The Eternal (1998)

“In the beginning of the world, the earth and the sky were one creature, and it was the hardest thing to tear them apart. They loved each other so much. And that's why it rains. Because the earth and the sky are always trying to get back together.”  Hey there fiends and welcome to Wicked Wednesday!  Tonight’s witchy flick was brought to the silver screen in 1998 by Michael Almereyda and is entitled The Eternal.  I actually didn’t expect too much from this flick when I flipped it on, and I was very pleasantly surprised by it.  I had no idea Christopher Walken would be in it, so you can imagine my surprise when his name flashed by in the opening credits. Score! As a rule of thumb, if he’s in a movie…I pretty much am guaranteed to enjoy it.  If you hate Walken (do people that hate Walken even exist? Inconceivable!) it’s ok…he doesn’t last long. *cackles*

So the movie begins with a very happy couple getting totally smashed on a roller coaster. When they head home, the woman (who we come to find out is Nora, portrayed by Alison Elliot) falls down a flight of stairs. We then cut to her doctor checking her out, and advising her not only to not travel, but to quit drinking. Nora, of corpse, ignores both of these warnings and immediately takes her family (husband and son, respectively) to Ireland to visit her aging grandmother.  They arrive after a few antics like a bar fight and a car crash at an huge crumbling mansion where Nora’s Uncle Bill (Walken) and her grandmother Mrs. Ferriter (portrayed by the loverly Lois Smith – aka Adele Stackhouse of True Blood).  Uncle Bill is acting strangely, and brings Nora to the basement to observe a 2,000 year old corpse of a Druid witch.  Nora and her family go to bed, and Uncle Bill succeeds in awakening the witch who immediately proceeds to slit his throat. From there, the movie seems to take a strange twist – the witch has taken on the persona of Nora (has literally become her twin) and apparently is attempting to take over Nora’s soul.  Some of the antics that ensue are downright campy, I would have liked to see the Druid witch use more elemental magic…they talk about it in the film but we really don’t get to see it at all.We find out that grammy is also a witch, but is losing her spellcraft ability in her old age and is unable to completely fight off this ‘powerful’ Druid (I use powerful in sarcastic quote marks because she really doesn’t do much to display her power besides being seemingly completely impervious to bullets, fire, electrocution, and a variety of other attempts to kill her).  The battle for Nora’s soul wages until Nora makes the ultimate sacrifice – slitting her own throat to protect her only son.

So lets talk about the acting. Obviously the two seasoned actors (Walken and Smith) were just wonderful in this. The rest of the acting was, I hate to say, mediocre at best – but there was something so endearing about listening to the Irish accents that I pretty much didn’t care. The cinematography was pretty fantastic, no complaints there. There was some pretty great lighting and the rambling mansion and Irish coast seemed to have the perfect ambiance for this story’s setting.  The soundtrack was also well done, and though I didn’t immediately recognize most of the artists that were compiled within it, it still sounded fresh.  The gore, though, I must say was a let down. Walken’s death was decently done, but aside from that there really wasn’t any gore at all. The final slit throat scene was so badly done I winced…but the meaning behind it actually brought me to tears, so something definitely worked there. The idea behind sacrificing yourself for another, and getting your life back as a reward…that to me is a pretty amazing concept, regardless of any camp.  I will say that if you’re looking for a frightening flick filled with gore, this is definitely not the movie for you.

And here come the statistics!  Body count?  Four. For a movie that doesn’t boast very many characters, that’s kind of a large number. Number of killers? Two. Boob count? Zero. Cheap thrills? Zero. Actual chills? Zero.  This film actually turned out to be more moving than scary, but I can’t say I hated it because of that!  Raven’s Scream Meter says: 3.5 out of 5 Screams!  Definitely worth a watch if you are into a little less blood and a little more emotion.  Thank you for reading my review, and as per usual feel free to comment below!