The Ninth Gate

A rare book dealer, while seeking out the last two copies of a demon text, gets drawn into a conspiracy with supernatural overtones.

• Director: Roman Polanski
• Genre:Fantasy / Horror / Mystery / Thriller
• Runtime:93 minutes

Cast

Johnny Depp : Dean Corso
Frank Langella : Boris Balkan
Lena Olin : Liana Telfer
Barbara Jefford: Baroness Kessler
Jack Taylor : Victor Fargas

Dean Corso (Johnny Depp) is a New York City rare-book dealer motivated solely by financial gain. In the event, wealthy book collector Boris Balkan (Frank Langella) hires Corso to authenticate the seventeenth-century book The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows, by Aristide Torchia; it is one of three extant copies, and now in Balkan’s possession. The book contains nine engravings that, when correctly deciphered and the interpretations properly spoken, will raise the Devil. Balkan suggests to Corso that the book might be a forgery, understanding that two other copies exist. Balkan hires Corso to travel to Europe, assess the two other known copies, and establish whether or not any of the three copies of The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows are genuine — and, if so, acquire them for Balkan, at any cost, or by any means.

Previously, Balkan’s copy of The Nine Gates had belonged to bibliophile Andrew Telfer, who committed suicide soon after selling the book to Balkan. Moreover, Telfer’s widow, Liana (Lena Olin), wants the book back, as Telfer originally bought the book for her. In pursuit of that, Liana seduces Corso, yet fails to re-acquire her book. Meanwhile, Corso’s business partner, and rare-book shop owner, Bernie (James Russo), whom Corso had asked to hide the book, is murdered in the style of one of the engravings in The Nine Gates, and as in the image of the The Hanged Man Tarot card, Bernie is hanged upside down, from a foot.

Corso travels to Toledo, Spain, to talk with the Ceniza brothers (José López Rodero), twin-brother book restorers, who show him that some of the book’s engravings are signed “LCF”, and prompt him to guess to whom the initials refer — the Ceniza brothers concur when he replies “Lucifer”. Corso next goes by train to Sintra, Portugal, and visits Victor Fargas (Jack Taylor), in a mysterious house (the main house of Quinta da Regaleira), whose copy of The Nine Gates Corso compares with Balkan’s, noting variations in three of the engravings. The next morning, a mysterious young woman (Emmanuelle Seigner) awakens Corso; he and she have been crossing paths; she then leads Corso back to Fargas’s house, and finds him murdered, and the engravings ripped out of his copy of The Nine Gates. Later, the anonymous woman displays supernatural abilities in rescuing Corso from Telfer’s bodyguard (Tony Amoni). Read more

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