John Carpenter's Cigarette Burns

The bankrupted owner of the movie theater Vogue, Kirby Sweetman (Norman Reedus), is hired by the eccentric private collector Mr. Bellinger (Udo Kier) to search and find the cursed horror movie "Le Fin Absolue du Monde". This film is considered lost and magic, and has been presented only once in the Sitges Festival, driving the audience insane and violent, causing bloodshed in the theater. The director, crew and everybody involved in its production has also died. Kirby owes US$ 200,000.00 to his father-in-law, who blames Kirby for the death of his daughter Annie (Zara Taylor), and accepts the assignment to pay his debt and for his own satisfaction. Bellinger shows him a souvenir from the film in his basement, a chained angel that had his wings torn off in the movie. Kirby travels to France to meet his contact and has glimpses of his beloved Annie, initiating his journey to hell.

"Cigarette Burns" is the best episode of "Masters of Horror" so far among the ones that I have watched. The dark story slightly recalls in some moments "In the Mouth of Madness", also directed by the awesome John Carpenter, the best director of horror movies that should win an Oscar for his magnificent filmography and contribution to this genre. The uncomfortable and surrealistic story has the atmosphere of a nightmare, with excellent performances, and a great potential of cult-movie. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Pesadelo Mortal" ("Mortal Nightmare")

A film collector/sleuth accepts an assignment from an eccentric millionaire to locate a notorious film that caused mass hysteria and madness upon it's one and only showing. As he gets nearer to finding it he experiences the film's profound effects and the horror it possesses.

A good and original horror story gets supreme treatment from a master horror director. Striking images (one in particular) fuel this intriguing story which builds good momentum and climaxes in a very satisfying and bloody way. People have noted the similarities between this film and Carpenter's earlier In the Mouth of Madness but when all is said and done this is pretty effective stuff and handled beautifully by Carpenter. One scene is as gruesome as they come and I'm amazed it wasn't edited out since this is a TV movie. It could easily be stretched out for feature length and that's maybe it's only problem; it unveils too fast.

Although not written by Carpenter this still feels and looks like a film made by him. Highly recommended.

This is what John Carpenter needed after Escape from L. A. He didn't need to keep trying to make big films after his largest production bombed critically and commercially. He didn't need to try and keep making action films into his 60s. He needed to pull back and find the kind of filmmaking language that he started with, crafting a more focused and less ambitiously scoped story on a smaller scale, and the Masters of Horror television show on Showtime seems like it was a good place for him to land. The script by Drew McWeeny and Rebecca Swan, squeezing what could easily have been a short feature film into fifty minutes, provides that kind of canvas Carpenter needed to possibly reinvigorate himself creatively.

Kirby Sweetman (Norman Reedus) is the owner of a small independent theater who has a side gig of tracking down hard to find film prints for independent collectors. He arrives one night at the home of Mr. Bellinger (Udo Kier) who invites him to find La Fin Absolue du Monde, a film of almost mythic proportions that there are questions about whether it exists at all. It was shown publicly only once, and the screening ending in violence within the crowd. With a promise of $200,000, Sweetman accepts the job. The only real issue with this opening is that it is just a mountain of exposition all delivered really quickly and purely through dialogue.

Another small issue with the movie's opening minutes is that the character introduction of Kirby actually comes after the plot introduction. All we learn about him in the opening scene is part of his profession (tracking down prints), but his past is completely unexplained. However, immediately after this scene with Mr. Bellinger we do get that introduction, and it's kind of weirdly delivered. Kirby was married to the daughter of a rich man, and they were both druggies. In an effort to straighten both Kirby and his daughter out, the father gave Kirby $200,000 to buy the theater, but the daughter ended up committing suicide anyway. Told in fractured moments as brief flashbacks, the information does get laid out, but it's just kind of weirdly delivered.

The movie picks up when Kirby flies to Paris to begin his search. The horror elements up to this moment had been an overall sense of mood that things weren't really right, highlighted by the moment Mr. Bellinger shows his angelic prisoner with obvious stumps where the wings he has on display in his office were once attached. The sense of unease heightens with the first appearance of the titular cigarette burns. On film prints, there are small circles in the upper right corner at two points near the end of every reel to help the projectionist time the switch from one reel to the next (usually done with dual projectors side by side, turning one on and the other off at the same time). The movie's rumored power begins manifesting in the form of cigarette burns that Kirby sees in his day to day life, combined with images of his past centered on his dead wife, and it's where the movie's horror elements really begin to ramp up.

Kirby's search takes him to an archivist in Paris who seems to have some knowledge of La Fin Absolue du Monde, but he's unwilling to speak much beyond vagaries. When Kirby wrings the next steps out of him, Kirby heads to the French countryside to meet some shady guys with connections to the estate of the film's director, Hans Backovic. Thing get weirder with a kidnapping and a mysterious escape that leads Kirby to British Columbia where Hans' widow, Katja, lives.

As the film moved from Canada back to Los Angeles, Kirby having accomplished his mission, I was really grooving with this film. The awkward opening was well behind me, and everything seemed to be coming together into a great, small, and cohesive horror experience. And then the ending, while gruesome and somewhat effective, ended up feeling a bit too pat, and I think that's mostly because of the limited runtime. The part that felt the least natural dealt with Kirby's father-in-law, showing up where he probably shouldn't show up, and the horror of La Fin Absolue du Monde feeling rather generic in nature rather than penetrating to the core of Kirby's character. It's an effective enough ending from a thrills point of view, but the movie seemed to be using the journey as an excuse to dig into this character and his fears. The ending, while using the ephemera of his past, ends up feeling more generic than actually about it, like the movie within the movie is just using the iconography of Kirby's past to attack him instead of finding the things that matter most to him and really tearing him apart from the inside, which seemed to be the implication of the idea of La Fin Absolue du Monde based on all that had been spoken about it.

The episode of television lacks Carpenter's voice, but it is proof positive that he could take a solid script and turn it into a solid piece of cinema. He didn't elevate it, but he did make the most of what was there.

This is the first "Masters of Horror" episode that I've watched and I thought it was a fairly cool and creepy little story. It reminded me of The Ninth Gate, only this time, instead of books, the search was for a very rare movie called La Fin Absolue Du Monde, or The Absolute End of the World. The movie was said to be so powerful, so evil, that anyone who watched it turned violently insane. The man who wants this notorious film is played by Udo Kier, who is always fun to watch and has great expressions. The rest of the cast is adequate and Carpenter's direction is mostly solid, though it doesn't really feel like a Carpenter picture. His son, Cody, composed the music, which fit the short quite well; it was like the Halloween theme with a touch of Goblin.

Cigarette Burns was a TV production and unfortunately, it felt like one. I think it would've been better suited as a full length feature, where the characterization and plot could be fleshed out further and fine tuned, instead of trying to cram everything into under an hour. Still, it was an admirable effort and the material is definitely interesting (I especially liked the angel subplot). And with the gore, crazy scenes, and several nods to horror fans, collectors, and cinema itself, Cigarette Burns turned out to be a pretty entertaining little picture.

The DVD has many extras (and Easter Eggs), including a commentary with the director and one with the writers. Carpenter's has a few fun moments but going by it and his interviews on the disc, he just doesn't seem to care much anymore. The writers, Scott Swan and Drew McWeeny (McWeeny…hehe), were a lot more excited and hopefully we'll see good things from them in the future. I see they're currently writing the script for the remake of Race with the Devil.

Wow. I was not ready for what this compact hour contained. So much more imaginatively written and better directed and acted than any crap that has passed for horror in the past 30 years.

I have seen most of J. Carpenter's films, some I like, some I don't. But with this piece he has surpassed not only himself but most horror films made either for theaters or TV.

It is hard to write about and describe because it is best to not give away too much, other than the premise involves a rare film that was shown only once, and it caused a riot to erupt in the theater, with deaths involved. The protagonist is hired to find the only known remaining print of the film, and finds himself drawn into something that was much more than he bargained for. Is there something supernatural involved? Does the film drive people insane? How can this be?

In some respects, there are more questions at the the end that remain unanswered. But, as with the best films, that's the way it should be; it stays with you, haunts you, and nags at your brain -- just like the legendary film within the film, "Le Fin Absolue du Monde."

Totally stunning, horrifying and awe-inspiring. A day later, I still can't shake it from my mind.