Secrets of the Code

I'm still scarred from watching Geraldo Rivera hype it up before opening Al Capone's safe and finding it completely empty. And there I was, like so many schmucks in America, sitting there feeling as if I'd just wasted an hour and a half. Since then, anything that purports to give me the inside dope on anything I always approach with a certain amount of skepticism--even this feature-length film, which is based on one of the many books that tried to capitalize on the phenomenal success of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code.

"Secrets of the Code" is based on the best-selling book of the same name by Dan Burstein. Resistant to phenomena as I am, I refused to read Brown's book, and of course stayed away from the cottage industry of related books that sprung up around it, including Burstein's. But I have seen the movie starring Tom Hanks, and my wife (who did read the novel) filled in the gaps for me. So I have a pretty good idea of what's going on.

But to be honest, you really don't have to have a deep understanding of either of the Dan's books to realize that "Secrets of the Code," which is narrated by Susan Sarandon, isn't a great documentary.

What my wife hoped for and what I expected was a film that walks you through the clues that Robert Langdon finds in the Louvre involving Leonardo Da Vinci, secret societies, and the Holy Grail. What we got, especially in the first half of this haphazardly constructed documentary, was a rather vague (and "out there") tutorial on the sacred feminine and general background on early Christianity. While there's some attention to the symbols, nothing is in order, nothing is explored in any depth, and whole paintings and clues from the book are omitted.

Every documentary lives and dies on the basis of its talking heads, and this one offers a group that seems instantly suspect. Most of them seem eccentric to the point where you think their theories put them on the fringe rather than the mainstream of scholarly thought. There's also a great deal of redundancy, and the filmmakers can't seem to get past the dramatic dialectic of offering an "out there" view of Mary Magdalene which is then quickly countered by someone from the Church saying how "out there" it is. It gets tiresome, when all we wanted was to find out more about those symbols and those locations--not listen to an expert of dubious nature who keeps talking about "vulva rocks" and blathering on about how "It's obvious from the architecture of the cave and the art that's in it that we're within the earth goddess herself." No, it's not obvious . . . not to anyone who isn't caught up in their own little world of vulva worship. We get a lot of overreaching here, with explanations of how sex and God are linked, or why else would so many people cry out, during orgasm, "Oh God, Oh God"? Oh . . . give me a break. None of these "scholarly" theories are developed to any degree--only presented as fact, and then refuted by those men in collars. And all the while we keep wondering, what does all of this have to do with the Code, again?

though this was filmed in London, Glastonbury, New York City, Rome, and Israel, there are so many talking heads that make your head spin that you don't get much of a sense of following the trail of Robert Langdon. The closest we get to those clues from the book/movie is a discussion of the identity and nature of Mary Magdalene, Gnostic gospels, and the Holy Grail. And of all the talking heads, there are only two that seem brilliant and convincing: Dr. Elaine Pagels, who is a much-published expert on religion and religious philosophy, and Rabbi Irwin Kula, who speaks with authority and backs up his assertions with reasoned and developed arguments. More of those two on-camera would have helped this documentary, as would a script that stayed more on point rather than approaching the topic generally and then circling back . . . and back.

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Slaughter Night (SL8N8)

Sigh. I grow weary of the sad charade that has become of the horror film. The Hollywood machine continues to pump out mindless dreck and worthless remakes of films that are barely twenty years old. Meanwhile, the Asian market is flooded with countless imitators of the trendsetting films that caused the world to take notice. It was with a bit of a surprise that I received a horror film from the Netherlands, a region whose cinema I am not too familiar with. So, do our friendly neighborhood Dutchmen have anything new to say about the horror film? If "Slaughter Night" is any indication, the answer would be a resounding, "No."

"Slaughter Night" belongs to that well-known subgenre of the horror film, the stupid teenagers who do stupid things and get bumped off by a killer with supernatural powers. It also borrows heavily elements from other scary movies that were a lot better. To set-up the story, we learn that prisoners in the 1800´s were used deep inside mines to set off dangerous gases. If they were to survive, the prisoner would be set free. One such disreputable person was Andries Martiens (Robert Eleveld) who murdered and decapitated little girls to perform a voodoo ritual in order to enter the realm of Hell. Before his death, this child killer swore vengeance from beyond the grave. Freddy Krueger, anyone?

In the present day, Kristel Lodema (Victoria Koblenko) has just finished a night of partying with friends when her father, Martin (Martijn Oversteegen) drives her home. On the road, the car is violently sideswiped by a truck and the father dies right in front of his daughter´s eyes. Attending to her father´s unfinished business, Kristel learns that he was close to completing a manuscript that was close to being published. The book happens to be an extensive study on Martiens and the mine where he died. Somehow, Kristel gets talked into taking her friends on a tour of said mine and you can guess they aren´t going to be having punch and pie down there. What follows is a little bit of "My Bloody Valentine" and a generous portion of "The Descent."

The elevator malfunctions and the kids are all trapped in the mine. Not to panic at first, the Kristel and company take some ecstasy and play around with a Ouija board. That´s when Martiens makes his initial move. Rather than a physical manifestation, Martiens strikes at his victims by possessing one, forcing them to kill or be killed. The possessed turn white-eyed, pale-skinned, and rabid, looking like something out of "Evil Dead." After the first possession, the gang makes one of the cardinal mistakes in a horror film, they split up and are soon picked off one by one.

Knowing this is a slasher flick, I didn´t go in with high expectations. I knew I wasn´t going to get a clever script or characters with plenty of layers and depth. In fact, except for Kristel, I couldn´t even tell you what the names of the other characters were. I doubt it even matters. They weren´t there for anything other than to add to the body count. I suppose that´s really the film´s only strength. The film does get pretty grisly and the death scenes might please certain gore-hounds. There are plenty of decapitations and bloodied heads on pikes, along with a head being split apart by a pickaxe. Yet another head explodes. You´d think they´d realize that the human body has plenty of other parts to torture and mutilate. Still, the gore isn´t as over-the-top as funny as "Dead Alive" or as gruesome as "Hostel."

Even if you´re only in this to see blood and viscera, you´ll have to sit through about forty minutes worth of set-up and exposition, before the action really kicks in. Honestly, all that time you spend getting to know the characters is wasted since they´re all essentially ciphers. The lousy script isn´t the film´s only problem. The directing is equally lousy. The film has three distinct visual styles. The flashbacks are done in a sepia-tone to mimic old parchment paper. This, I had little problem with and felt it was actually unique. I wasn´t as fond of the other two. One character carries around a camcorder and we cut to that a few times. Thankfully, this doesn´t last long enough to come off as a "Blair Witch" ripoff. The third visual style is the worst offender. It is the dreaded handheld shot. Like Paul Greengrass on steroids, the camera shakes and shakes in a vain attempt to add urgency and chaos to almost every scene. All it succeeds in doing is to give me a migraine.

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