Resurrection (1999)

You know almost immediately the type of picture you’re watching when this guy starts up.  The rainy weather, two cops called to a murder, the victim is mutilated horribly, clues carved into his body, a crime scene meticulously staged, Christian leanings behind the killing, the moody lighting and yea, we got Se7en.

It amazes me to this day how many imitators that film left in its wake because I genuinely didn’t notice at the time.  It’s only through retrospect that the influence punches you in the face.  And Resurrection is the most blatant knock off I’ve come across yet.  That’s not to say it’s a bad movie necessarily.  You know what?  Let’s rattle off some good points.

Luckily the investigation into the religious murders is the main thrust of the running time.  One clue does lead to the next with occasional epiphanies from our main detective, Prudhomme (Christopher Lambert (Hail, Caesar!)).  Shit escalates with each homicide and the goal the killer is working towards is on the nastier side.  He’s harvesting human limbs, a head and torso to stitch together a new body of Jesus (that’s a badass idea man, has no one else done this?).  The victims are also the names of apostles including matching professions (one was a tax collector so an IRS agent is offed, etc.).  The Christian connections are a bit more thought out than you would think.

Truth be told the real reason I checked this picture out is because Russell Mulcahy directed and his films not only look very nice but he tends to make some wackier decisions (see Ricochet for a prime example and my personal favorite of his).  Mulcahy does what he can with what must’ve been a fairly limited budget.  Most scenes, especially the standing-around-talking ones, either use dynamic camera movements or editing to keep you interested.  In general Mulcahy keeps focus on driving the plot forward, throws in some light curveballs to spice things up and tries to make it as visually appealing as possible by using a ton of different locations and an overall gritty production design.  There’s an energy to the film where you can tell everyone’s real excited to be working on it and that rubs off.

Additionally, Mulcahy wasn’t afraid to push the envelope in terms of disturbing shit.  Take this one victim who’s posed sitting on a toilet headless and naked in a filthy fucking underground rat hole.  It’s just a surreal image.  They also show a newborn baby being dangled by his legs over the side of a building and Prudhomme’s young son being run over by a car.  Usually the horrified reaction of our main character is enough to convey the moment but they take one extra step by actually presenting a child starting to get sucked under the wheels of a moving vehicle before mercifully cutting away.  I mean, fuck.

Despite all the positives (previous paragraph being debatable) there are a number of negatives.  The production does have a cheap-ish feel.  For instance the lighting is sorta all over the map.  Unfortunately the version I streamed on Tubi wasn’t the cleanest copy so I don’t know how many of the color timing issues are a result of that.  Sometimes it looks good like in the botanical gardens scene where we get some warmer reddish hues, at others it’s so damn dark it’s hard to make out what’s on screen and still in other instances shots can look flat and neutral like a 90’s made for TV movie.  Frantic editing during some of the action sequences doesn’t help either.  Plus they use this warbly quasi fish eye lens technique and terrible sped up shots that were popular at the time.  Those parts haven’t aged well.  So there’s some gimmicky shit, the score is generic, Christopher Lambert is passable but not a top leading man, there are a few establishing shots of Chicago but most of the locations they use are clearly somewhere else (Toronto), etc.  The sum of this stuff can weigh the film down but honestly in the end it's fine as long as you understand what you’re walking into.

What’s really egregious though is simply how much this picture straight up lifts from Se7en.  Like, it’s the same exact movie at times.  This is where I was going to rattle off a bunch of examples but it doesn’t pay.  I already pointed out a few above so I’ll leave it at that.

So is this one worth seeing?  If you’re a fan of the Se7en sub-genre then of course.  While it’s not as interesting as Fallen or feardotcom it might be a more solid experience.  It’s definitely competently made and adequately stylish to be totally enjoyable.  They deliver on the fucked up multi-membered Christ on the cross that the entire thing was building towards so kudos.  Like I said, the script is surprisingly strong considering this was a DTV release in the US (it was released theatrically overseas).  They even got horror maestro David Cronenberg for a small two-scene part as a priest.  (By the way his cameos are fucking random as hell.  He must do them as a favor otherwise I don’t get how he decided to say yes to Extreme Measures, To Die For, The Stupids, Jason X, this and a smattering of others.  I know he never leaves Canada but a million movies are filmed there every year.  I dunno.)

One last thing, I found it amusing that they felt the need to explain Lambert’s French accent by saying he’s from New Orleans.  It always confounded and charmed me when movie studios did this with Van Damme back in the day (or still?!) by saying he was French Canadian or Cajun.  Like they thought it was either some significant loophole in the story that needed explanation or a foreign accent was going to be maddeningly distracting to the point where it had to be addressed.  But I never gave a shit about the guy’s accent.  Can he kick ass and make you believe in the shit he’s fighting for?  That’s what matters to me.