Editorials
Now Streaming on Amazon Prime, Tarsem Singh’s Visionary ‘The Cell’ is Begging for Rediscovery
You wouldn’t necessarily expect to revisit a Jennifer Lopez horror movie from the year 2000 and discover that it’s pretty great, but here we are. The Cell is pretty great, you guys.
When it was released back in August 2000, Tarsem Singh‘s The Cell wasn’t exactly a big time hit with critics, but it did have one unlikely ally in its corner: Roger Ebert. Unlikely, I note, because Ebert was notoriously unkind to horror films throughout his career, making no secret of the fact that he wasn’t the genre’s biggest champion. But Ebert took to The Cell, going so far as to label it “one of the best films of the year.”
The late Roger Ebert wrote in his August 2000 review, “We live in a time when Hollywood shyly ejects weekly remakes of dependable plots, terrified to include anything that might confuse the dullest audience member. Into this wilderness comes a movie like The Cell, which is challenging, wildly ambitious and technically superb.”
Indeed The Cell is all of these things, a visually sumptuous horror movie that unquestionably served as an influence on everything from Bryan Fuller’s “Hannibal” to Ryan Murphy’s “American Horror Story.” In the film, Jennifer Lopez plays a sort of new age Clarice Starling as Catherine Deane, a social worker who is quite literally able to enter the minds of comatose persons thanks to an experimental technology that links brains and shares feeds. Deane’s next patient? Twisted serial killer Carl Stargher (a brilliantly unnerving Vincent D’Onofrio), whose sleeping mind is a memory palace filled with nightmarish delights. The goal? To find his next victim, a young woman who will soon drown inside of Stargher’s automated torture device.
The most common criticism of The Cell, both when it was released and still 18 years later, is that it’s a case of style over substance, and one thing about the film is for certain: it’s oozing with style, so much so that it edges on the precipice of being a full-on art film when it expands beyond its crime thriller trappings. The film’s set-up suggests a familiar approach, with the FBI tracking down a demented killer, but The Cell really comes alive whenever it plunges headfirst into that killer’s mind. At its boldest points, and its comfortable being bold most of its runtime, The Cell is way more Nightmare on Elm Street than it is Silence of the Lambs, with breathtaking set design and costuming ensuring that the style *is* the substance.
The Cell is loaded with no shortage of unforgettable nightmare imagery, much of it inspired by famous works of art, with various different versions of Carl Stargher lurking around every corner of that nightmarescape as a sort of Freddy Krueger for a new generation. At some points, Stargher appears to Catherine as an frightened child, while other forms represent an idealized version of himself that it is at times regal and at others downright demonic. D’Onofrio absolutely owns the role no matter which version of the character he’s tasked with playing, turning Stargher into one of the strongest horror villains of that time.
And make no mistake, though the style of The Cell is the primary calling card that elevates it to being a standout horror film of the early 2000s, it’s not as bereft of substance as many would lead you to believe. Underneath all the vividly alluring nightmare fuel and dream logic lies a story of an abused young boy turned into a monster by his own father, and the woman who’s desperately trying to contact the goodness within him in an attempt to save the life of his next victim. By the time Catherine “reverses the feed” and pulls Carl into an imaginary world of her own creation, bravely butchering one of his demonic forms like a total badass while taking on an angelic form herself to drown the young version of Carl and free him from his own mind, it’s clear that Tarsem Singh wasn’t solely interested in showing you pretty pictures. Monsters aren’t born but created, and The Cell‘s final act slays its beast in touching fashion.
Sure, The Cell would be little more than an “FBI hunts serial killer” tale if stripped of its particular brand of style, but the fact remains that Tarsem Singh’s visionary flourishes are there and on full display, taking that procedural familiarity to a whole new level by merging it with a different sort of movie entirely. By Singh’s own description, The Cell is horror opera; it’s big, bold and impossible to ignore, perhaps even moreso in 2018 than when it came out.
The problem with filming sequels back-to-back is that, unless you can afford expensive reshoots, there’s no easy way to adjust course in between movies if fans react badly to where the story is headed. That’s why it’s important to have a complete narrative thought out well in advance lest you accidentally kill a budding franchise.
However, this isn’t always the case. Every once in a while, it seems like the cinema gods smile upon certain chaotic productions and gift moviegoers with complete franchises that feel like more than the sum of their hastily produced parts. Ted Nicolaou’s Bloodlust: Subspecies III is precisely one of these miraculous pictures, with the raw talents of the artists involved (as well as the continued support from Romania) turning the feature into an effective conclusion for a series that kind of made things up as the filmmakers went along.
That’s why I’d like to invite my fellow readers to join me on this third part of our journey through the Subspecies franchise as we look into Bloodlust and talk about how it remains a surprisingly satisfying finale to the original trilogy.
A Trilogy Planned on the Fly
Released only a year after Bloodstone found plenty of success in rental stores and mail-in VHS catalogues worldwide, 1994’s Bloodlust was produced at the same time as its predecessor in (mostly) the same locations and with the same team. This means that the movie benefited from all the same upgrades as Bloodstone, with the crew now being more experienced with the ins and outs of surviving a low-budget Romanian production and the cast really settling into their characters.
At this point, everything from location scouting to the makeup process had been streamlined, with Wayne Toth and Norman Cabrera, the main duo behind special effects, even switching out time-consuming prosthetics for latex gloves in order to speed up Anders Hove’s monstrous transformation. The titular “subspecies” demons were also once again relegated to a mere cameo appearance due to the laborious puppetry required to bring them to life.
The only real hiccup came from the fact that actress Denice Duff had replaced the first film’s Michelle (Laura Mae Tate) and was immediately expected to portray the character as both an innocent victim in part II and as a secondary villain in part III. According to behind-the-scenes interviews, the hectic production schedule that blended two different movies meant that Duff would often find herself having to alternate between two incredibly different versions of Michelle during the same shooting day – though it’s obvious that she’s having more fun with Bloodlust’s more traditionally vampiric version of her character.
In the finished film, we pick things up immediately where the previous entry left off as Rebecca (Melanie Shatner) is forced to leave her vampire sister Michelle (Duff) behind in the dungeons of Castle Vladislav due to the rising sun. This allows Mummy (Pamela Gordon) to use Michelle’s blood to revive the vicious Radu (Hove) so that he may continue his quest for the coveted Bloodstone – a magical artifact that perpetually drips the Blood of Saints.
Meanwhile, the dreamy US embassy agent Mel (Kevin Blair) agrees to help Rebecca plan a rescue mission, though they’re unaware that Radu has become infatuated with Michelle during his attempts to guide her growing bloodlust. This all culminates in a climactic confrontation meant to tie up all of the series’ loose ends in one of Full Moon Pictures’ most ambitious productions.
The Evolution of Radu
Like its predecessor, Bloodlust: Subspecies III was also warmly received by fans who argued that the series was an even bigger success than Full Moon’s other major horror franchise, Puppet Master. This praise wasn’t unanimous, however, as 1994 had seen the rise of a more modern breed of sexy vampire popularized by Anne Rice, with old-school Nosferatu like Radu being viewed as obsolete when compared to the likes of Lestat and Gary Oldman’s take on Dracula.
In a way, one might argue that Nicolaou’s film is something of a swan song for the classic vampire story, as Bloodlust combines all of the traditional elements we tend to associate with these tales into a single tragic yarn that ties a neat little bow on Radu’s story as well as the old-fashioned monster movies that he represents. The finale remains shocking despite the fact that this is the third time we see Radu get brutally killed onscreen, with the brief tease that he may one day return feeling more like a nod towards the nature of evil rather than sequel bait.
The film dabbles a bit in gothic romance and even explores the inherent power fantasy behind transforming into an immortal creature of the night, but the filmmakers never lose sight of Radu as a demonic force even when he’s willing to betray his beloved Mummy for Michelle’s sake. In fact, his twisted “love” for his fledgling makes him even creepier as we get the feeling that his passion comes from a dark and disturbing place.
Anders Hove is at his absolute best in this film, with the effects department boosting his moments of what the younger generation would call “aura farming” whenever Radu emerges from shadows like a 90s version of Count Orlok. There are even a couple of surprisingly effective jump-scares here, which is why I’d argue that Bloodlust cements Radu as one of the most memorable cinematic vampires of all time despite his humble origins.
Subspecies Saves Its Best For Last
Nicolaou and Vlad Panescu also saved the best for “last” (more on that in a bit) regarding the film’s visuals, with the cinematography and overall atmosphere of Bloodlust absolutely surpassing what we saw in the previous films. Everything feels appropriately climactic this time around (including the wonderful soundtrack that was co-composed alongside an authentic Romanian orchestra), and I appreciate how this is the fastest-paced entry in the trilogy since the film doesn’t need to waste time setting anything up.
Bloodlust still suffers from some of the same low-budget blemishes as its predecessors, but there’s so much creative passion here that no amount of wonky effects work or stilted dialogue can get in the way of appreciating the flick’s gothic grandeur. That’s why it’s not surprising that the movie’s definitive(-ish) ending would later be retconned as fans begged for more Radu.
Of course, the next entry in this series would be a different kind of vampiric endeavor altogether, with the filmmakers attempting to engage with the same trends that ultimately killed Radu and his antiquated kin. That, however, is a story for another time. For now, I’ll merely insist that Bloodlust: Subspecies III remains a highlight of Full Moon’s expansive catalogue and is definitely worth seeking out today.
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