Editorials
From Calm to Carnal: Looking at Cillian Murphy in the Horror Genre
Cillian Murphy plays the lead character in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. An amazing actor in a movie that Nolan himself called “kind of a horror movie“? We’ll take it.
So, in that spirit we thought we’d take a stroll through the Peaky Blinders actor’s resume in both the thriller and horror genres. Hell, the last time Nolan and Murphy worked together they created one of the best horror aspects of The Dark Knight trilogy with the Scarecrow character!
Let’s take a look through Cillian Murphy’s career in the horror/thriller genres…
28 Days Later (2002)
For many of us, 28 Days Later was our introduction to Cillian Murphy. Our full frontal introduction to Cillian Murphy. The camera pans down on a naked man in a hospital bed who wakes up (after presumably being hit by a car) to absolute nothingness. Everything and almost everyone has been wiped out by a plague that turns its victims into rage fueled maniac zombies. Then we watch him navigate this new hellscape of a world that is his sudden reality.
A theme you’ll notice as we go forth with Cillian Murphy’s horror career is the dichotomy of his characters. Many of them start out meek, unintimidating, thoughtful and calm. By film’s end however, they may be maniacal, terrifying or just plain desperate characters with violently emotional outbursts. None better than 28 Days Later where we watch a man come to grips with the death of his parents and the entire world. Yet, manages somehow to keep his composure, grace and empathy for the humans around him. By the third act however, we’ll see Jim’s madness understandably devolve into him running through hallways like a kid on Christmas in Hell. Shirtless, covered in blood and laughing gleefully while murdering soldiers.
The amazing and personal performance Murphy put together in 28 Days Later instantly had me thinking “This is a guy who really stands out. I’m going to follow and see what he does.”
So, let’s see what he did from there…
Red Eye (2005)
In one of horror master Wes Craven’s most underrated movies, Cillian Murphy gives yet another underrated performance as Jackson Rippner; a political hitman who desperately needs a political figure to switch hotel rooms so they can carry out a hit on him and his family. So, he decides to trap the hotel Manager Lisa (Rachel McAdams) on a public flight and blackmail her – with the threat of the murder of her Father (Brian Cox) – to call and have his room switched to the one they can shoot a grenade launcher into.
The beauty of Cillian Murphy in Red Eye is the duality of the roles he gets to play. He first charms Lisa with conversation at the airport. He talks her into having a few friendly drinks and gets to know things about her. Things he’ll later use to toy with her emotions. It’s strange because you can definitely tell there is something sinister beneath the surface but he’s just being so damn nice that you can’t put a finger on it. Once on the airplane you can see Lisa start to become fond of him and put her guard down. Which makes it all the more demeaning and uncomfortable when he flips the switch. Suddenly he drops the act all at once in a very Edward Norton in Primal Fear-esque type moment.
Watching his character have to put on and take off the nice guy mask over and over again any time a stewardess or flight member intrudes on them is as fascinating as the main plot itself. When the frustration mounts and his mask of sanity is about to slip, the character adds yet another layer. Eventually, we basically get to watch him play a version of Scream’s Ghostface; in a full frenzy, chasing Lisa around a suburban home with a hole in his windpipe. Murphy goes from romcom lead, to Hans Gruber, to Patrick Bateman all in the span of an 85 minute thriller.
Sunshine (2007)
Another movie that isn’t horror in its purest form. Sure. But don’t tell me being trapped in a spaceship with a lack of oxygen and the fate of the world on your shoulders while a dude who’s been dipped in the literal sun is chasing you like Michael Myers on meth isn’t scary.
In Director Danny Boyle’s Sunshine, Cillian Murphy plays a Physicist named Robert Capa aboard a spaceship called Icarus II; the earth’s last hope to save a dying sun by dropping a huge bomb inside of it to re-ignite it. After everything that can go wrong does, Boyle decides he too wants to fly too close to the sun (spoiler incoming). The movie takes a jarring genre pivot into slasher territory when a character named Pinbacker (Mark Strong), previously thought to be dead, shows up dropping bodies and chasing Capa around the spaceship. Some will call this twist too much but count me as one of those who found it to be the most exhilarating part of the film.
Sunshine is yet another movie in Murphy’s filmography where you experience the film through his eyes. At first he’s calm, calculated and peaceful amidst a crew of heightened personalities. By the end however, he’s absolutely manic. The movie isn’t just telling us “Hey, this situation really, really sucks!” We can tell because the dude who was calm as a cucumber dangling off the side of a spaceship five minutes ago is now screaming bloody murder and losing his goddamn mind. It’s pure versatility on the part of Cillian Murphy that gets the movie where it needs to go.
Retreat (2011)
Retreat is a film I’m shocked I had never even heard of until now (it’s streaming for free on Crackle currently). Not expecting much, I found an original thriller with some interesting twists that touched on multiple horror sub genres. In the film, Martin (Murphy) and his wife Kate (Thandiwe Newton) head to a remote island to try and rekindle their relationship after a tragedy. An island so remote that the Airbnb host has to take a long ass boat ride to get to you if anything goes wrong. Suddenly a stranger named Jack (Jamie Bell) shows up with a head wound. They take him in and he informs them that back on the mainland a horrible virus has broken out. Immediate contact with anyone will result in almost instant and painful death. They must board up the entire house and live in this post apocalyptic world together, fending off anyone who comes near.
The problem is Jack is extremely sketchy and they have no way to confirm if anything he’s saying is true. First polite, he’s now ordering the couple around and making suggestive comments towards Kate. He’s very quickly put them in a horrifying situation whether he’s telling the truth or not. Meanwhile, their relationship issues start to surface under the stress of it all and throw emotional fuel on the fire like some sort of hellish version of MTV’s Real World.
While Retreat definitely has some elements of movies like They Come at Night or 10 Cloverfield Lane, it most reminds me of 1971’s Straw Dogs. Cillian Murphy’s Martin is very much like Dustin Hoffman’s in that he’s a passive man in the face of an intrusive and physically superior one. He decides to try to use his brain over violence. His wife quickly loses patience as he seemingly allows this stranger to take control of their lives.
Murphy, ever the good sport, lets Martin take a judgmental beating from both his wife and the audience for his meek response before everything hits a head and multiple truths are revealed. I’m sensing a major theme here that Cillian Murphy goes into these roles with absolutely no ego. In turn, his character journeys feel earned and honest. Retreat is no different.
Red Lights (2012)
Red Lights is weird. Listen to this plot synopsis and tell me it doesn’t sound like the coolest movie ever.
Robert DeNiro plays Simon Silver, a world famous travelling psychic healer. Think Steve Martin in Leap of Faith but with a dark, cold, paranormal twist and the narcissistic personality of your standard cult leader. Sigourney Weaver plays a noted scientific skeptic of all things paranormal who pairs up with Cillian Murphy’s character (a physicist) to form whatever the opposite of the Ghostbusters would be called. Some days they go to folks’ homes who believe they are haunted and catch them lying or disprove their paranormal worries with plausible explanations. Other days they work with the police to catch false prophets and fake healers in the act. Eventually their paths cross with Silver and Cillian Murphy’s character believes he is being psychologically and telepathically stalked by him.
That cast (which also features Elizabeth Olsen) and that plot sounds beyond amazing! For many, it apparently sounded too amazing as the end product was ultimately underwhelming for many viewers and critics. For better or worse, Rodrigo Cortes’ (Buried) Red Lights is one of the oddest movies I’ve ever seen. Extremely over the top in terms of drama and each of the actors (specifically Murphy and Weaver) really go for it in terms of chewing the scenery and letting their emotions burst at the seams. The narrative is a little hard to follow and the plot has a solid case of the ole’ ADHD. One minute you’re watching a stylish and earnest deep dive into skepticism of the paranormal and the next a pulpy thriller where dead birds keep hitting windows and characters are being jump scared by the homeless. It feels a little like one of those 2000’s Dimension films where the Weinsteins would demand sensationalist reshoots featuring more action and death.
Personally, I find Red Lights to be a deeply flawed yet one of a kind and weird little movie with some wild performances by a fascinating cast. Specifically, Cillian Murphy who lets it all hang out here like an emo kid in a Taking Back Sunday mosh pit after the worst week of his life and two Red Bulls. I love it. But it’s an acquired taste.
A Quiet Place Part II (2020)
Cillian Murphy clearly knows how to pick interesting characters with multiple layers and is certainly not afraid to be disliked. This may be the exact reason why we’re always happy to see him in a film yet have no idea what the part will entail. Will we hate the character? Just how fucked up is he going to be? Part of his job as Emmett for at least half A Quiet Place Part II is to be the opposite of the man Lee Abbott (John Krasinski) was. You know, the sweet and charismatic guy we just watched sacrifice himself to be brutally ripped apart to save his small children? The exact type of role that many leading men would be reluctant to play. Murphy once again sniffed out something fascinating about the character and A Quiet Place Part II was all the better for it.
When the family stumbles across Emmet’s industrial-like shelter they find him to be a broken man. He lost his children the day of the attack and his wife to sickness just weeks ago. He’s not a great host when they show up. As a matter of fact he’s what you’d call a “total dick.” But a subtle script and a communicative performance from Murphy will have you understanding quite quickly that he simply blames himself for not being able to save his own family. So, when the Abbotts show up he completely shuts down at the thought of being responsible for their safety. He doesn’t want to let them down too. It’s a performance that without emotional nuance would just be some asshole screaming “I ain’t got enough food for you now get out!” to a woman, her newborn baby and two kids. Instead, Murphy overcomes all this to create a complicated and imperfect but emotionally intelligent character the audience can empathize with.
Watching his character redeem himself by succeeding in helping others where he could not help his own family becomes the most necessary element in making A Quiet Place Part II not just feel like an “in between” film. Plus, he looks really handsome with a post-apocalyptic beard. Good for him.
Thanks for reading and here’s hoping Oppenheimer puts yet another feather in Cillian Murphy’s horror hat. Speaking of hats and finger knives… he’d make a pretty solid Freddy Krueger if I may say so myself. Just sayin’. Who knows. Maybe it’ll happen someday.
Soon after the New Hollywood generation took over the entertainment industry, they started having children. And more than any filmmakers that came before—they were terrified. Rosemary’s Baby (1968), The Exorcist (1973), The Omen (1976), Eraserhead (1977), The Brood (1979), The Shining (1980), Possession (1981), and many others all deal, at least in part, with the fears of becoming or being a parent. What if my child turns out to be a monster? is corrupted by some evil force? or turns out to be the fucking Antichrist? What if I screw them up somehow, or can’t help them, or even go insane and try to kill them? Horror has always been at its best when exploring relatable fears through extreme circumstances. A prime example of this is Larry Cohen’s 1974 monster-baby movie It’s Alive, which explores the not only the rollercoaster of emotions that any parent experiences when confronted with the difficulties of raising a child, but long-standing questions of who or what is at fault when something goes horribly wrong.
Cohen begins making his underlying points early in the film as Frank Davis (John P. Ryan) discusses the state of the world with a group of expectant fathers in a hospital waiting room. They discuss the “overabundance of lead” in foods and the environment, smog, and pesticides that only serve to produce roaches that are “bigger, stronger, and harder to kill.” Frank comments that this is “quite a world to bring a kid into.” This has long been a discussion point among people when trying to decide whether to have kids or not. I’ve had many conversations with friends who have said they feel it’s irresponsible to bring children into such a violent, broken, and dangerous world, and I certainly don’t begrudge them this. My wife and I did decide to have children but that doesn’t mean that it’s been easy.
Immediately following this scene comes It’s Alive’s most famous sequence in which Frank’s wife Lenore (Sharon Farrell) is the only person left alive in her delivery room, the doctors clawed and bitten to death by her mutant baby, which has escaped. “What does my baby look like!? What’s wrong with my baby!?” she screams as nurses wheel her frantically into a recovery room. The evening that had begun with such joy and excitement at the birth of their second child turned into a nightmare. This is tough for me to write, but on some level, I can relate to this whiplash of emotion. When my second child was born, they came about five weeks early. I’ll use the pronouns “they/them” for privacy reasons when referring to my kids. Our oldest was still very young and went to stay with my parents and we sped off to the hospital where my wife was taken into an operating room for an emergency c-section. I was able to carry our newborn into the NICU (natal intensive care unit) where I was assured that this was routine for all premature births. The nurses assured me there was nothing to worry about and the baby looked big and healthy. I headed to where my wife was taken to recover to grab a few winks assuming that everything was fine. Well, when I awoke, I headed back over to the NICU to find that my child was not where I left them. The nurse found me and told me that the baby’s lungs were underdeveloped, and they had to put them in a special room connected to oxygen tubes and wires to monitor their vitals.
It’s difficult to express the fear that overwhelmed me in those moments. Everything turned out okay, but it took a while and I’m convinced to this day that their anxiety struggles spring from these first weeks of life. As our children grew, we learned that two of the three were on the spectrum and that anxiety, depression, ADHD, and OCD were also playing a part in their lives. Parents, at least speaking for myself, can’t help but blame themselves for the struggles their children face. The “if only” questions creep in and easily overcome the voices that assure us that it really has nothing to do with us. In the film, Lenore says, “maybe it’s all the pills I’ve been taking that brought this on.” Frank muses aloud about how he used to think that Frankenstein was the monster, but when he got older realized he was the one that made the monster. The aptly named Frank is wondering if his baby’s mutation is his fault, if he created the monster that is terrorizing Los Angeles. I have made plenty of “if only” statements about myself over the years. “If only I hadn’t had to work so much, if only I had been around more when they were little.” Mothers may ask themselves, “did I have a drink, too much coffee, or a cigarette before I knew I was pregnant? Was I too stressed out during the pregnancy?” In other words, most parents can’t help but wonder if it’s all their fault.
At one point in the film, Frank goes to the elementary school where his baby has been sighted and is escorted through the halls by police. He overhears someone comment about “screwed up genes,” which brings about age-old questions of nature vs. nurture. Despite the voices around him from doctors and detectives that say, “we know this isn’t your fault,” Frank can’t help but think it is, and that the people who try to tell him it isn’t really think it’s his fault too. There is no doubt that there is a hereditary element to the kinds of mental illness struggles that my children and I deal with. But, and it’s a bit but, good parenting goes a long way in helping children deal with these struggles. Kids need to know they’re not alone, a good parent can provide that, perhaps especially parents that can relate to the same kinds of struggles. The question of nature vs. nurture will likely never be entirely answered but I think there’s more than a good chance that “both/and” is the case. Around the midpoint of the film, Frank agrees to disown the child and sign it over for medical experimentation if caught or killed. Lenore and the older son Chris (Daniel Holzman) seek to nurture and teach the baby, feeling that it is not a monster, but a member of the family.
It’s Alive takes these ideas to an even greater degree in the fact that the Davis Baby really is a monster, a mutant with claws and fangs that murders and eats people. The late ’60s and early ’70s also saw the rise in mass murderers and serial killers which heightened the nature vs. nurture debate. Obviously, these people were not literal monsters but human beings that came from human parents, but something had gone horribly wrong. Often the upbringing of these killers clearly led in part to their antisocial behavior, but this isn’t always the case. It’s Alive asks “what if a ‘monster’ comes from a good home?” In this case is it society, environmental factors, or is it the lead, smog, and pesticides? It is almost impossible to know, but the ending of the film underscores an uncomfortable truth—even monsters have parents.
As the film enters its third act, Frank joins the hunt for his child through the Los Angeles sewers and into the L.A. River. He is armed with a rifle and ready to kill on sight, having divorced himself from any relationship to the child. Then Frank finds his baby crying in the sewers and his fatherly instincts take over. With tears in his eyes, he speaks words of comfort and wraps his son in his coat. He holds him close, pats and rocks him, and whispers that everything is going to be okay. People often wonder how the parents of those who perform heinous acts can sit in court, shed tears, and defend them. I think it’s a complex issue. I’m sure that these parents know that their child has done something evil, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are still their baby. Your child is a piece of yourself formed into a whole new human being. Disowning them would be like cutting off a limb, no matter what they may have done. It doesn’t erase an evil act, far from it, but I can understand the pain of a parent in that situation. I think It’s Alive does an exceptional job placing its audience in that situation.
Despite the serious issues and ideas being examined in the film, It’s Alive is far from a dour affair. At heart, it is still a monster movie and filled with a sense of fun and a great deal of pitch-black humor. In one of its more memorable moments, a milkman is sucked into the rear compartment of his truck as red blood mingles with the white milk from smashed bottles leaking out the back of the truck and streaming down the street. Just after Frank agrees to join the hunt for his baby, the film cuts to the back of an ice cream truck with the words “STOP CHILDREN” emblazoned on it. It’s a movie filled with great kills, a mutant baby—created by make-up effects master Rick Baker early in his career, and plenty of action—and all in a PG rated movie! I’m telling you, the ’70s were wild. It just also happens to have some thoughtful ideas behind it as well.
Which was Larry Cohen’s specialty. Cohen made all kinds of movies, but his most enduring have been his horror films and all of them tackle the social issues and fears of the time they were made. God Told Me To (1976), Q: The Winged Serpent (1982), and The Stuff (1985) are all great examples of his socially aware, low-budget, exploitation filmmaking with a brain and It’s Alive certainly fits right in with that group. Cohen would go on to write and direct two sequels, It Lives Again (aka It’s Alive 2) in 1978 and It’s Alive III: Island of the Alive in 1987 and is credited as a co-writer on the 2008 remake. All these films explore the ideas of parental responsibility in light of the various concerns of the times they were made including abortion rights and AIDS.
Fifty years after It’s Alive was initially released, it has only become more relevant in the ensuing years. Fears surrounding parenthood have been with us since the beginning of time but as the years pass the reasons for these fears only seem to become more and more profound. In today’s world the conversation of the fathers in the waiting room could be expanded to hormones and genetic modifications in food, terrorism, climate change, school and other mass shootings, and other threats that were unknown or at least less of a concern fifty years ago. Perhaps the fearmongering conspiracy theories about chemtrails and vaccines would be mentioned as well, though in a more satirical fashion, as fears some expectant parents encounter while endlessly doomscrolling Facebook or Twitter. Speaking for myself, despite the struggles, the fears, and the sadness that sometimes comes with having children, it’s been worth it. The joys ultimately outweigh all of that, but I understand the terror too. Becoming a parent is no easy choice, nor should it be. But as I look back, I can say that I’m glad we made the choice we did.
I wonder if Frank and Lenore can say the same thing.
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