E. Elias Merhige Movies
Directed by E. Elias Merhige, Suspect Zero follows the disgraced FBI Agent Thomas Mackelway (Aaron Eckhart), who was transferred to a desolate area in Albuquerque, New Mexico as punishment for botching a procedure which ultimately led to the release of one of the most notorious criminals on the FBI's list. Mackelway is given an opportunity to redeem himself, however, when he is called in to investigate the strange murder of a traveling salesman. Mysteriously, the mark of a circle with a line through it is the only clue that the killer left behind. Before long, the prime suspect is identified as former agent Benjamin O'Ryan (Ben Kingsley), who is seemingly obsessed with hunting down serial killers and murdering them rather than turning them in to the proper authorities. Though Mackelway believes he knows the area where O'Ryan (Kingsley) is living, he has no idea what he looks like -- a problem that the rogue agent exploits with great success. Despite his brilliance, Mackelway finds himself caught in a psychological labyrinth of sorts, and is faced with an even greater quandary after learning that O'Ryan is looking for none other than Suspect Zero, a murderer of hundreds and the FBI's most wanted man. The supporting cast includes Carrie-Anne Moss and Harry J. Lennix. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Aaron Eckhart, Ben Kingsley, (more)
The torturous production of the classic 1922 vampire film Nosferatu is recreated in this stylized account of director F.W. Murnau and his obsession with creating realistic horror by any means necessary -- even if those means include actual bloodletting. The film begins as Murnau (John Malkovich) is ready to take his unauthorized interpretation of the Bram Stoker tale on location in Czechoslovakia. There, the director has arranged for his cast and crew to live in the same castle in which they will shoot their parts, as they all wait for their co-star, Max Schreck (Willem Dafoe) -- Murnau's choice to play Count Orlok -- to arrive. Their leader has warned them that Schreck is a student of the Stanislovsky method of performance and will not respond to them out-of-character. Nothing, however, can prepare them for the real thing: when the actor arrives, he's already in full Gothic regalia, asserting that he is indeed a vampire. Schreck makes good on his claims by terrorizing the cast and crew, attacking Murnau's original cinematographer (Wolfgang Muller) and plucking bats out of the air for midnight snacks. Director E. Elias Merhige previously made his name with his experimental theater productions and with his horrific film school thesis, Begotten. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Malkovich, Willem Dafoe, (more)
- 1991
A "metaphysical splatter film" that was praised by Susan Sontag as "one of the 10 most important films of modern times," Begotten is a very grainy, often powerful work of experimental cinema which seems to land somewhere between David Lynch's surreal Eraserhead and James Broughton's heavily symbolic Dreamwood. The film opens with God Killing Himself: a man in rags slicing into his own belly as he spews dark fluid and oozes filth. Mother Earth emerges, or is born, from this excoriation and travels to a primeval forest. There she gives birth to Son of Earth-Flesh on Bone: a quivering man-child. The two are found by a tribe of faceless, druid-like figures dressed in rags, and though mother and child are at first revered, they are finally tortured, dismembered, and buried by the tribe. From their grave, life begins, and flora emerges from the wasteland. Filmed on black & white reversal film and then re-photographed onto a black & white negative, E. Elias Merhige's stark, grainy images of a squirming, oozing, mythical Creation are not easy to digest or to forget. Merhige's own experimental theater troupe, Theaterofmaterial, performs throughout. ~ Anthony Reed, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Brian Salzberg, Donna Dempsey, (more)
