THE NINTH GATE

2000

I spent the first hour of this suspenseful thriller, thoroughly caught up in the characters and the interesting plot, and wondering when that moment would come when everything but the toilet bowls would morph into Satan and his merry men! It was well into the second hour when I realized that that moment wasn't going to come...IT'S A REALLY GOOD FILM! Although I'm hesitant to recommend this to everyone, I can say that if you like European thrillers, especially those that influenced the work of Orson Welles and Alfred Hitchcock, then you should like this complicated thinking man's film. Pay attention very carefully, because unusual elements of the plot are planted like riddles throughout, and if you blink(or go to the bathroom, as I did) you could easily miss them. One of the qualities I like about Roman Polanski's("Rosemary 's Baby") direction is that he will set up a scene so that you know that something supernatural and horrific is about to occur...and then it doesn't. Also, the wonderful music is deliberately derivative of the great Bernard Hermann scores that he created for the Hitchcock films...big, lush, and melodramatic.

4.5 Stars

NJB