Cigarette Burns a John Carpenter film

By Jorge Solis

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Imagine watching a movie that is so controversial and intensely graphic, it will drive you insane. You lose your mind and you suddenly become very violent. You want to lash out at the person next to you for no apparent reason. These horrific events happen in John Carpenter’s jaw-dropping “Cigarette Burns.”

“Cigarette Burns” is an episode in the Masters of Horror anthology, a sort of Twilight Zone series. Most of these episodes deal are written, produced, and directed by a legendary filmmaker of the horror genre. One episode for example is co-written and directed by John Landis, of “American Werewolf in London” fame. One of these 13 episodes had to be directed by filmmaker John Carpenter. He is the man who invented the slasher genre and its rules with the movie “Halloween.”

I would say half of this movie is a remake of Lambeto Brava’s “Demons.” Lamberto Brava’s movie does deal the film-within-film plot but these people who watch the film become monsters from Hell. The other half is like Roman Polanski’s “Ninth Gate” where a detective meets bizarre characters in his pursuit of an item. Television writers Drew McWeeny and Scott Swan have created an interesting episode but my complaint is that a lot feels compressed to fit into one hour.

In “Cigarette Burns,” film detective Kirby (Norman Reedus from “Boondock Saints”) is hired by obsessed millionaire Bellinger (Udo Kier) to find the cursed horror movie, “Le Fin Absolude Du Monde.” Kirby needs to find this cursed movie because he needs money to pay the bills for his movie theater, which is going out of business. On his search, Kirby finds out that anyone who has seen the cursed film has either died or become haunted by it. As Kirby comes closer to his destination, his mind loses reality and he falls into a horrifying setup of murder and chaos. The climax occurs at Bellinger’s mansion when the out-of-print film is finally displayed. We do learn the reason why people become violent and insane after watching “Le Fin Absolude Du Monde.”

I recommend buying “Cigarette Burns” on DVD because of the making-of featurettes and John Carpenter’s commentary. This is John Carpenters return to television and Showtime as well since his 1993 movie with Tobe Hopper, “Body Bags.” Also listen to the music carefully because it was John Carpenter’s son who composed “Ciarette Burns.”

As a fan of the horror genre, I also recommend buying Masters of Horror: Season one. Watch an episode from “Gremlins” director Joe Dante and another episode from “Suspiria” director Dario Argento. In my opinion, the best episode was from a director I wasn’t expecting, Tobe Hooper. I thought Tobe Hopper was a one-hit wonder with “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and I felt a lot was missing from him with “Poltergeist.” Suddenly Tobe Hooper became this visual wunderkind with his episode, “Dance of the Dead.”

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