Horror / Supernatural
The Cast: Richard Gere, Stephen Dorff, Hayley Atwell, Alfred Molina, Armie Hammer
The Director: Scott Derrickson
The Screenwriter: D.R. Cobb
The Plot:
Father Pleasance (Richard Gere) invites Professor Jameson (Alfred Molina), a small group of fellow academic types, and a few students to investigate a mysterious cylinder found in the basement of an abandoned Detroit, Michigan church. The cylinder contains a swirling green liquid. Among the group of academics is a professor in metaphysics, Michael Reno (Stephen Dorff) and his girlfriend Caroline Leach (Hayley Atwell).
They find ancient-looking writings engraved on the wall next to the cylinder. After many hours of thorough research of both the writings and the liquid, Father Pleasance comes to believe that the liquid is, in fact, Satan. They set up a laboratory inside the church. The liquid appears to be sentient and begins producing increasingly complex data that is revealed by one of the students, David (Armie Hammer), through computer decoding to include incredibly complex differential equations.
Over the period of two days, small discharges of liquid escape the cylinder and possess the group one by one, using them against the remaining survivors. Their attempts to escape the building are prevented by a group of possessed homeless people surrounding it, who kill two of the academics.
Jameson and Pleasance theorize that Satan is actually the son of an even more powerful force of evil, the "Anti-God", who is bound to a realm of anti-matter. The survivors all have the same dream, apparently a transmission sent as a warning from the future year "two-zero-one-nine", showing a shaky sequence of a shadowy figure emerging from the doors of the church. The group discovers that they are all having the same dream and discuss it's meaning. They think that the dream is meant as some sort of a warning. David doesn't have the dream, as was up all night trying to make sense of the equations created by the liquid.
That evening, the cylinder opens fully and the entire remaining liquid is absorbed into the body of David who becomes the physical vessel for Satan: A gruesomely disfigured being, with powers of telekinesis and regeneration, who attempts to bring the Anti-God through a dimensional portal using a mirror (initially failing because the mirror is too small). Satan soon finds a large wall mirror in the former priest's chambers, and begins to draw the Anti-God's hand through it as most of the group are caught up in fights with the other possessed members, during which Jameson is killed.
Caroline is the only one free to act, and tackles the possessed student, both of them falling through the portal. Father Pleasance then shatters the mirror, trapping Satan, the Anti-God and Caroline in the other realm. Caroline reaches out to the portal before it closes, leaving her in darkness. With Satan and the Anti-God trapped in the other dimension, the possessed die, the street people wander away, Father Pleasance and Michael (the only survivors) are finally able to escape, relieved that the evil has been, at least temporarily, defeated. In the other dimension (in which everything is covered in oil that rains down upon the realm), Satan and the Anti-God torture Caroline, and it is revealed that she is just one of many humans being tortured there.
Michael has the dream again, except that Caroline is now the figure emerging from the building. He appears to awaken, and rolls over to find Caroline, gruesomely disfigured, lying in bed with him. He then wakes up screaming, gets up (not noticing the oil stains on his bed), and approaches his bedroom mirror and reaches his hand out.
Stark’s Comment:"Cobb’s debut in CMP as screenwriter. And he has chosen a difficult genre for his debut. Another ‘hit or miss’ release that makes this first week of the Season an uncertain one in terms of box office."
BOX OFFICE: $29 million. Net Losses: $4 million.
Stark's Reaction:
"I don’t know why, but it is almost a tradition that new CMP’s writers make their debut with a box office’s flop. Well, this one was a difficult product to sell… At least, net losses have been very low. A harder week than expected at box office to begin the new Season…"
