Noirvember and Shocktober meet on this episode as we discuss Roman Polanski's 1999 film The Ninth Gate. Based on the book The Club Dumas by Arturo Pérez-Reverte, the film tells the tale of Dean Corso (Johnny Depp), a book detective who gets put on a case by the diabolical Boris Balkan (Frank Langella). He’s to compare three volumes of the same book, a tome which holds the secret of summoning the dark lord himself.
We're kicking off Polish Month with a pair of films from Roman Polanski. First up we're discussing Polanski's first feature from 1962, Knife in the Water. It's about a couple, Andrej (Leon Niemczyk) and Krystyna (Jolanta Umecka), who run across an unnamed young man (Zygmunt Malanowicz) who joins them on a sailing trip.
Up next we're discussing another film with a trio of characters, Death and the Maiden (1994) which stars Sigourney Weaver as a survivor of rape and torture who may have encountered her former tormentor (Ben Kingsley).
Guest Co-Hosts: Suzen Tekla Kruglnska, Kat Ellinger
#Shocktober2019 continues with a look at Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby (1968). Based very faithfully on the book by Ira Levin, the film stars Mia Farrow as the titular Rosemary who, with her husband Guy (John Cassavetes) move to a new apartment in New York where some strange things play out.
Suzen Tekla Kruglnska and Kat Ellinger join Mike to talk about this seminal film as well as its made-for-TV sequel movie, unrelated sequel book, and TV remake.
#Shocktober2017 continues with a the 1976 film from Roman Polanski, The Tenant . Adapted from a book by Roland Topor (Fantastic Planet), the film also stars Polanski as Trelkovsky, a man in need of a new apartment. He finds one where the previous occupant has defenestrated herself. After her death, he's able to move in and finds that his neighbors don't like him being noisy... in fact, they don't like him being him at all. Some put this alongside Polanski's Repulsion and Rosemary's Baby as his “apartment trilogy” in which explores the terrors of urban paranoia.