Seltzer smartly avoids either directly confirming or denying conscious involvement from most parties, leaving the viewer to come to their own conclusions. Even Norah may have been involved in the "plot", or may have ended up involved after meeting with Father Simeon Maximilian Schell. We're never shown exactly what led to her suicide, except that we can see it was either voluntary or caused by some supernatural force.
William Bindley's direction is fantastic. The Eighteenth Angel is worth viewing for its cinematography by Thomas E. Ackerman alone. Bindley contrasts a nice range of superbly constructed sets and practical locations with expansive, impressive landscape and external shots.
He also routinely incorporates a number of extended cinematographic techniques, such as different film stocks and a wide range of approaches to lighting and exposures--from "washed out", or "whited out", brightly lit and generously apertured snippets to shots with dark, chiaroscuro-like shadows and silhouettes. The clock, counting down to Satan's earthly manifestation, makes regular appearances, and while this isn't an unprecedented device for enhancing suspense, the construction of the clock face is intriguing and it's just as interestingly shot and edited as the rest of the film.
The performances are great. Cook is more than convincing, especially once she enters Alice in Wonderland territory as her dreams begin to come true. I also loved Schell as the creepy two-faced priest. The Eighteenth Angel is full of those. Still, there are some fairly visceral makeup effects, which are extremely well done and are worked into the plot with just the right amount of psycho-like depravity and bizarre ambiguity.
The climax of the film also has somewhat of a "gothic action" feel, and there's a beautifully nihilistic denouement that should boost any horror fan's rating a point or two. If you're looking for plausibility, you're in the wrong business. But if you're looking for a marvelously dark fairy tale told with a lot of style, you've come to the right place. This film deserves much more recognition than it has received to date.
I remember watching it some years ago and thinking that it wasn't too bad, though I couldn't remember why. After revisiting it, I still think it's not too bad. And I still can't really figure out why. Let's see The story was ambitious. The production values were okay. The film had a decent look and some visceral effects in the make-up department.
The acting was good and so was the cinematography. That monastery up the hill looked creepy, just like it should in a horror movie Ergo, this film ain't too bad. The only thing that really bothered me, were some plot holes I just couldn't wrap my head around. I won't go into it now and I'll steer away from writing a synopsis too.
What matters is that I found it to be an okay movie and I've seen worse. Much worse. Something about when Satan comes back he'll walk as beauty. The plot is based around a secret society of Etruscan Priests who have chosen the side of Satan over that of God- they think Christianity really sucks- and as such, plan to enact the necessary steps to fulfill the aforementioned prophecy- to bring Satan back in a beautiful as opposed to beastial form. To do this they need to get 18 good looking, innocent children, kill them, and cut off their faces Anyways, it stars a sexy as hell 19 year old Rachael Leigh Cook, who plays a young model that is being lured in by the cult- as they recognize her as "the eighteenth angel" needed to complete the necessary required steps in order to bring back Satan First they kill her mom well kinda I think The cult seems to capture her by exploiting some sort of evil divine intervention, and it is up to her dad to stop them before it's too late.
Before he has lost his daughter forever to the cult, like he did his wife. The whole story is just poorly told. There is no plot development whatsoever and it just kind of ends without tying up multiple strands of the storyline.
If it wasn't for the Goddess-like sexual allure of a young Rachael Leigh Cook, and the cinematography on a few nice establishing shots, then this film wouldn't be worth watching at all. I wasn't expecting a lot from this film, but I was disappointed even so. From the beginning it can't seem to find what it really wants to do, which is unfortunate because it's a kind of interesting premise Unfortunately the only really interesting things in this film are the things that they tend to crib from other, better films and stories.
And although it does have some pretty well-known actors who generally are known to be able to act, this just never quite comes together, which makes it seem like a serious problem with direction. For example, Christopher McDonald's character -- the presumed 'hero' Hugh Stanton -- is played so broadly that he is practically a poster child for the obnoxious American stereotype.
And it's not really his fault so much as the fact that he is given so disastrously little to work with. Similar is every other character; while Rachael Leigh Cook does a rather good job with her Lucy Stanton a character unfortunately and implausibly called 'Luce' and pronounced 'loose' by her father , she has very little to do but be a victim of her father's obnoxiousness and some sort of bizarre Satanic cult that is only given a raison d'etre in the last twenty minutes.
Maximilian Schell's rather good acting is wasted in his predictable yet nonsensical role. The rest of the cast do decent enough jobs but are given pathetically little real role in anything happening and are often disposed of in comically ridiculous ways.
The story is just not engaging or tense, and there isn't really a moment where it's anything but boring. This is a serious shame because the premise could have been very suspenseful, but it wasn't even remotely realised. Although most of the effects are somewhere significantly less than special, the monstrous 'blanks' were extremely striking but unfortunately went completely wasted.
Similarly wasted was so much potential with the rest of the film, where often things set up to happen ended up fizzling before they got there. The music varies between zany and irritating, which is noteworthy since Hugh is a music teacher. Some of the moments that were supposed to have been scary or striking simply sound like someone hit the Drama Button, eliciting laughter instead of a scream or a jump.
Overall this film is so inane that, at times, it is blatantly offensive to its viewer. It's not because of any religious undertones although those are botched too , but instead because of the extremely regrettable fact that this script was not anywhere near as engaging as it should have been.
It meanders, teases, and seems to forget itself within mere lines of self-contradiction. The acting is uneven, even for the several experienced actors involved, and all in all it is a wasted opportunity that ends up being similarly a complete waste of time. It's a pity. With a decent cast and a decent premise, sometimes even a bad script or lacking direction can be overcome. Not so in this case. KuRt 25 July The short version: not even Rachael as Lucy can save this disaster.
Here's the longer version: Some of the acting is so bad it's more frightening than the horror plot a Satanic church wants the Antichrist back and all they need is a demon clock saying when they should sacrifice 18 angelic children. The worst performance is given by Maximilian Schell: instead of acting like a satanic priest he acts like he's the evil penguin in a children's story.
When he recites the satanic verses, you think he's reading the recipe for pork chops. The more the story evolves the more ludicrous it gets. If you know the horror cliches, all you have to do is make a list and wait for it to come. Oh look, spikes: somebody's bound to get killed by them.
It certainly isn't what they used a movie. If you don't know what a pentagram looks like: watch Jacob the Liar: in that movie they needed a Jewish star, but they used a pentagram. Add the final ingredient: referring to and stealing from other movies.
Maybe they can get away with referring to Brian de Palma's Obsession the church scene , but it's hard not to spot they borrowed some ideas from The Exorcist. Once again: bad copying only makes a bad movie worse. So it's best to skip this movie? Yes, unless you like watching Rachael Leigh Cook. In this movie she is a teenage model, so there's lots of posing and looking nice.
But she was much better in the movie list I started this review with, so that's not really an argument. Also, skipping The Eighteenth Angel means you don't have to see the ending of a movie which gets worse every scene. Photos 3. Add image. Top cast Edit. Cosimo Fusco Florian as Florian. Venantino Venantini Clockmaker as Clockmaker. Ted Rusoff Benedetti as Benedetti. John Crowther Mangram as Mangram. Linda Gucciardo Stewardess as Stewardess. Rossano Rubicondi Model as Model. Barbara Berardi Model as Model.
Francesca De Sapio Gabriella as Gabriella. William Bindley. More like this. Watch options. Storyline Edit. Rated R for horror violence and gore.
Add content advisory. Did you know Edit. Trivia Though shot for a theatrical release, the film made its debut on the Starz! Goofs As the rubber compound is being applied to Lucy's face, it appears and disappears from her forehead. What could have been an interesting occult thriller is dragged down by average plotting and uneven performances. An order of Satanic monks is trying to manifest the devil on Earth with the help of a Medieval clock, 18 young sacrifices and Maximilian Schell.
I've been trying to remember the name of this one literally for years. All I could come up with is there was a number and another thing in the title, so for a while I thought it was the thirteenth year then remembered that was that Disney boy turns into a mer-guy movie.
I can't actually remember anything about this, though. I mean, the actual watching experience. She goes off with a guy on a horse? And then Armageddon? This film has a couple things going for it, such as a lovely soundtrack and an often interesting cinematography as well as some pretty decent effects work, plus some unintentionally funny deaths, however I can't justify much else in it such as the fact that it takes an HOUR for the plot to really start, before that it is just family drama and the girl whining about her cat running off or being sick or having a rat or basically anything else.
This film is also criminal in its use of so many side plots….
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