Masters of Horror: "Cigarette Burns"

You think you’re a devoted film buff if you spend a few hours Googling and scouring eBay for that rare DVD you must have for your collection — but imagine yearning to see a certain film for your whole life, searching to the ends of the earth for it, and paying tens of thousands of dollars just to view it just once.

Bellinger (Udo Kier) is the obsessed, Kirby Sweetman (Norman Reedus) is the procurer he hires, and Le Fin Absolute du Monde is the film. Scarcely seen since its ill-fated premiere where the theater burst into flames, the obscure but potently powerful horror opus is a legend among cinephiles. The unreviewable, unforgettable, deadly film (the director slashed his own throat) has baited and hooked many a soul over the years, but no one has ever been as determined as Bellinger. Bellinger even has the ultimate prop: an angel (Christopher Redman) stolen right out of the silver who’s chained, maimed, and shackled in a cell adjacent to the collector’s private screening room.

A cinematic siren luring the curious to their doom, Le Fin Absolute du Monde has the power to infiltrate the minds even of those who think about it too much. As Kirby follows the movie’s treacherous trail over land and sea, he starts to see haunting images that alter his ability to discern reality from fantasy. Still, he perseveres and finally gets the prize: Kirby delivers the reels to his client and then the sanity train really goes off the rails.

Easily John Carpenter’s best work since 1994’s In the Mouth of Madness, Cigarette Burns (scripted by Scott Swan and Drew McWeeny) is the most surreal of the Masters of Horror series so far. It’s also one of the bloodiest, meanest and leanest — and perhaps the least accessible. To top it off, the casting is cleaver sharp: Reedus and Kier play their ugly, damaged, reprehensible, pathetic characters with an understated build, culminating in the theatrical equivalent of a nicotine fit.

Cigarette Burns won’t work for everyone — it is more than a bit outré — but go ahead and take a drag… you just might find yourself addicted as the show rolls on.

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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson