Thriller Most Disturbing Since "Seven"

by Jason R. Hewlett

During my review of "October Sky" I said that I really like dark, disturbing films. "Give me one anyday" were pretty much my exact words if memory serves me correctly. Well, I got my wish with Joel Schumacher's latest offering "8MM." The screenplay for the film was written by Andrew Kevin Walker, who also graced us with the brilliant movie "Seven" a few years back and well this film doesn't quite get under your skin like "Seven" did it does have a powerful impact. This movie is not for the week or the squeamish! Some may say that it borderlines on exploitation but I think it gives us insight to a part of humanity we'd be happier believing that it doesn't exist.

The always dazzling Nicholas Cage plays a high rent private detective named Tom Wells who is hired by the wife of a deceased senator to examine a role of 8MM film found in her husband's private vault. The images on the film are pretty harsh: a young girl is butchered by some huge freak in an S & M mask later identified only as Machine. The wife wants to know if the film is a fake and who the young girl in the film is and if she is still alive. Cage's journey leads him into the seedy world of pornography and eventually, when he confronts the men responsible for the film, into his own personal hell.

Things get pretty rough in "8MM." Cage's guide through the world of underground pornography is a character called Max California (well played for much needed comic relief by Joaquin Phoenix) who claims that "when you dance with the devil the devil don't change...he changes you." That would have to be the underlying theme of the movie. In order for Cage to extract revenge on these sick people who made the snuff film he must become almost like a monster himself. In truth his revenge is justified. I've never seen a collection of villains as repulsive as the group here. It's scary to think that such people actually exist in our so-called P.C. world. The character Machine makes Jason from "Friday the 13th". look like a choir boy. "I do what I do because I like it" he says near the end of the film. That's frightening enough motive for me and, as we draw near the millennium, it seems to make perfect sense too.

Technically the film is flawless. All mood and noir stylistics that are now pretty commonplace in films such as this but I couldn't see it done any other way. Perhaps it's a bit long but to trim it would be to lesson it's impact. All the performers do well and watching a film like "8MM" makes me wonder why Schumacher could screw-up on a film like "Batman and Robin." He's not the hack I took him as.

Give "8MM" a viewing by all means...if you can take it!

7.5 out of 10!