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Dean Corso (Depp) is an antique book dealer, tasked with finding and comparing the last three remaining copies of a book reported to be part written by the very devil himself. And the Devil seems never to be far away as the further in to the quest Corso travels, the stranger the occurrences that happen to him. OOooOOOOooooOOooo! Be afraid!

I first saw this film when it first came out and pretty much stuck it in the “what a pile of shit” drawer for ten years. It was only after being re-educated on its finer points recently, that I revisited it and I have to say, I’m glad I did.

Far from being the slow and pointless film, with awful special effects, that I remembered, it turns out that The Ninth Gate is a wee gem. Managing to create a feeling of dread and tension right from the off, the film builds slowly to a fine ending indeed. In fact, it makes me wonder what sort of mood I was in the first time I watched it, that would have caused me to write it off so quickly.

There really is a lot going on here and while it may not seem like it on the surface, repeated viewings do pay off, as more of the facets of the story slot into place.

So, if you like your horrors with the blood and guts left out and the thinking left in, then I can highly recommend this one to you. Not only that, but if you’ve written a film off that you’ve not seen for a while, then maybe, just maybe, you should give it a second chance. Unless that film is “Beyond Bedlam”, which truly is a bag of shit.