John Carpenter's Cigarette Burns
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| “John Carpenter's Cigarette Burns” |
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| Masters of Horror episode | |||||||
| Episode no. | Season 1 Episode 8 |
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| Written by | Drew McWeeny Scott Swan |
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| Directed by | John Carpenter | ||||||
| Guest stars | Udo Kier Christopher Redman Norman Reedus Gwynyth Walsh |
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| Production no. | 108 | ||||||
| Original airdate | December 16, 2005 | ||||||
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"John Carpenter's Cigarette Burns" (also known as "Cigarette Burns") is the eighth episode of the first season of Masters of Horror. It originally aired in North America on December 16, 2005.
The episode concerns rare films dealer Kirby Sweetman (Norman Reedus) who is deep in debt and trying to keep his small independent theater open. He is hired by an old cinephile, Mr. Bellinger (Udo Kier) to find the only existing print of a rare thirty-year old movie, La Fin Absolue du Monde (French: The Absolute End of the World), which supposedly led to a homicidal riot during its premiere at the Sitges Film Festival and was destroyed shortly afterwards. The episode follows Kirby as he follows a series of clues which lead him inexorably towards a horrific and bloody conclusion.
The film resembles one of John Carpenter's previous films, the 1995 H. P. Lovecraft-inspired In the Mouth of Madness. Both films connect art with insanity; both involve the restraint of supernatural entities by artists; both explore the breakdown of civilized humanity; and both follow the descent into madness of a rational investigator who is forced to question his own conception of reality.
The film's title stems from a term that is often misconceived to be used in the film industry, which refers to nematic cue marks as "cigarette burns". The protagonist begins to hallucinate these midway through the film. The term was originally used in the 1999 film Fight Club, leading many non-professionals to assume the term was standard film jargon.
[edit] Plot
Deep in debt to the father of his late wife, rare films dealer Kirby Sweetman has less than a month to produce two-hundred thousand dollars in order keep his small theater afloat. He is hired by an old cinephile, Mr. Bellinger (Udo Kier) to find the only existing print of a rare thirty-year old movie, La Fin Absolue du Monde (French: The Absolute End of the World). The film supposedly led to a homicidal riot at its first screening at a small Catalan film festival. Following this, it was apparently destroyed shortly thereafter. Bellinger, however, is convinced that it still exists as an original cinematic print.
Sweetman initially suggests that the film is an urban legend. Bellinger leads Sweetman to a hidden room in his mansion, which contains an emaciated man (Christopher Redman) in chains. The man has twin wounds on his shoulder blades; strange bones protrude from the wounds and appear to be the source of a pair of angelic wings suspended from Bellinger's wall. Bellinger claims that these are all "original props from the movie," and insists that the chained man's life is bound to the existence of the film. He then offers Sweetman $200,000 dollars to find the film.
Sweetman begins his research with the riot that occurred after the film's original screening. He finds that according to contemporary records, the theater burned to the ground. Four audience members died, and the rest were driven insane. He also finds his first lead: a critic who wrote a review of the film, now living in Carthage, New York (director Carpenter's hometown). Sweetman flies there and finds the critic typing furiously at a typewriter. The man claims to be writing a second review, which he insists is "the real review." He begs to see the film again, and offers Sweetman an audio tape of an interview with the film's director.
Sweetman flies to France, and listens to the tape in his hotel room. He begins to experience flashes in his vision that resemble the cue marks (the so-called "cigarette burns" of the title) on cinematic film. Sweetman has a hallucination in which he sees his late wife in the same state he had found her in upon her suicide. He then wakes up.
Sweetman then goes to see an acquaintance in the rare film business. His friend reluctantly tells him that he was the projectionist at a recent, secret screening of the film. He was spared death and insanity because he turned away from the film as it played. Eventually, he tried to stop the film, but blacked out. He tells Sweetman that the cinematographer and director are allegedly the only two survivors of the original screening, though the director is rumored to have died in the intervening years. Sweetman's friend begs him to stop searching for the film, but Sweetman dismisses his pleas.
His friend eventually sends him to a warehouse, where Sweetman meets a deranged filmmaker. He is invited inside, and notices that the windows are covered in what appears to be human skin. He is directed him to a box marked La Fin Absolue du Monde, which holds several production stills from the film. After viewing the stills, Sweetman is seized by the filmmaker's bodyguards, injected with an anesthetic, and blacks out.
Waking up, Sweetman discovers that he and the cab driver who brought him to the warehouse are bound into chairs. The filmmaker enters the room wielding a machete. He kills the cab driver while his bodyguards film the murder. He explains to Sweetman that he believes the act of murder has become an art form, and La Fin Absolue du Monde is the apex of that art form. Sweetman experiences another vision of "cigarette burns." When he comes to he finds himself holding the machete. The filmmaker is on the floor before him with his throat slashed. Before the man dies, Sweetman tortures him to force him to reveal the film's location. The filmmaker tells him that "the widow has it."
Sweetman flies to Vancouver, Canada to speak with Katja, the director's widow (Gwynyth Walsh). She confirms that the director had died. When he asks about the producer of the film, she says that her husband had never revealed their identity, only their interests - "chaos, sorrow, suffering, and famine." The widow gives Sweetman the film, claiming it was a curse upon her home from the moment her husband had brought it there. When he asks how the director died, the widow reveals that he had slashed his own throat.
Sweetman brings the film to Bellinger and collects his payment, then returns to his own theater. Bellinger loads the print into a projector and sees upon the screen the "angel" locked in his mansion. Meanwhile, Sweetman arrives at his theater to find the doors chained. He is informed by telephone that his father-in-law had locked the theater in his absence. He then receives a phone call from Bellinger, and returns to the mansion. There he finds the butler standing outside the home's theater, covered in knife-wounds; the butler proceeds to gouge his own eyes out with a knife. Sweetman enters the theater, finding the closing credits rolling on the screen. Inside the projection room, he finds the old man loading his own intestines into the reels of another projector.
Fleeing the scene, Kirby encounters his former father-in-law, who pulls a gun and threatens to kill him. They struggle for the gun and as they do, another cigarette burn envelopes the screen. Sweetman awakes to find both him and his father-in-law sitting and watching the movie.
While the film is playing again, the butler goes to the room where the angel is being held and gives the creature the key to his chains. Back in the theater, La Fin Absolue du Monde is shown to be filmed in black and white. There are flashes of violence which match the earlier production stills. One scene portrays two men restraining an angel as a man with a machete approaches and raises the blade; blood spatters in a manner suggesting amputation.
A cigarette burn opens in the screen, and Sweetman's late wife steps through it, appearing as she did upon her death. She embraces her father and bites his neck in a vampiric fashion. Sweetman wakes up again, noticing his father-in-law is unharmed. Realizing that they both see his late wife, Sweetman decides that they both have to die because neither can truly let her go. Sweetman then bashes his father-in-law's head against the floor until he dies. He then picks up the gun and resumes watching the film. The smiling projection of his dead lover soon appears. He tells the apparition that he loves her, puts the gun in his mouth and then pulls the trigger.
The last scene shows the "angel" taking the two film reels, having been released from his prison by the now-blinded butler. The angel walks into the theater, looks at Kirby's bloody corpse and says, "Thank you for this," indicating the film reels, before leaving.
[edit] DVD and Blu-ray
The DVD was released by Anchor Bay Entertainment on March 28, 2006. The episode was the eighth episode and the first to be released on DVD. The episode appears on the first volume of the Blu-ray compilation of the series.
[edit] External links
- Cigarette Burns at the Internet Movie Database
- Working with a Master: John Carpenter at the Internet Movie Database
- Review for Cigarette Burns at Dread Central
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