Fallen (dir. Gregory Hoblit, 1998)
I strongly suspect that screenwriter Nicholas Kazan at some point in the early to mid-nineties saw Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday. Moreover, I believe that when he saw the ninth entry in the venerable Friday the 13th franchise, he felt the same disappointment and frustration that much of the audience did.
“Okay, I can accept that a demonic lizard was the infernal heart that kept Jason Voorhees going, and that it makes a reasonable amount of sense that it can possess other people, but I don’t think it works for this series. And the whole mute thing isn’t doing anything for me either. What should happen is that the demon repeatedly taunts the protagonist and sings a Rolling Stones song. I don’t know, like, uh, ‘Paint It Black.’ Hmm, I should ask my dad Elia or my very young daughters Zoe and Maya for advice.”
I also think that once David Fincher’s Se7en proved to be a massive success in a decade thoroughly saturated with serial killer films, it was only a matter of time before Kazan would write something like Fallen.
In fact, I will put it out there that Fallen is an archetypal nineties film, bringing together so many of the elements that typify that perfectly meh decade. It’s a police procedural set at the end of the century starring Denzel Washington trying to solve copycat murders of an executed serial killer he caught that turns out to be due to a millenia-old demon named Azazel who moves from body to body through touch or an arbitrary distance measured in cubits and knows the lyrics to exactly one song
There’s also a conversation between Washington and James Gandolfini about Budweiser that feels agonizingly of the zeitgeist, but that’s not particularly relevant.
Fallen coasts on the strength of its cast. Washington, Gandolfini, John Goodman, Donald Sutherland, Embeth Davidtz, and crucially Elias Koteas as mass murder Edgar Reese, whose rendition of ‘Time Is On My Side’ as he’s executed in the opening of the film sets the tone somewhere between serious and self-aware. Really, there’s not any bad performances in the film. It’s just that, well, it’s the same plot as a late period Friday the 13th movie, and I’m not sure anyone could make that into a contender [1].
But what can I say? I also kind of liked Jason Goes to Hell.
Also, you’re never going to guess what song plays over the end credits, because to actually put it onto your soundtrack would require an almost unfathomable level of shamelessness. I almost started clapping when it happened.
[1] Elia Kazan joke! Don’t worry, no one hates me more than me.
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