8MM (1999)

*** out of ****

Some movies just leave you feeling great, happy about the world in general and confident in the innate goodness of all mankind. “8MM” is not one of those movies. It is, as much as any popular release of the past 20 years, a descent into the utter depravity of some segments humankind and the depths to which that depravity can reach.

Nicolas Cage is Tom Welles, a family man and social climber who earns a good living as a private investigator. Usually this involves the typical P.I. stuff; following philandering husbands and chasing money trails. His wife (Catharine Keener) clearly doesn't like his vocation, as it leaves her alone with their new baby a great deal of the time. And when the widow (Myra Carter) of a wealthy businessman contacts him to chase a lead, it looks like more of the same.

But it isn't – in fact it is to take a long, hard look into the disgusting legend of the “snuff flick”. In the wall safe of her deceased husband's office, she has found an 8MM film that appears to display the rape and murder of a teenage girl. She is desperate to know if it is real, and if her husband had a secret life she knew nothing about. Welles takes the case, and begins to look into the seedy world of torture porn.

I won't go into detail about what he finds, but supporting characters played by James Gandolfini, Joaquin Pheonix and Peter Stomare provide dark and compelling performances, and the director's vision of showing us just enough to make the watcher wildly uncomfortable without crossing too far over the line is equally effective. Not for the squeamish, there is brutal violence, and videotaped simulated rape and murder sequences that would make any reasonable watcher uneasy.

Tense and brutal, this is a solid mystery film with enough of a psychological edge to be worthwhile. Cage is not great in the role, but is serviceable – I can't imagine he delved into this character too far for the sake of his own sanity. Pheonix's performance is the best of the bunch, as a porn shop employee that only works there for the paycheque – underneath he is the most moral of all the characters Welles comes across.

The subject matter of this film is the really compelling thing about it. I was a 19 year old university student when I first learned the term “snuff flick” and what it meant. I found it so disturbing that I had a hard time sleeping that night – that there were people in the world that would not only want to watch such a thing but actually be sexually charged by it..... it is not a pleasant thought. And this film is not pleasant about exploring it, and if I had gone into it as that naïve 19-year-old it probably would have given me the night sweats.

In this era of internet depravity, I'm sure this one wouldn't trouble youths today the way the idea troubled me 25 years ago. But fair warning – you will not leave this one humming the theme song.