Eighteenth Angel, The (1997)

reviewed by
Richard Scheib


THE EIGHTEENTH ANGEL

USA. 1997. Director - William Brindley, Screenplay - David Seltzer, Producers - Douglas Curtis & William Hart, Photography - Thomas E. Ackerman, Music - Jeff Eden Fair & Dtarr Parodi, Visual Effects Supervisor - Jon Townley, Visual Effects - L2 Visual Effects, Digital Visual Effects D.Rez Hollywood (Supervisor - Howard Minkov), Special Effects - Richard Jones & Germano Natali, Makeup Effects - Kurtzman, Nicotero and Berger EFX Group Inc, Production Design - Stefano Maria Ortolani, Prague Clock Design - Gene Young Effects. Production Company - Rysher Entertainment. Christopher McDonald (Hugh Stanton), Rachael Leigh Cook (Lucy Stanton), Maximilian Schell (Father Simeon), Enrica Maria Modugna (Maria Elena), Wendy Crewson (Norah Stanton), Stanley Tucci (Dr Todd Housen), Francesca De Capro (Gabriella), Branislav Tesanovic (Damiano), Stefano Vitali (Massimo Pena), Cosimo Fusco (Florian)

Plot: Beautiful fifteen year-old Lucy Stanton is offered a modelling course in Rome. But then her mother, who opposes the idea and is also digging up connections between the millenial prophecies of an astonomical clock predicting the return of Satan and their connection to an ancient order of Estruscan monks, falls from a roof in mysterious circumstances. Lucy's father Hugh agrees to go after he is offered the opportunity to study music at an Italian monastery. But amid a series of mysterious deaths, Hugh begins to discover that the monastery is really a part of the Estrucan order who are preparing the way for the coming of Satan, one which requires the bodies of eighteen beautiful girls to be offered for Satan to choose one to incarnate in, and that Lucy has been selected as one of these `angels'.

`The Eighteenth Angel' comes from screenwriter David Seltzer. Seltzer has written various films like `Lucas' (1986), `Punchline' (1988) and `Bird on a Wire' (1990) but is principally remembered for `The Omen' (1976). And maybe if `The Eighteenth Angel' if had come from someone other than Seltzer, it might have seemed a competent copy of `The Omen'. But coming from Seltzer it reads as a pallid and unimaginative attempt to rehash the same plot all over again. The points of similarity often become tedious - another plot concerning the Biblical End of the World and the birth of Satan in the form of a young child; a sinisterly conspiring coven within the Catholic church - who also hide in an ancient monastery in the Italian hillside; gory showcase deaths to those who get in the way of the Satanic master plan; killer animals in the service of The Devil - dogs in `The Omen', killer cats here; evil servants and so forth. Plus an almost identical twist ending.

Seltzer, it seems - both here, in `The Omen' and in his 1979 eco-horror film `Prophecy' (1979) - has a kind of wild-eyed sackcloth-and-ashes prophet's fascination with the imminently apocalyptic. `The Omen' had an audacious kind of originality to it with Seltzer whipping a frenzied hodgepodge of fundamentalist End Times prophecies into a lunatic horror show which was subsequently given a sheen of respectability by an A-budget treatment which with a high-profile advertizing campaign succeeded in making it a major hit. It was endlessly imitated.`The Eighteenth Angel' comes across as a proficient and well-budgeted copy but alas one where Seltzer, in revisiting the material, does absolutely nothing new with it. There's a minimal thematic difference - `The Omen' featured merely an evil child while `The Eighteenth Angel' raises the age of the child a few years and features the potentially more intriguing corruption of an innocent theme (although again does absolutely nothing with it).

Almost as though he has failed to understand anything that made `The Omen' work, Seltzer fumbles all his cues here. The plot gives away all its surprises at the very beginning - the opening narration tells us all about the ancient Etruscan order and the need for eighteen angels to incarnate the Devil. A far more effective story would have enwrapped one in its mysteriousness and then slowly unveiled each surprise as it went along. Nor is Seltzer very clear about what the Satanic master plan actually entails - something to do with genetic engineering and the need for eighteen maidens who, for reasons unexplained, have to have their faces sliced off and transplanted onto corpses.

Where the film seems almost to work is in its A-budget polish - it is very nicely scored and photographed - and in director Brindley's often quite effective handling. Where Seltzer offers up predictable twists, Brindley at least crafts them with a sinister edge. There is one memorably way-out showcase death with a character being caught up in and hung in the bridles between two galloping black horses. Unlike `The Omen', which succeeded for much these same reasons, however Seltzer's plot is a second-hand copy of his own material that lacks the fire that made the original a success.

Copyright 1998 Richard Scheib


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