John Carpenter's Cigarette Burns

Several years ago I read a quote by Carpenter where he said that he did not understand how a film like " The Ring" can be considered to be a true horror film. I think that this short certainly backs up his vision of horror and I must agree. "Burns" is a cross between the aforementioned "The Ring" and 1 of Carpenter's best works in recent years..."In the Mouth of Madness". Carpenter's horror is not suggestive, it is in your face. A true non-conformist, he is amongst my favorite filmmakers and in a time when being PC has brought us to new levels of bland. Carpenter is the one filmmaker that will give his unabated opinion on the state of film without it having to go through a publicist first. Like his movies or not, he is an original American talent. And for the record, his 1982 remake of "The Thing" goes down as one of the underrated horror films of all time. As a remake, it is one of the best that has ever been done in the genre, that is something that these director's of 70's remakes i.e ..Hills, Massacre, Omen....can learn from. If you are going to do a remake...REMAKE IT..not copy it! Kudos to Mr. Carpenter.

"Cigarette Burns" is a wonderful tale from John Carpenter that was a delight to watch.

This "Masters of Horror" episode is dark and grim. It's both surreal and frighteningly real, like a bad nightmare. There are images contained in this hour of television that are original and shocking.

Carpenter's touches are filled with a wicked sense of humour. For those cynics who state that this master has lost his earlier powers of film-making, watch this episode! Udo Kier is creepy as hell in this tale and Norman Reedus is gripping as the lead character.

Surprisingly violent and challenging, "Cigarette Burns" is a very strong entry in the "Masters of Horror" series.

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")

Kirby (Norman Reedus) is an esoteric film fan who runs a revival house and occasional makes an extra buck by tracking down prints for rare films for clients. He is licking the wounds left by the suicide of his junkie girlfriend and trying to pay off her father who gave him cash to open the revival theatre. If things couldn't get any worse his life takes a detour into the surreal when a rich, eccentric buff (the devilish Udo Kier) who wants a particular film. The rare film has the dubious honor of playing once at a festival and seemingly disappearing forever. The one showing however drove the audience to murder. The film's devilish grip changes anyone who even thinks about it let alone sees it.

John Carpenter comes back in full force in this excellent episode of Showtime's 'Masters of Horror' series. Carpenter revisits the territory of the weird that he explored with 'In the Mouth of Madness' and throws in a little Dario Argento to sweeten the deal (the music score done by Carpenter's son Cody screams 'Suspiria') and comes away with one of the best projects he's ever done, certainly the best in years. The acting is top notch with genre fave Kier doing what he does best. I highly recommend 'Cigarette Burns'

Cigarette Burns is one of the more entertainingly shocking little horror films I've seen in a while. It's only an hour long, but it still kind of sits well in that area between a short film and a 'real' feature-length film. If anything a story like this could be made into a slightly longer film (whether it would be better or give more chances for fright I don't know). But for TV it's pretty amazing stuff, mostly as it builds and builds in the climax. What was interesting too was watching the DVD extras and seeing Carpenter's own view on some of the film's clichéd sayings about how 'film can change you', which even he admits is BS. To him, the whole Le Fin Absolue du Monde part of the story could be anything supernatural (and its practically a retread of similar material from In the Mouth of Madness) or anything that keeps the plot moving along. It's a MacGuffin that does have a need to actually be seen by the audience- if not the audience's in the film then us watching at home- but when it is it's genuinely creative in an ironic way.

Norman Reedus proves he can act with a good script and defined character as a theater owner and rare-film buff who meets up with a spooky collector (Udo Kier as usual quite creepy and darkly funny in equal measure) who wants him to track down the obscure French film titled The Absolute End of the World, which only screened once to a violent crowd. But right off the bat things don't seem right as Kier's character keeps a living 'Angel' from the film's production with its wings clipped off. As Reedus goes deeper into the search, he then starts to realize its effect as it stirs up old rotten memories into his consciousness. Carpenter deals with the dialog scenes really quite well, and it's refreshing to see him direct more realistic scenes here and there as opposed to his recent films where style and flash trumps the words. And there really can't be enough said about Gregory Nicotero's make-up, which is there at best to totally supply Carpenter with what he needs to work off his visual scares.

And towards the end, as Kier finally gets a print of the film in his possession, it really is some of the more freaky, bloody, and unexpected scenes in a Carpenter work I've seen since the Thing just for sheer visceral impact. Without giving away too much, it does kind of border on the obvious of what might occur with some of the characters. But the way the actors pull it off corresponds well with how the 'MacGuffin' is finally shown, as a rip-off on pretentious violent art-film tripe that had me grinning as I cringed. Cigarette Burns is a successful little pot-boiler that probably might work better for Carpenter fans and those who find 'cult films' fascinating as the subject matter.