The Vault: Unearthing Forgotten Films (…So You Don’t Have To!)

25th November 2013

By Sebastian Skelton.

The Cell (2000)

Yes, he sometimes rather pretentiously credits himself on his films by just his first name.

And yes, his films are usually bonkers and are regarded by many as largely style over substance.

And yet there is no doubt that director Tarsem Singh is capable of bringing some truly great visuals to the screen. Before the spring-legged dwarves of Mirror Mirror (2012), Mickey Rourke cosplaying Cut Man in Immortals (2011) or Charles Darwin sporting an extravagant peacock patterned pink fur coat in The Fall (2006), there was the equally bizarre and no less audacious movie called The Cell.

On the surface it was perhaps Tarsem’s most conventional. As a debut feature he knew that anything too weird would be a hard sell for both investors and audiences alike. He even admitted later that he took on the project simply because serial killer movies were all the rage at that time, but on the flipside there was one crucial story element in the script that made the project very attractive for him… it featured a device that allows somebody to dive into the subconscious of another.

What did that mean for him? Lots of weird and wonderful dream sequences! In other words, it gave him licence to pretty much go crazy with the visuals and do whatever he wanted.

The story itself is fairly straightforward. Vincent D’Onofrio (on fine creepy form) plays a serial killer who likes to kidnap and film his victims drowning in huge tanks that are fully automated to gradually fill up with water over the course of 40 hours. Soon after nabbing his latest victim, he is hunted down and apprehended by FBI agent Vince Vaughn, but not before slipping into a coma relating to an existing medical condition. With the race on to find the missing girl in time, it’s up to child therapist Jennifer Lopez to use the aforementioned experimental procedure to delve into the serial killer’s disturbed mind to obtain the relevant information.

Cue a whole host of unsettling dreamlike imagery, crazy costumes, awesome make-up and (for the most part) jaw dropping special effects as J-Lo journeys deeper into the killer’s fractured psyche. There are grotesque human dolls, a dissected living horse, a topless female bodybuilder, J-Lo dressed as the Virgin Mary and Vincent D’Onofrio looking like Killer Croc in just one of his many diabolic incarnations. Admittedly, some of the CGI looks a bit dated now (the seizure-inducing computer generated ‘psychedelic patterns’ sequence come to mind) but the majority of it still look pretty good today and must have been truly mind-blowing at the time.

Sure, the story is hokey, the acting serviceable and it can be argued that much of the disturbing imagery is put there just for shock value rather than having a deeper meaning – but its quite rare to see a movie like this just being so unfettered in its creativity in regard to the production design and visuals. Tarsem was clearly having a lot of fun with this one.

So is the The Cell purely style over substance? To a certain degree you may be right. But it features an automated death machine that predates the Saw movies, invasions of the subconscious mind that predates Inception, J-Lo in more costume changes than any of her music videos and a fond look at just how skinny Vince Vaughn was back in the day.

It’s not a brilliant movie by any stretch, or even one of Tarsem’s best (The Fall comes recommended) but if you feel in the mood for a slightly cheesy special effects laden psycho-thriller – check out The Cell.

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