FBMR - The Ninth Gate
Film-Buff Movie Reviews


THE NINTH GATE (1999) ***

The trailer to this film led me to believe that this film was a suspense/adventure about the nine gates to Hell. I was hoping to see conflict between the Devil and some angels, or have some of the Devil’s angels reek havoc on Earth after the nine gates were opened. But that’s not what the movie is about. I really hate trailers that promote a movie to be something that it’s not, then, by no fault of it’s own, people don’t like the film because it’s not what they expected.

I still liked this film because the subject matter is very interesting to me; anything that deals with the battles between good and evil (God and Satan). This film is has a book as it’s focus. A book, with only three existing copies, that was supposedly written with the direct help of Lucifer. Corso (Johnny Depp) is given one of these books by Balken (Frank Langella) and is asked to track down the other two and compare them for authenticity. During his trip, many mysterious things start to happen to and around Corso: apparitions, deaths, stalkers. It’s like trying to put a puzzle together, and the closer Corso gets to the solving it, the more mysterious the occurrences become.

Don’t expect a first-paced movie, because that’s not what this film is. In fact, it moves just a little slower than I would have liked it too, but if you are patient, and enjoy mysteries about the super-natural, you should enjoy this.

IMDb - The Ninth Gate