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Member since:18.08.2001
Reviews:61
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The Cell is an odd and quite horrendous film. I thought it looked freaky when it was released in the cinema and on video so I never gave much thought to watching it. But last night I watched it on Sky Box Office because there was nothing much else to do.
Well. Yuk, yuk, creepy, gross, yuk. You’ll see why.
The Cell begins by introducing us to Catherine Deane (Jennifer Lopez), a psychotherapist who is part of a team pioneering a groundbreaking scientific psychological process. In this process, she is inserted into the mind of a comatose young boy, in order to give him therapy and try to wake him up, as it were. We are told that the team tried once before to ‘reverse the feeds’ and insert the boy into her mind, but this did not work because the boy was unsure of his surroundings. We are also told that it is possible for three people to participate in a ‘group session’. The need for this information becomes clearer later on in the film.
The story then diverts to Carl Stargher (Vincent D’Onofrio – you might know him as the bug man from Men in Black!) who is a serial killer with a very rare and dangerous type of schizophrenia.
He has been killing young girls for some time now, and as we are introduced to him he is dealing with the body of his latest victim. This collection of scenes is rather unpleasant, with shades of necrophilia and a bit where he hoists himself up into the air via hooks that he has had pierced and inserted along the back of his body. It is extremely unpleasant and as I read on Amazon, it makes Se7en look tame.
He later dumps the body of the unfortunate girl in the same manner as he has disposed of all his victims, all of whom have been completely bleached before – well - having other things done to them. The police, led by FBI agents Peter Novak (Vince Vaughn) and Gordon Ramsey (Jake Weber – if you recognise him from somewhere, he played Drew in Meet Joe Black – this was frustrating me all through the movie), find the body and manage to trace Carl by some dog hair found near the body, shed from Carl's pet albino Alsatian. Just as the police raid his home, something occurs in Carl’s brain - I presume some sort of haemorrhage or aneurysm - due to his rare condition and he slides into a state that is more pronounced than being catatonic. As put by the doctor who examines him, ‘he’s disappeared’ and it seems he is not likely to return.
However, the night before this incident, Carl kidnapped another girl and took her to his torture-chamber-type-thing, out in the middle of nowhere. The FBI know that they have little more than 40 hours to find her before she will die. Carl puts his victims into large glass cells that gradually and automatically fill with water until the victim drowns. He records all of this by CCTV while he is not there, then watches the videos while he ‘attends’ to the victims later on. Yuk, yuk and more yuk.
The police then get referred to the team who have been practising the mind-entering therapy. Catherine agrees to enter Carl’s mind in order to try and find out where he has hidden his last victim. I won’t go any further than that because it will spoil the story, but I will explain to you briefly some of the things that happen – mainly because I would have liked to have known about them before I decided to watch the film.
As the latter half of the film takes place primarily in Carl Stargher’s mind, you can expect some rather unpleasant goings-on. But, trust me, they are very disgusting and quite nauseating. There is an unpleasant incident with a horse, which actually made my stomach churn and made me feel physically sick. There is a chamber in Carl’s mind filled with hybrid woman-machine things that look like something out of a Marilyn Manson video, only more hardcore. Later, someone is subjected to a medieval torture method which consists of winding one's intestines slowly out of one's bellybutton using a barbed hot metal spike. In Carl’s mind, he visualises himself as some sort of king in a terrifying kingdom, and this means he is seen in a number of nightmarish get-ups that involve a monstrous voice, inhuman strength, a larger body and some really outlandish costumes. Quite terrifying, actually.
However, the shocking scenes do not take place only in Carl’s mind. The scenes that illustrate him dealing with his victim at the beginning of the film are really unpleasant, bordering on controversial, and you consequently wonder why someone thought this up as a form of entertainment (the writer is Mark Protosevich and the director is Tarsem Singh).
This film is shocking, filled with horrific scenes and unpleasant incidents and is definitely not for the faint-hearted. I doubt that I will ever watch it again unless I am tied to a chair and made to, and even then I think I would shut my eyes and try to go to sleep. It’s quite horrid and though the premise is very interesting with some great acting and magnificent cinematography, the things that happen are just too horrible to make me watch it again.
No guesses as to what rating it is.
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Schizoid serial killer Carl Stargher (Vincent D'Onofrio) has been captured at last, but a ... more
neurological seizure has rendered him comatose, and FBI agent Peter Novak (Vince Vaughan) has no way to determine the location of Stargher's latest and still-livi...
Postage & Packaging: £1.21 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Schizoid serial killer Carl Stargher (Vincent D'Onofrio) has been captured at last, but a ... more
neurological seizure has rendered him comatose, and FBI agent Peter Novak (Vince Vaughan) has no way to determine the location of Stargher's latest and still-livi...
Postage & Packaging: Free! Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours...
Jennifer Lopez takes a terrifying journey into the mind of a killer in this chilling ... more
critically acclaimed psychological thriller. When serial killer Carl Stargher (Vincent D’Onofrio) falls into a coma before his last victim can be found a chi...
Postage & Packaging: £0.00 Availability: 3-5 working days
Jennifer Lopez ('Out Of Sight', 'Selena') takes a terrifying journey into the mind of a ... more
killer in this chilling, critically acclaimed psychological thriller.When a serial killer Vincent D'Onofrio ('The Thirteenth Floor', 'Men In Black') falls into a co...
Advantages: Surreality, Jennifer Lopez, Truly original film-making. Disadvantages: The subject matter clearly makes some people uncomfortable, and it's quite scary in parts.
VincentM-M 13.11.2001 ·
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of The Cell (DVD)
Advantages: Surreality, Jennifer Lopez, Truly original film-making. Disadvantages: The subject matter clearly makes some people uncomfortable, and it's quite scary in parts.
VincentM-M 13.11.2001 ·
Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of The Cell (DVD)
![The Cell [DVD] [2000]](http://picnica.ciao.com/uk/78539574.jpg "The Cell [DVD] [2000]")
Sep 27th, 2001
very helpful by (100%):
