8MM

Watching the film, one finds it incredible, but it is the realization of a reworked script that its author Walker distanced himself from because he felt it was fundamentally watered down, something he had experienced since the production of Se7en, where Fincher had nonetheless stood up for him so his vision could remain intact. Here, Walker didn't accept the Dick Tracy-style notion of the private eye, who in his script is supposed to be more of a small-town bumpkin who spends his weekends bowling, and he didn't like the use of the voice over of the murdered woman, the unmasking of the main villain, or the deliverance letter at the end. All of these rewrites were the work of Schumacher, returning from his Mexican sabbatical where he had retreated out of exhaustion from the production of the last Batman. He was given the script to edit out of trust that he would give it a softer tone. Except that Schumacher returned from Mexico not only refreshed but also with a certain bitterness, so while he destroyed Walker's vision of the average suburban yuppie's inability to look into the abyss without being destroyed for life, he rebuilt it into a thesis about the elusiveness, irrationality, and ubiquity of sheer evil. With most of the film being spent searching and delving deeper and deeper into the sewer of illegal pornography, the structure of that evil is also created, with it being represented in its pure form by the Machine, who is used by director Dino Velvet to further his artistic ambitions, and exploited in terms of sheer mammon by Eddie Poole, who is followed by a host of other fish with the same motives. The awesome Elswit-esque grimness and faded shots of this autumnal tale, combined with a look at the declining pornographic landscape due to the advent of the internet, the constant presence of the ending (the empty giant house of a dead tycoon, the leaf-strewn grey home of the protagonist at the end of the street, as well as the main villain's home, which is even adjacent to a cemetery), and the setting of most of the film in the depopulated areas of New York or Los Angeles, closes the 1990s in a way. Everything is slowly shifting to computers, streets are being depopulated, meeting places are becoming desolate, old structures are breaking down, and everyone carries some scars from these wild years that they hope never to be reminded of. PS: 8mm was my childhood VHS classic that I used to watch about twice a week back in the day, and with the BluRay edition, some details I didn't understand at the time were finally explained, the most significant of which was that because of the cropping, it was impossible to see how The Machine actually kills Max. The shot itself was cut off for the sake of the rating and couldn't be seen on the video at all. Another mystery I can check off (01/19/2020)

Joel Schumacher psychologically brutalizes us and the resulting effect is excellent. However, it would have been even better with a more elaborate screenplay with more questions and unexpected twists. Even so, this is a formalistically excellent inducement to depression with brilliant performances by everyone involved. Mentally unstable viewers should avoid 8 MM! (04/11/2002)

Attribute, which 8 MM deserves the most, is EFFECTIVE. A story from the porn industry appropriately brutal and repulsive with its subject, featuring a number of twisted characters from the gallery and a decadent high society environment. An energetic and attractive positive hero played by the decently acting Cage, complemented by a diligent sidekick, several skillfully filmed scenes, and an overall depressing tone of the film, all led to an extremely high commercial success and recognition among movie fans. It's not Schumacher's best film, but it ranks among the better ones in its genre. Overall impression: 70%. (06/15/2006)

Everything bad is good for something. Joel Schumacher knew this well when, after the colossal failure of his big-budget Batman films, he turned his attention to more modest, psychologically solid projects in the late 90s, crowned by this famous depressing thriller. The plot, however simple, powerfully draws the viewer into the sordid world of perverted pornography, underpinned primarily by the perspective of the shocked main character, portrayed more than convincingly by Nicolas Cage still in his golden era. The pacing is perhaps a little too brisk given the seriousness of the premise and the psychological ambitions, the production design could occasionally push the envelope in terms of darkness and violence, and there are a few cheesy motifs (Cage finds immediately a diary that the police have been searching for in vain for God knows how long), but the atmosphere is nonetheless suffocating from the opening moments to the last shot, and the terrific actors (especially Phoenix and Stormare) raise the authenticity and sense of revulsion to highly satisfying heights. The ending admittedly dissolves that authenticity in favour of action satisfaction (this is the most significant difference from Se7en, also by Andrew Kevin Walker), but fortunately it doesn’t feel overstuffed and the filmmakers surprise with ideas that you simply won't see anywhere else (Cage's phone call and request for permission)... Definitely one of the most interesting and ultimately best thrillers of the nineties; where are those golden times… (07/14/2011)

Andrew Kevin Walker, the screenwriter of two of the darkest thrillers of the 1990s, Se7en and 8mm, must be an interesting nutcase. And Joel Schumacher is a director who has some very bright moments in places, and in one of them he made this amazing and unfortunately underrated thriller, which few films can match in terms of depression and dense atmosphere. The sordid, disgusting setting and the depressing mood of late autumn are underlined by a brilliant, gloomy soundtrack that does not add to the good mood. Peter Stormare's and the great Joaquin Phoenix's performances are unforgettable, and Nicolas Cage also does a good job here. But the biggest strength is the story, it builds up superbly and when you think you’ve arrived to the climax, another one comes in, and yet you don’t feel that the whole thing is a mess. In addition, Cage's telephonic request for "sanction" of his decision is so wonderfully morally ambiguous that it must please any viewer who dislikes black-and-white sketched characters. 8mm is a very impressive film and in my opinion one of the best thrillers of the 1990s. (02/01/2003)