amy Morton (Mrs. Mathews), Myra Carter (Mrs. Christian) and Jenny Powell (Mary Anne Mathews).

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Movie Details

Stream & watch 8mm.

Cast & Crew

8mm collection.

8mm is a 1999 mystery thriller film directed by Joel Schumacher and written by Andrew Kevin Walker. The film stars Nicolas Cage as a private investigator who delves into the world of snuff films. Joaquin Phoenix, James Gandolfini, Peter Stormare, and Anthony Heald appear in supporting roles. 8mm 2 is a 2005 direct-to-video thriller film directed by J. S. Cardone and starring Johnathon Schaech and Lori Heuring. When the film was in production, it was titled The Velvet Side of Hell. When Sony picked up the rights to distribute it, it was re-titled 8mm 2. Although this title suggests the film to be a sequel to the 1999 Nicolas Cage film 8mm, the film has no connective elements relating it to the first 8mm film.

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Despite a script by Seven writer Andrew Kevin Walker , this shines only the faintest of lights on the darker side of the human psyche. Summoned by wealthy widow Mrs Christian and her lawyer (Heald), ambitious PI Tom Welles (Cage) is asked to establish whether the 8mm 'snuff movie' found in the dead husband's safe is real or fake. This starts like a hetero reprise of Cruising , with Welles neglecting wife and child to immerse himself in LA's porno underworld, guided by Max (Phoenix), an assistant in an adult bookshop. Once he homes in on the film-makers, however, the emphasis shifts from challenging ambivalence to the crudest knee-jerk vigilantism. And by the time we get to the climactic confrontation with masked sadist 'Machine', it's clear that, whereas Walker's collaboration with David Fincher on Seven was a successful meeting of minds, 8MM was born out of a serious clash of sensibilities. There's no faulting Cage's committed, intense performance, but his slide from professional, internalised concern into personal, self-righteous rage still leaves a nasty aftertaste.

Aspect Ratio 2.35 Wide Screen Sound Source Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Special Features Directors Commentary / Deleted Scenes / Filmography / Trailer Main Language English

Release Details

Duration: 123 mins

Cast and crew

Director: Joel Schumacher
Screenwriter: Andrew Kevin Walker
Nicolas Cage
Joaquin Phoenix
James Gandolfini
Peter Stormare
Anthony Heald
Chris Bauer
Catherine Keener
Myra Carter

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Reviews Summary

Please Note: Reader Reviews are submitted by the readers of The BigScreen Cinema Guide and represent their own personal opinions regarding this movie, and do not represent the views of The BigScreen Cinema Guide, or any of its associated entities.

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‘8MM’ Descends Into True Hell on Earth

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Those foolhardy enough to place themselves at the mercy of “8MM” can expect the following emotions: disgust and revulsion, then anger, followed by a profound and disheartening sadness. There are some films whose existence makes the world a worse place to live, and this is one of them.

Disgust and revulsion because what director Joel Schumacher and company have created is a torture chamber of a film that mercilessly drags us through expensively re-created worlds of vivid sadomasochism, extreme bondage and worse as private eye Tom Welles (Nicolas Cage) tries to determine if a snuff film in his possession really shows a young woman being brutalized and killed. The truth is, after watching repeated glimpses of that stomach-turning horror show shot on 8-millimeter stock, as well as several other equally revolting items Welles turns up, it’s hard to care. What’s more to the point is why this film, which features women being graphically abused and tormented, that demeans the humanity in everyone in hopes of titillating an audience and earning a healthy return on investment, was ever made. During a sequence in Manhattan’s meat-packing district, where sides of beef are trundled through the streets, the thought is inescapable that while government standards exist even for carcasses, there are apparently no limits to the degrading things women--and men, for that matter--can be put through on screen.

That’s where the anger comes in, anger against Sony, which inexplicably put tens of millions of dollars into an unapologetically sleazy ordeal that delights in twisting the knife, a tawdry piece of work whose only raison d’e^tre is making the skin crawl in the name of box-office profit. If interviews are to be believed, Schumacher, Cage et al. consider this wretched business to be some kind of demented public service, a cautionary tale / wake-up call for a presumably somnolent America. A theory, no surprise, that the film in question in no way supports.

Just as much anger is directed toward a bankrupt MPAA rating system that gave “8MM” an R, a system that’s gotten used to making deals and changing ratings for a cut here and a cut there. The ratings board has become so compliant with the major studios that it can’t see the forest for the trees; it no longer has the stomach to insist that a film that graphically investigates the dehumanizing ultra-violent world of snuff films ought to have an NC-17 placed on it no matter what nips and tucks the studio coyly agrees to make.

The sadness comes from the realization that we are now imprisoned in a thoughtlessly amoral movie culture that considers films like this to be just swell, a culture that lionizes “8MM” screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker, who made his career with the equally off-putting “Seven.” Shamelessly pushing the envelope for what’s acceptable on screen, celebrating every opportunity to creep audiences out more than they’ve ever been creeped out before, today’s cutting-edge movies are well on their way to cutting their own throats.

Because it knows where it’s headed, “8MM” makes a point of establishing Welles as a four-square family man who lives in rural Harrisburg, Penn., with his wife, Amy (Catherine Keener, wasted in a whiny part), and a baby daughter he adores. At least the film attempts to do this, but creating convincing normalcy is not something these folks are particularly good at.

As he dutifully follows the usual private eye routine of documenting adultery, Welles acts like a respectful zombie, polite and well-spoken. That attitude doesn’t change when he gets called to an enormous estate where the recently widowed Mrs. Christian (Myra Carter), a wealthy woman with the demeanor of Eleanor Roosevelt, and her attorney Longdale (Anthony Heald), are in need of his assistance.

It seems that a tin of 8mm footage was found in the late Mr. Christian’s private safe, a tin containing what appears to be an actual murder on film. Welles pooh-poohs this in theory, talking as knowledgeably as any critic about fake blood and special effects, but one glance at the footage, which begins with a petrified girl and a menacing man in a leather hood fondly examining a wide selection of terrifying knives, starts to change his mind.

Mrs. Christian wants to know if this film is real or not, and Welles, intrigued, takes the case, telling her he will treat it like any other missing person’s investigation. And, in two shakes of a dominatrix’s whip, he’s discovered that the girl in question is a teenage runaway who’s left behind a grieving mother (Amy Morton) in a naive quest for movie stardom.

Next stop is that well-known sinkhole and moral graveyard, Hollywood, where Welles connects with Max California (Joaquin Phoenix), an adult-bookstore clerk who reveals himself to be a cut above the rest because he’s reading Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood” instead of your run-of-the-mill dirty book.

With Max as his guide, Welles descends into all the circles of porno hell, visiting outre bondage clubs, watching S&M; films, hearing discussions of child pornography, observing rooms full of masturbating men. “There’s things you’re going to see that you can’t unsee, that you can’t get out of your head,” Max tells him. “If you dance with the devil, the devil doesn’t change, the devil changes you.”

This kind of bleak voyeurism not only alienates an audience, it also distances Welles from his grumpy wife back home in Pennsylvania. Eventually the trail leads to pornmeisters Eddie Poole (James Gandolfini) and Dino Velvet (Peter Stormare), inanely described by Max as “the Jim Jarmusch of porn.” There’s also a human killing machine charmingly known as Machine (Chris Bauer), whose arrival signals the addition of excessive beatings and physical violence to the film’s attractions.

Given that Schumacher and his cohorts have reasons of their own for wanting to make this film, they may be the only people who end up liking it. Even the most powerful microscope couldn’t discover what’s in this demeaning ordeal for anyone else.

* MPAA rating: R, for strong perverse sexuality and violence, and for strong language. Times guidelines: an almost constant parade of women (and some men) being tortured, beaten, humiliated and abused.

Nicolas Cage: Tom Welles

Joaquin Phoenix: Max California

James Gandolfini: Eddie Poole

Peter Stormare: Dino Velvet

Anthony Heald: Longdale

Chris Bauer: Machine

Catherine Keener: Amy Welles

A Hofflund/Polone production, a Columbia Picture, released by Sony Pictures Entertainment. Director Joel Schumacher. Producers Gavin Polone, Judy Hofflund, Joel Schumacher. Executive producer Joseph M. Caracciolo. Screenplay by Andrew Kevin Walker. Cinematographer Roger Elswit. Editor Mark Stevens. Costumes Mona May. Music Mychael Danna. Production design Gary Wissner. Art director Gershon F. Ginsburg. Set decorator Gary Fettis. Running time: 2 hours, 3 minutes.

In general release throughout Southern California.

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Film review: 8mm 2 (2005).

Sean Leonard 07/20/2016 Extreme Cinema

An American diplomat and his fiancée venture into the sordid underworld of sex and p*rnography in Budapest, Hungary to find out who is blackmailing them with a p*rno video taken of them with a prostitute.

Way back in 1999, a movie called 8mm came out – directed by Joel Schumacher ( The Lost Boys ), written by Andrew Kevin Walker ( Se7en ), and starring Nicholas Cage and Joaquin Phoenix, this movie sounded like it could be good. A detective is hired to go into the dark underworld to figure out if a so-called “snuff” film is legit. That premise has so much promise, thought all of us horror fans, but we were also skeptical of this mainstream film – and for good reason.

For the most part, 8mm was a clunker; it had moments that could have been good, but always opted to tread lightly rather than go darker. Its decent into the seedy underbelly of crime and perversion was about as disturbing as the Method Man scene in Garden State –aka not very disturbing. There is a world of dark and unsettling material that could have been touched on, but Schumacher and company copped out hardcore. So it is a strange but accurate compliment when I say that one of the best things about 8mm 2 is that it has absolutely nothing to do with the first movie.

Written by Robert Sullivan and Dylan Tarason and directed by J.S. Cardone (most recently known as the writer of The Stepfather and Prom Night remakes), 8mm 2 is a movie about sex and blackmail and betrayal. We meet David (Johnathon Schaech) and Tish (Lori Heuring), a couple engaged to soon be married. David works in law and has dreams of a career in politics, and it just so happens that Tish and her family are not only involved in politics (her father is Ambassador Harrington, played by The Lords of Salem’s Bruce Davidson), but they are also very well off financially.

When David and Tish go out of town for a romantic weekend, they meet Risa (model Zita Gorog, Amelia from the Underworld series)…well, not so much meet her as watch her swimming nude in the hotel pool. Although they do run into her again, at a dance club, where she gives Tish and David what I assume is ecstasy, and then they meet again in the couple’s bed, all three of them. Tish calls it the best bachelor party ever, and David seems to agree, up until he receives a package at his office with photos of their steamy, sexy night.

There is a definite set up involved here, as well as blackmail when the young couple starts getting messages demanding they pay high amounts in exchange for the original photos, photos that very well could destroy David’s career. And this is where 8mm 2 does so much better than the original – there is a building tension and feeling of suspense, not to mention the path that our protagonists take leads directly into the underground circle of adult material and prostitution. Cardone isn’t afraid to go where Schumacher only hinted at; while trying to track Risa in order to find out who set them up, David and Tish find themselves at amateur adult movie shoots, strip clubs, sex clubs, peep shows, and everything in between, and Cardone shows a lot of each, if you catch my drift.

Interspersed with all the nudity and sex is the mystery, the whodunit of the story. Is it Ambassador Harrington, who seems to think David isn’t good enough for his daughter? Is it David’s soon to be brother-in-law, Richard, who seems to have a chip on his shoulder? Or is it someone else very close to the situation? The guessing game stays strong all the way to the unexpected ending.

8mm 2 caught me by surprise, to say the least. I went in to it assuming that it would be the typical unrelated sequel to a big budget film looking for a cash grab with its unoriginal storyline and bad acting. Instead, the story held me throughout. The acting is fine, not spectacular but not bad enough to take the audience out of the film by any means.

There are no doubt viewers who call bullsh*t when it comes to the conclusion, refusing to suspend their disbelief and pointing out how impossible it would have been to accomplish (much like David Fincher’s The Game ), and they may very well be right. But as far as entertainment goes, 8mm 2 is unrelenting, all the way to the very end, and the fact that it isn’t afraid to cross some lines makes this one an easy film to recommend to anyone who appreciates a good thriller.

Tags 2005 8 MM 8MM 2 Bruce Davison J.S. Cardone Johnathon Schaech Julie Benz Lori Heuring Robert Cavanah Valentine Pelka Zita Görög

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'The Substance' will make your skin crawl. Why it's one of the best movies of the year

“The Substance” is smart, gross, funny, brave, maddening, insightful, hard to watch, impossible to turn away from —what else do you want in a movie?

Coralie Fargeat’s film — she wrote and directed — spares nothing in its skewering of our obsession with beauty, the shallowness of popular culture, the addictive nature of fame, the chew-them-up-and-spit-them-out mentality toward women in entertainment, the sacrifice to try to stay young and beautiful and relevant.

It’s a horror movie disguised as social commentary, or maybe the other way around. It’s good at both. Whatever it is, it is all out, all the time. Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley are brilliant. Dennis Quaid is actually back to being Dennis Quaid, not a cardboard cutout of his former exciting self.

There are lots of references to 'The Shining' in 'The Substance'

I don’t want to sugarcoat things, although I guess I haven’t. There is a copious amount of nudity, a lot of gross-out gore, a fair amount of violence and the last act is straight out of shock-horror campy movies like “The Toxic Avenger” or others from the Troma catalog. (There are a lot of references to other horror films, Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining" in particular.) The audience groaned and yelled, “No!” more than once, and I probably did too. OK, I definitely did.

Again, I ask, what more do you want in a movie?

What is 'The Substance' about?

Moore plays Elisabeth Sparkle, a famous actress (the opening shows workers building her star on the Walk of Fame, a device that in itself will become a commentary on the disposable nature of fame). Now, she hosts a fitness show — a slightly updated version of the Jane Fonda workouts from the 1980s.

But once Elisabeth turns 50, her manager Harvey (Quaid), a greasy little excuse for a human being, cuts her loose, with a lunch he doesn’t even stick around for — and while he is there, his scarfing on shrimp is shown in such extreme close-up it’s more stomach-turning than the gore we see later. He sends a bouquet with a card that says, “You were amazing,” emphasis on “were.”

Elisabeth decides to try something called The Substance, which will make you a better you, or some such generic bromide. The gist is that you literally become a better you in a different body. But every seven days, without fail, you must switch back to the old you. Seven days later, you switch again. The instructions are loaded with caveats, including “REMEMBER YOU ARE ONE.”

She gives it a try — it is surprisingly intricate, with lots of equipment. Immediately after injecting a fluid, she crashes to the floor. And a newer, younger version of herself emerges from her spine.

Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley go all out

Which we see. We see everything. As Moore’s version lies on the bathroom floor, the supposed new-and-improved version (Qualley) stitches up her back, puts on some clothes, and heads to an audition for “the new Elisabeth Sparkle.” Having to come up with a name quickly, she goes with Sue. Harvey loves her and gives her the new version of Elisabeth’s old show. She immediately becomes a huge star.

But after seven days, she has to go back to her dormant state while Elisabeth becomes active. And bored. As the weeks go on, she must watch Sue’s star rise. Not surprisingly, Sue is increasingly reluctant to let go of her newfound fame. But going over the deadline even a little results in accelerated aging of body parts. First, it’s a finger. Later, it will be much, much more. Elisabeth calls the mystery number and casually asks how you reverse the process. You don’t, she’s told. Elisabeth grows increasingly resentful of Sue, while Sue is more and more willing to endanger Elisabeth by hanging onto herself longer and longer.

REMEMBER YOU ARE ONE. At first, Sue forgets this and later doesn’t care.

Harvey offers Sue the network’s New Year’s Eve show, a huge opportunity. Of course, you can’t take a week off to rehearse such an important gig.

And then the wheels, only ever partially on, come off completely.

'The Substance' is the movie we'll all be talking about

Fargeat goes wild but never lets the story veer out of control. At some point, she shifts the responsibility to the audience watching, craving, demanding the next and best and thinnest and most beautiful, and she makes the audience — in the film and watching the film — pay.

Qualley is sneaky smart as the scheming Sue. But Moore is amazing, absolutely fearless in her portrayal of a woman forced into the position of risking everything to just hang on. This is doubtless something she knows a little bit about, and her portrayal strips away any glamor and leans into the desperation fully.

It’s only Fargeat’s second feature after 2017’s “Revenge.” That was a good movie. “The Substance” is a substantial leap forward and a film people will rightfully be talking about for a while.

'The Substance' 4.5 stars

Great ★★★★★ Good ★★★★

Fair ★★★ Bad ★★ Bomb ★

Director: Coralie Fargeat.

Cast: Demi Moore, Margarey Qualley, Dennis Quaid.

Rating: R for strong bloody violent content, gore, graphic nudity and language.

How to watch: In theaters Friday, Sept. 20.

Reach Goodykoontz at [email protected] . Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm . X: @goodyk . Subscribe to the weekly movies newsletter .

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‘The Substance’ Lets Demi Moore Rip Hollywood a New One

By David Fear

Once upon a time in Hollywood, Elisabeth Sparkle ( Demi Moore ) was a star whose Walk of Fame plaque was a prime tourist attraction and nonstop selfie backdrop. Now, Sparkle hosts a fitness morning show that carbon-dates back to the 1990s. Her odious, sexist boss, Harvey (Dennis Quaid) — we’re sure the name has no real-world significance or symbolic import at all, nope, no siree Bob — has handed Elisabeth her walking papers so he can recast the a.m. slot with some younger, hotter model. A gorgeous woman in the City of Angels has the world groveling at her pedicured feet in her twenties. In her fifties, she’s invisible.

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Once the movie turns into a standoff between the Sparkles, and Fargeat gives her actors a syrup-soaked stage on which to rage — if Moore’s extraordinary, best-of-career performance doesn’t kick off a full Demi-aissance, there is no God — this riff on The Picture of Dorian Gray goes ballistic in the best possible way. You want a climactic bloodbath that puts The Shining ‘s plasma-gushing elevator to shame? You got it! Not even certain story-logic lapses (so if the older Sparkle can’t directly share the younger’s indulgences, what exactly is she getting out of this?) suck away the thrill of seeing these women tear impossible beauty standards a new one. The Substance won’t reset society’s fixation on youth or cure Hollywood’s sexist ills. It will, however, remind you that when you’re chasing your past by any means necessary, you are always your own worst enemy.

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‘wolfs’ review: dreadful, laugh-free slog tests limits of what pitt, clooney’s star power can salvage.

Running time: <br>108 minutes. Rated R (language throughout and some violent content). <br>On AppleTV+ Sept. 27

George Clooney and Brad Pitt made a public stink when Apple shifted the release of their movie “Wolfs,” for which they were paid tens of millions to make, from theatrical to streaming.

“It is a bummer,” Clooney moaned at the Venice Film Festival when asked about his paycheck, er, sorry, his movie.

Really, the pair should send Apple CEO Tim Cook an Edible Arrangement for saving them the embarrassment of what would have been a giant flop.

“Wolfs,” a so-called comedy written and directed by Jon Watts in which Clooney and Pitt play rival New York fixers tasked with discreetly disposing of a dead body, is a dreadful, laugh-free slog that tests the limits of what star power alone can salvage.

The A-list presence of Brad and George cannot mask the elementary school dialogue they utter, the jumbled tone and Dollar Store aesthetic. In fact, their attachment to this compost only exacerbates its many, many problems.

The boldface names suggest a certain level of quality — or, at the very least, competence — that this movie does not meet. Maybe I’d be more forgiving if this buddy-cop retread starred Stephen and Billy Baldwin. Alas.

As it stands, woeful “Wolfs” won’t make you howl so much as huff and puff.

Brad Pitt and George Clooney holding guns

Watts’ 108-minute yawn begins with a woman’s scream. That’s Margaret (Amy Ryan), and she has just encountered a naked, dead body in a luxury hotel suite.

Covered in the young man’s blood, Marge lowers the blinds and shakily picks up her iPhone. Apple, trying to make lemonade from its lemon, can at least hawk some mobile devices.

“I was told if I ever need serious help to call this number,” she says. “There is only one man in the city who can do what you do.”

In walks black-clad Clooney, whose character has no name or, you know, traits. He dons rubber gloves and prepares to make the damaging situation disappear.

But it turns out he’s not the only man. A few minutes later, a downcast Pitt knocks on the door.

His character has been hired by the hotel’s owner, a disembodied voice, to complete the same task since it turns out Margaret is a powerful district attorney who slept with the dead guy, and the proprietor doesn’t want her business tarnished by scandal.

(Every New Yorker knows that high-profile crimes actually make locales more alluring. Ask Sparks Steak House.)

The two shadowy fixers have never met or even have any familiarity, but they immediately hate each other for some vague reason. And that, readers, is the only joke of this entire movie: Anything Brad can do, George can do better.

Watts, whose “Spider-Man” films for Sony are great fun, tosses away centuries of comedy rules by having both Pitt and Clooney play the straight man.

So, we grimace as two smug, deflated, blasé dudes speak so robotically they could be in a biopic called “Siri.”

Two unspeakably bland men being quietly annoyed at each other is not humor as the world understands it. What’s funny is how much product is in their mummified hair.

In the pantheon of Clooney and Pitt collaborations, I’d sooner rewatch “Oceans 12.”

Brad Pitt and George Clooney pointing guns at each other

“Wolfs” briefly finds a pulse from the introduction of the only actor who’s awake, the talented Austin Abrams, who plays Kid. Geeky and inquisitive, he tags along with George and Brad on their underwhelming tour of New York’s underbelly.

But as soon as the focus shifts back to the two huge movie stars, our eyes glaze over. They noncommittally natter on about Croatian and Albanian crime syndicates and get in an impressively boring shootout while always being totally unbelievable in their roles.

The sole virtue of “Wolfs” being released straight to streaming is the incredible ease with which viewers can switch over to “Oceans Eleven” after the first five minutes.

Panthers all-22 film review: taking a peek at new starting qb andy dalton before week 3, share this article.

It’s been a fascinating past few days for the Carolina Panthers, hasn’t it?

After another blowout loss to start the 2024 season, head coach Dave Canales has made the potentially franchise-altering decision to sit quarterback Bryce Young. In place of the struggling second-year passer will be 14th-year veteran Andy Dalton, who is set to start this Sunday against the Las Vegas Raiders.

So, what are we in for with the “Red Rifle” back under center?

Let’s take some looks into the All-22 film from Dalton’s lone start in 2023, when he replaced an injured Young for Carolina’s Week 3 trip to see the Seattle Seahawks . . .

Out-of-structure ability and composure under pressure

I’ve highlighted five throws from Dalton’s performance to break down— starting with two impressive off-platform, out-of-structure throws.

The former three-time Pro Bowler is not necessarily known to be a twitchy, quick pocket maneuver like Young. But he can make some throws on the move when he has to.

Five plays from Andy Dalton’s lone #Panthers start vs. Seattle: a thread. Dalton doesn’t make a ton of out-of-structure throws, but this remains a great play/throw from the veteran signal caller. pic.twitter.com/911MdrLm9T — Jared Feinberg (@JRodNFLDraft) September 17, 2024

Take that first play for example. This is a third-and-intermediate situation early in the first quarter.

Seattle is playing Cover 3 with a tilted two-high look to semi-disguise the coverage. Dalton is provided a clean pocket—but, as the story of the 2023 Panthers offense went, no one is open.

This forces Dalton to create out of structure, allowing wide receiver Adam Thielen to scramble free. Dalton makes an impressive side-arm throw moving to his left while getting blasted by a Seahawks defender.

The play results in a first down and a gain of 23 yards.

Another off-platform throw. Scramble forces LB on 19 to direct his movement to the LOS, allowing Dalton to complete the throw on the move to Thielen. pic.twitter.com/ApqHUgArk7 — Jared Feinberg (@JRodNFLDraft) September 17, 2024

Fast-forward to late in the second quarter. There is less than a minute left in the half as Seattle plays quarters with the outside cornerbacks and two high safeties playing their respective fourths of the field.

Then-head coach Frank Reich, also the play-caller at the time, dials up all-curls out of doubles with the running back swinging the flat. Dalton pulls the ball down momentarily, when the WILL linebacker closes off the outside curl on the front side.

Dalton scrambles, forcing the nickel to move his hips toward the line of scrimmage and allowing him to get the ball to Thielen once again.

Eye manipulation and poise

Excellent back-shoulder throw by Dalton. ID’s the 1v1 matchup w/ current CAR CB Mike Jackson. Uses his eyes to hold the single-high S during his drop. Three-step drop, hitch, and throw. Quality stuff from the veteran. pic.twitter.com/9Zv3fCfJHD — Jared Feinberg (@JRodNFLDraft) September 17, 2024

This is one of the best throws you’ll see from any quarterback, and an example of Dalton’s experience and trust with his playmakers.

Moving on into the third quarter, Carolina calls Y-dig with vertical routes against Seattle’s Cover 1 hole call where the MIKE linebacker is expected to drop into the hook/high hole. Dalton identifies a potentially favorable matchup with wideout D.J. Chark, one-on-one with current Panthers cornerback Mike Jackson.

Dalton is going to use his eyes to hold the single-high safety. Then, as soon as he hitches, drops a back-shoulder dime in tight coverage to Chark.

Sluggo-seam remain unbeaten. Empty vs. Cover 3. First hitch/eyes by Dalton goes to Thielen to draw the MIKE. Second hitch to reset and fire an accurate pass to Tremble. pic.twitter.com/wxouesHsYV — Jared Feinberg (@JRodNFLDraft) September 17, 2024

In this second-and-long situation, the Seahawks are once again playing in a Cover 3 look as Carolina emerges from empty 11 personnel.

This play is where I appreciate Dalton’s veteran savviness as a quarterback. Watch the curl-flat nickel and linebacker Bobby Wagner; Dalton’s initial hitch and eyes go to Thielen again before taking another hitch in his drop.

That frees tight end Tommy Tremble on the sluggo-seam—a well-placed ball to No. 82 by Dalton.

Red-zone play down two possession late in the 4th quarter. Dalton again manipulates the single high just enough to but this ball down the seam to Thielen. pic.twitter.com/nODpsf7qN8 — Jared Feinberg (@JRodNFLDraft) September 17, 2024

At this point in the game, the Panthers are down two possessions late in the fourth quarter with little chance to secure the victory. Even still, this is a great play to mention.

Carolina is shown here in the red zone versus Seattle’s go-to Cover 3 defense. Dalton does a great job of manipulating the single-high safety with his eyes to allow just enough room for him to layer this intermediate throw to Thielen for the touchdown.

Again, this is another example of Dalton’s experience helping elevate the offense in some capacity.

What to make of Andy Dalton moving forward

This particular game from Dalton showed me a couple of things. First, the veteran displayed answers against pressure—something that has yet to be shown from Young this season.

Second, Dalton has a good understanding of the offense, playbook and each player’s assignments on certain play calls. This allows him to stay composed in the pocket and climb when necessary.

In all fairness, Dalton didn’t have a spectacular game. While he did complete 34 of 58 pass attempts for 361 yards and two touchdowns, a chunk of those attempts and yards came in the fourth quarter when Carolina was down by a decent margin.

Dalton did miss some throws, including having inconsistent ball placement. This is likely the quarterback Panthers fans will see on Sunday against the Raiders.

However, this is better than what we have seen from a regressed Young—who could still see playing time at some point this season.

What the Panthers and Coach Canales will be getting Sunday is an experienced quarterback who knows how to operate the offense around him and will deliver throws on time. It wouldn’t come as a surprise if Dalton produced much better numbers than what his now-backup had done in the two games prior.

Quick-hitting notes from Week 2

The offensive line is the best overall group for Carolina thus far. They gave up just two pressures to the Chargers pass rush that featured Pro Bowlers Joey Bosa and Khalil Mack. Left tackle Ikem Ekwonu had one of his better starts with more consistency in his pass sets and overall technique. The interior offensive line continues to stand out, with Austin Corbett displaying a seamless transition to center.
With the amount of movement and push created at the line of scrimmage by this offensive line, running back Chuba Hubbard averaged over six yards per attempt. The fourth-year runner is the definition of patience and development. He’s shown notable improvements in his footwork, vision, balance and ball skills since his rookie year. The Panthers must commit to giving him 20 or more touches a game if they want to have any chance of competing for wins this season.
After fracturing his fibula last season, veteran linebacker Shaq Thompson has come back with his hair on fire. He tallied 14 tackles against the Chargers, putting in a great game versus the run and displaying explosiveness and physicality around the line of scrimmage. Thompson also brought pop and aggression when attacking downhill and wen playing from sideline to sideline. He will be a key piece to Carolina’s defense moving forward.
Outside linebacker Eku Leota was waived by the Panthers on Tuesday, which came as a surprise to some. Despite a solid first week where he tallied the lone sack for defense. he struggled mightily in all phases this past Sunday. He looked overwhelmed in run fits against tight ends, played out of position far too often and failed to seal the edge at times. There is a chance he will return to the practice squad should he clear waivers.

Dave Canales' benching of Bryce Young a move for the greater good of the Panthers

Panthers face a long road ahead after bryce young's benching, panthers qb andy dalton talks about replacing bryce young as starter, want the latest news and insights on your favorite team.

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Vikings film review: How a catch by K.J. Osborn last year helped set up Justin Jefferson’s 97-yard TD

Vikings coaches entered Sunday’s win against the 49ers feeling confident in a vertical passing concept they would revisit at their own 3-yard line.

By Andrew Krammer

There were questions about how much the Vikings could take from last year’s win over the San Francisco 49ers. After all, Kirk Cousins isn’t here anymore, Justin Jefferson wasn’t playing in that game, and half the defense has been remade.

But Kevin O’Connell and Vikings coaches saw something from the film from 2023, specifically from an 18-yard catch by receiver K.J. Osborn.

That play left meat on the bone against a standard 49ers coverage. When the matchup came back around in Sunday’s win over San Francisco , the Vikings capitalized with the second-longest touchdown pass in franchise history when Sam Darnold hit Jefferson for a 97-yard score.

“It actually goes back to a look we ran on them last year,” O’Connell said after the game. “Similar presentation, similar everything. That one has been in the hopper for a little bit. Did not know I would call it, backed up with our feet in the paint like that.”

A year ago, the Vikings opened the third quarter with a play-action shot that paired Osborn and Jordan Addison on the same side of the field and sent them deep. First down is a spot where the defense can safely expect a run. The 49ers loaded the box to stop the run. A single deep safety, Pro Bowler Talanoa Hufanga (#29), overlooked man-to-man coverage underneath.

In the video below, you’ll see Cousins’ play-action handoff draw in the 49ers front. That leaves three deep 49ers defenders to cover the vertical routes by Addison and Osborn. The route pattern, with Osborn cutting under Addison to run a deep over, creates separation from the defender covering Osborn. It also stresses Hufanga, the safety who must choose which receiver to cover.

Hufanga picks Osborn, who is still open for an 18-yard grab. But Addison was also open. A year later, Jefferson took Addison’s place and Jalen Nailor was in Osborn’s place in that play call.

A confident call and timely blocks

Offensive coordinator Wes Phillips, in his 18th NFL season, said Jefferson’s touchdown is “one of the more memorable plays of my career.”

Phillips also said coaches were confident entering Sunday they had a big gain in their pocket whenever O’Connell revisited that play call. There were two key differences this time: Jefferson was playing after missing last year’s matchup due to a hamstring strain, and the route was altered.

“Slightly different,” Phillips said, “just in that instead of crossing the field, [Jefferson] leaned back out and then got over the top. Really, we had either one of them for a big gain, but I’m glad he threw it to Justin.”

Here’s the 2023 play in which Addison (#3) runs a deep post over crossing pattern by Osborn (#17).

Below is Sunday’s play in which Jefferson runs the deeper route, but this time he head fakes a corner route to the sideline and transitions into a deep go or skinny post. Nailor (#83) runs the crossing pattern.

Calling the play at the 3-yard line is one way to build confidence in Darnold.

“Maybe it’s subconsciously,” O’Connell said. “Maybe it is a little bit. I’m not really finding myself trying to really feel the need to build confidence. I think I’m going into these games confident in Sam to execute the plays that are called.”

Helping to lull the 49ers defense to sleep was the Week 1 win at the Giants, when O’Connell and Darnold began a 99-yard touchdown drive with conservative calls: a handoff, a quick play-action throw to the flat, another handoff.

Darnold said he appreciated the trust that O’Connell showed in just their second week together.

“It was a great call, obviously with them expecting some type of run play or a quick throw,” Darnold said. “You’re backed up and you want to — sometimes teams play conservative. You know, we did that last week. Backed up, throwing the ball in the flat to Ty [Chandler], playing it a little bit more conservative. For [O’Connell] to be able to call that play and the guys whatever in the booth or the offensive staff to be able to see that and call it, it shows, you know, just the trust that they have in me.”

Protection was a critical component in both the 2023 and 2024 versions of this play.

On Sunday, Darnold confidently stands in the pocket and lets the play develop downfield despite All-Pro linebacker Fred Warner charging through the center of the line. Center Garrett Bradbury fights through a key block on Warner, who got the one-on-one up the middle by 49ers defensive tackle Kevin Givens (#90) drawing Blake Brandel.

“Blitz in the A gap,” O’Connell said, “[Bradbury] getting that extra little touch to run him by Sam so we could step up. It’s Aaron Jones helping Ed’s [Ingram] inside right there on the interior rush. It’s Brian O’Neill straining to block [Nick] Bosa one-on-one on the edge. It’s all of those things that came together.”

‘A great, great ball’ and finish

Darnold uncorked a pass from his own end zone that traveled about 55 yards through the air before Jefferson caught it in stride. Jefferson sped past the man-to-man defender at the line, 49ers safety George Odum, while the deep safety, Ji’Ayir Brown, hesitated for a second on Nailor’s crossing pattern. Brown bailed to cover Jefferson, but it was too late.

“It was just a great, great ball from Sam,” Jefferson said, “to trust the double team and for me to run right through it. ... Sam’s just got to trust me to beat [a double team] and to make a big play.”

Darnold was “ready to call the next play” when Jefferson throttled down around the 30-yard line and changed direction, forcing both pursuing defenders to lose ground.

“When he cut back,” Darnold said, “that’s when I kind of knew that we were going to score.”

Nailor has drawn praise for sprinting downfield and throwing a late block as Jefferson crossed the goal line. Players got a chuckle over back judge Tyree Walton sprinting with the players, too.

“Not just [Nailor], the official as well,” O’Connell said. “That was unbelievable. And the sneaky little change of direction there to flip his hips at the end, I showed the team that a little bit ago, and they were having a good time with that. I had [Nailor] about 30 yards behind Justin when he caught that ball. Play style is not just splitting your face mask on the other team and physicality, it’s finish. It’s straining to finish.”

“I was just trying to meet him at the end zone to celebrate with him,” Nailor said. “I saw him cut back, and your legs get heavy once you do that. Just tried to help get him in there.”

According to NFL Next Gen Stats, Jefferson reached a top speed of 19.94 miles per hour while covering 127.5 yards in distance.

Watch the finish to the 97-yard touchdown from two different angles in the video below:

Got a question about the Vikings? Email it to [email protected] . We’ll answer your questions in an upcoming Access Vikings newsletter or podcast.

about the writer

Andrew krammer.

Andrew Krammer covers the Vikings for the Star Tribune, entering his sixth NFL season. From the Metrodome to U.S. Bank Stadium, he's reported on everything from Case Keenum's Minneapolis Miracle, the offensive line's kangaroo court to Adrian Peterson's suspension.

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COMMENTS

8mm movie review & film summary (1999)
Roger Ebert. February 26, 1999. 4 min read. Joel Schumacher 's "8mm" is a dark, dank journey into the underworld of snuff films, undertaken by a private investigator who is appalled and changed by what he finds. It deals with the materials of violent exploitation films, but in a non-pornographic way; it would rather horrify than thrill.
8MM
Thomas G Underrated movie. The "Machine" was my favorite character… Rated 3.5/5 Stars • Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 09/05/24 Full Review Tony S This is a highly disturbing film.
8mm (film)
8mm is a 1999 crime thriller film [3] directed by Joel Schumacher and written by Andrew Kevin Walker.A German-American co-production, the film stars Nicolas Cage as a private investigator who delves into the world of snuff films. Joaquin Phoenix, James Gandolfini, Peter Stormare, and Anthony Heald appear in supporting roles.. The film received mostly negative reviews, but was a box office ...
8MM
8MM is technically proficient and strongly acted, but when it comes to staking out any moral or intellectual claims, it clearly isn't up to snuff. Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jan 21 ...
8MM (1999)
8MM: Directed by Joel Schumacher. With Nicolas Cage, Joaquin Phoenix, James Gandolfini, Peter Stormare. A private investigator is hired to discover if a "snuff film" is authentic or not.
8MM: The Polarizing Mystery Thriller at 25
8MM was made on a moderately large budget of $40 million headlined by one Hollywood's bankable stars at that time, and in spite of the R-rating and the dark themes explored in the film it ended ...
8MM (1999)
8/10. Disturbing, effective film. mwpressley 25 October 2000. 8MM is a very dark, disturbing film that isn't for everyone. Nicolas Cage puts in an excellent performance as a private detective named Tom Welles who is hired to investigate whether a snuff film is real or acted. His journey takes him farther and farther into the realm of pornography.
8mm
"8MM" is a movie that keeps jumping the gate and finally unravels all over the floor. A murky melange of borrowings from far superior pix like "Seven," "Hardcore" and "The Silence of the Lambs ...
8MM
8MM - Metacritic. 1999. R. Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) 2 h 3 m. Summary Tom Welles (Cage) is a family man with a modest home-based private investigation business living a simple life in Pennsylvania -- until a reel of crudely shot eight millimeter film sends him down a gritty and frightening path into society's darkest corners. (Sony) Crime.
‎8MM (1999) directed by Joel Schumacher • Reviews, film
A small, seemingly innocuous plastic reel of film leads surveillance specialist Tom Welles down an increasingly dark and frightening path. With the help of the streetwise Max, he relentlessly follows a bizarre trail of evidence to determine the fate of a complete stranger. As his work turns into obsession, he drifts farther and farther away from his wife, family and simple life as a small-town PI.
8MM (1999)
A small, seemingly innocuous plastic reel of film leads surveillance specialist Tom Welles down an increasingly dark and frightening path. With the help of the streetwise Max, he relentlessly follows a bizarre trail of evidence to determine the fate of a complete stranger. As his work turns into obsession, he drifts farther and farther away from his wife, family and simple life as a small-town PI.
Looking Back on '8MM'
Regardless, 8MM was ultimately a box-office success, winning over most audiences even if professional critics weren't all that impressed. Several reviews actually suggested that the production ...
8MM (1999)
Find trailers, reviews, synopsis, awards and cast information for 8MM (1999) - Joel Schumacher on AllMovie. Find trailers, reviews, synopsis, awards and cast information for 8MM (1999) - Joel Schumacher on AllMovie ... The film stars Nicolas Cage as a private investigator who delves into the world of snuff films. Joaquin Phoenix, James ...
Looking back at Joel Schumacher's 8MM
Released: 26th February 1999 (US) / 23RD April 1999 (UK) Distributed By: Columbia Pictures Budget: $40,000,000 Box Office Gross: $96,398,826 Best DVD Edition: 8MM DVD. We continue our look back at ...
'Eight Millimeter': A Straight-Arrow on Mean and Twisted Streets
The film seems to intend Tom to discover a darker side of his own nature while investigating this case, but it barely makes his reactions apparent. It's never clear what this buttoned-down character is experiencing in the midst of the film's wild, wicked stimuli, especially after "Eight Millimeter" takes a third-act turn for a standard thriller ...
Just finished watching 8mm (1999), I HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend
Just finished watching 8mm (1999), I HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend. Movie Review. This movie flies under the radar it seems like. I never ever see anyone talk about it. It is with Nicholas Cage and Joaquin Phoenix (edited the typo). This movie is insanely good and I would technically call it a horror/thriller. The subject matter in the movie is ...
8MM (1999)
Visit the movie page for '8MM' on Moviefone. Discover the movie's synopsis, cast details and release date. Watch trailers, exclusive interviews, and movie review. Your guide to this cinematic ...
8MM 1998, directed by Joel Schumacher
There's no faulting Cage's committed, intense performance, but his slide from professional, internalised concern into personal, self-righteous rage still leaves a nasty aftertaste. DVD Info ...
Movie Reviews for 8MM by our Readers
Movie reviews written by readers of The BigScreen Cinema Guide -- movie enthusiasts, not professional movie critics. Your Favorites New Movies Box Office AA Noms/Winners All Movies Classics Coming Soon Search. ... 8MM Tom Welles (Nicolas Cage) is a surveillance specialist waiting for a big break. It comes when a reel of crudely shot eight ...
I truly think '8mm' is often overlooked film for dealing with ...
ADMIN MOD. I truly think '8mm' is often overlooked film for dealing with themes ahead of it's time. The cast is phenomenal, Joaquin Phoenix, James Gandolfini, Peter Stormare, Anthony Heald, Catherine Keener, and Norman Reedus. It's a subtle performance from Cage who slowly desends into madness becuase of the case.
'8MM' Descends Into True Hell on Earth
Feb. 26, 1999 12 AM PT. TIMES FILM CRITIC. Those foolhardy enough to place themselves at the mercy of "8MM" can expect the following emotions: disgust and revulsion, then anger, followed by a ...
8MM (Blu-ray Review)
A review of 8MM on Blu-ray by Dennis Seuling from Imprint Films and Via Vision Entertainment. Nicolas Cage has often been criticized for being indiscriminate about the roles he takes. ... 8MM is a very dark film, but a very good one. The screenplay by Andrew Kevin Walker combines elements of the police procedural, horror, and thriller in a tale ...
Give your dusty old film reels a second life with Kodak's ...
The Kodak Reels Film Digitizer digitizes 8mm and Super 8 films. It comes with a built-in screen, direct SD card storage, and a $50 discount at the Mashable Shop.
Why is 8mm considered a bad movie? : r/movies
8MM is a great underrated thriller with a very unsettling topic. It's dark and fruity and depressing. Personally I love it and the scene at the end with Cage looking for machine at the house with the music cutting in and out is really intense. Also great secondary performances from Phoenix and Gandolfini. Reply reply.
Film Review: 8MM 2 (2005)
REVIEW: Way back in 1999, a movie called 8mm came out - directed by Joel Schumacher (The Lost Boys), written by Andrew Kevin Walker (Se7en), and starring Nicholas Cage and Joaquin Phoenix, this movie sounded like it could be good. A detective is hired to go into the dark underworld to figure out if a so-called "snuff" film is legit.
'The Substance' review: Hard to watch, impossible to ignore
That was a good movie. "The Substance" is a substantial leap forward and a film people will rightfully be talking about for a while. 'The Substance' 4.5 stars. Great ★★★★★ Good
'The Substance' Lets Demi Moore Rip Hollywood a New One
Once upon a time in Hollywood, Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) was a star whose Walk of Fame plaque was a prime tourist attraction and nonstop selfie backdrop. Now, Sparkle hosts a fitness morning ...
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The duo's movie is a laugh-free slog. AP. Watts, whose "Spider-Man" films for Sony are great fun, tosses away centuries of comedy rules by having both Pitt and Clooney play the straight man ...
Panthers All-22 film review: Taking a peek at new starting QB Andy
Let's take some looks into the All-22 film from Dalton's lone start in 2023, when he replaced an injured Young for Carolina's Week 3 trip to see the Seattle Seahawks . . . Out-of-structure ...
Vikings film review: How a catch by K.J. Osborn last year helped set up
Vikings coaches entered Sunday's win against the 49ers feeling confident in a vertical passing concept they would revisit at their own 3-yard line.