It's hard not to like a movie with such a beautifully stylistic color scheme, every frame gorgeously lit and photographed. The dichromatic stuff... shot after shot after shot, dominated by a heightened darkish blue, always accented with a touch of intense red somewhere in the frame. It almost made me think, "Wow, that's so cool! I should make a web page with colors that look like that!" Errr... Yeah.

This movie had a good bit of intenseness to it. I watched the theatrical version first. By the time end credits rolled, I could have roughly guessed how the director's ending might be different. Afterwards, I went back to the menu, switched it to "director's version", skipped to near the end, and sure enough! Stereotypical Hollywood bastardization of a story. Though the difference amounts to only a couple of shots, the director's ending definitely makes more sense in terms of where the story came from, and where it was going.

As far as story goes, the movie is about a priest/scientist (Gabriel Byrne) who investigates reportings of supernatural phenomenon, and typically debunks them. When a woman in Pittsburgh (Patricia Arquette) gets rushed to the hospital with mysterious cuts on her wrists that go all the way through her arms, the priest, acting under the shadow of a church that would rather obfuscate, cover up, and consolidate power than seek the truth, is dispatched to take care of the situation.

The film strikes a nice balance between shock horror, religious mysticism, character drama, and good old fashioned conspiracy thriller.

The softly recurring demonic whispering sound effects add a lot to the ambience. Billy Corgan is all over the music on this one. Lots of nice touches.

And of course, the cinematography.... ah, beautiful cinematography.

I enjoyed this one. A worthwhile movie. Better than I might have guessed it would be.