An entertaining genre mixer that combines the best elements of police crime solvers with supernatural religious horror movies.
The opening sequence could have been straight from “The Silence of the Lambs (1991)”. The film then slides into the “Jacob’s Ladder (1990)” territory of supernatural horror and wraps it up with an ending worthy of “Omen (1976)”.
Despite the strange opening sequence, the film dives into the first act like a normal police station movie complete with the usual characters: the handsome protagonist Det. John hobbes [Denzel Washington]; his paternal companion Det. Jonesy [John Goodman]; and the cynical shin kicker Det. Lou [James Gandolfini]; the tough district chief, Lieutenant Stanton [Donald Sutherland].
When the insane killer Edgar Reese (played head-to-head by a terrifying Elias Koteas) is executed in a gas chamber, Det. Hobbes believes that the worst is over, unaware that his problems are just beginning.
Here let’s put our hands together and applaud the great cinematography of Newton Thomas Sigel, as the way he came up with a visual representation of Azazel’s evil spirit point of view is nothing short of great. It is so well done that at a glance we know which character the camera embodies in certain scenes. Without such effective visual differentiation from the main antagonist’s point of view, this movie would never have worked so well, or maybe it wouldn’t have worked at all.
Hobbes is a policeman and a rational man. Believe in what you can see, feel and measure. Believe in the evidence, not in rumors and myths. But track after track tells him that this time, while strange bodies keep appearing all over town with no names [although shot in Philly], you are faced with something “different”.
The ancient biblical evil spirit of Azazel is alive and well and changes bodies with just a common physical touch. That is why it is almost impossible to nail it and destroy it. It is the most contagious disease the world has ever seen. Screenwriter Nicholas Kazan also deserves our credit for not only coming up with such a clever concept, but also creating a pretty well-written script.
(To conclude on part 2.)
