Review: Constantine (dir. by Francis Lawrence)

Posted on January 11, 2026 by Arleigh

“Heaven and Hell are right here, behind every wall, every window, the world behind the world. And we’re smack in the middle.” — John Constantine

Constantine is one of those mid-2000s comic book adaptations that never quite hit mainstream classic status but has quietly built a loyal cult following, and it is pretty easy to see why once you revisit it. On the surface it is a supernatural action movie about a chain‑smoking exorcist stomping demons in Los Angeles; underneath, it is wrestling with guilt, faith, and whether redemption is even possible for someone who does not think they deserve it. The film is messy in spots but strangely compelling, and that tension between pulpy cool and spiritual angst is a big part of its charm.

Keanu Reeves plays John Constantine as a tired, bitter man who has seen way too much of both Hell and humanity to have patience for either. This version of Constantine is loosely adapted from DC’s Hellblazer comics, but the film leans into a distinctly Hollywood noir vibe: he is not a wisecracking British punk in a tan trench coat so much as a burnt‑out L.A. exorcist in a black suit who chain‑smokes like it is a survival mechanism. That shift understandably annoyed some comic fans, but taken on its own terms, this Constantine works. Reeves’s usual reserved style actually fits a guy who has emotionally checked out; he moves through scenes like someone who has accepted that his life is transactional and almost over, and there is something darkly funny about how little awe he shows when confronted with angels and demons. Even when the script gives him on‑the‑nose lines about damnation, he plays them with a kind of deadpan resignation that keeps the character from turning into a parody.

The basic setup is simple enough: Constantine can see “half‑breeds,” angelic and demonic entities who nudge humanity toward good or evil while technically obeying a truce between Heaven and Hell. As a child, he tried to kill himself because of these visions, and that suicide attempt has doomed his soul to Hell. Now he works as a freelance exorcist, trying to earn his way back into God’s good graces, not out of pure faith but out of sheer self‑preservation. That dynamic gives the movie a strong hook—this is a protagonist who is doing the “right” thing for profoundly self‑centered reasons. When he gets pulled into a mystery involving a police detective, Angela (Rachel Weisz), investigating her twin sister’s apparent suicide, the film folds in a noirish murder case, religious prophecy, and a scheme that could break the balance between Heaven and Hell. It is all a bit overstuffed, but there is a certain pleasure in how seriously the movie commits to its supernatural mythology.

Visually, Constantine is where the film really separates itself from a lot of its contemporaries. Director Francis Lawrence leans hard into a grungy, stylized urban Hellscape—Los Angeles feels damp, sickly, and spiritually polluted even before anyone literally steps into Hell. When Constantine does cross over, Hell is portrayed as a blasted version of our world, frozen in an eternal atomic blast, buildings shattered and howling winds full of ash and debris. It is not subtle, but it is memorable, and many of the images still hold up surprisingly well for a 2005 effects‑heavy movie. The demon designs are gnarly without becoming cartoonish, the exorcism sequences have a tactile, physical quality, and the movie uses practical effects and lighting cleverly to smooth over the limitations of its CG. Even small visual touches—like holy relics turned into weapons or tattoos used as mystical triggers—help sell the idea that this world is saturated with hidden religious warfare.

The cast around Reeves does a lot of heavy lifting. Rachel Weisz brings warmth and vulnerability to Angela, grounding the story whenever it threatens to float away in theological technobabble. Her dual role as both Angela and her deceased twin gives the plot some emotional weight beyond cosmic stakes. Tilda Swinton’s Gabriel is one of the film’s secret weapons: androgynous, cool, and quietly menacing, Gabriel feels alien in a way that fits an angel who has spent too long watching humans from a distance. Then there is Peter Stormare’s Satan, who shows up late in the game and somehow steals the entire third act with a performance that is gleefully gross and oddly charismatic; his version of Lucifer is barefoot, in a white suit stained with tar, amused and disgusted by Constantine in equal measure. These performances keep the movie watchable even when the script gets tangled in its own mythology.

Tonally, Constantine lives in an odd space between horror, action, and supernatural thriller. On one hand, it has jump scares, grotesque demons, and a very dark sense of humor. On the other, it features extended action beats where Constantine straps on a holy shotgun and goes demon hunting like a paranormal hitman. The film is at its best when it leans into slow‑burn dread and eerie atmosphere—scenes like the early exorcism or Angela’s first encounters with the supernatural feel genuinely unsettling. When it shifts into more conventional action territory, it is fun but less distinctive; some sequences play like obligatory “we need a set piece here” insertions rather than organic escalations of the story. The score and sound design help stitch it all together, layering in ominous drones, choral elements, and sharp sound cues that emphasize the hellish undertones without getting too bombastic.

One of the more interesting aspects of Constantine is how it treats belief and morality. The film’s theology is a mash‑up of Catholic imagery, comic‑book lore, and Hollywood invention, and if you are looking for doctrinal accuracy, you will probably walk away frustrated. But as metaphor, it works better than it has any right to. God and the devil are treated almost like distant power brokers using Earth as their battleground, the angels and demons as middle management enforcing a “rules of the game” structure that Constantine constantly pushes against. What saves it from feeling totally cynical is that the film does not ultimately let Constantine win by gaming the system; his big climactic play hinges on a genuinely selfless act. There is a sense, however stylized, that grace and sacrifice still matter, even in a world that treats salvation like paperwork. At the same time, the movie is very much a product of its edgy 2000s era, and at points it flirts with the idea that faith is mostly about loopholes and bargaining, which might put some viewers off.

That brings up another key point: Constantine is absolutely not a family‑friendly comic book movie. It is full of disturbing imagery, body horror, and bleak subject matter like suicide, damnation, and spiritual despair. The violence is often grotesque rather than purely action‑oriented, and the general mood is closer to a horror film than a superhero romp. The R rating is well earned. For some audiences, those elements will be exactly what makes the movie interesting—a comic book adaptation that is not afraid to be nasty and heavy. For others, the relentless grimness and graphic content will feel excessive, especially when paired with a mythology that is, frankly, all over the place.

Where Constantine stumbles most is in its storytelling clarity and pacing. The film loves its jargon: half‑breeds, the Spear of Destiny, balance between realms, rules of engagement, obscure relics tossed into dialogue with minimal explanation. If you are not already inclined to meet the movie halfway, it can feel like a pile of cool‑sounding concepts that never fully cohere into a clean narrative. The central mystery—what really happened to Angela’s sister and why—is engaging early on, but as the plot widens into apocalyptic stakes, some of the emotional throughline gets lost in exposition. The pacing can be uneven too, moving from slow, moody sequences to abrupt bursts of action, then back to dense dialogue. It is rarely boring, but it can feel disjointed.

Compared to the Hellblazer source material, the film definitely sandpapers off some of John Constantine’s rougher, more politically charged edges and transplants him into a more conventional action framework. Fans of the comics often point to the loss of his British identity, the absence of his punk roots, and the more simplified view of magic and the occult as major flaws. Those criticisms are fair if you are judging the adaptation on fidelity. As a stand‑alone movie, though, Constantine carves out a distinct identity: a moody, grimy, spiritually obsessed supernatural noir built around a protagonist who is more tired than heroic. It is less about clever schemes and more about a man who has done terrible things realizing that the only way out is to finally stop acting in his own interest.

In the years since its release, Constantine has aged better than a lot of early comic book movies. The visual style remains striking, the performances are still strong, and its willingness to be weird and bleak makes it stand out in a landscape that increasingly favors quip‑heavy, crowd‑pleasing superhero fare. The flip side is that its flaws—clunky exposition, a sometimes incoherent mythology, and a very specific grim tone—are just as apparent as they were in 2005. Whether it works for you will depend a lot on how much patience you have for religious horror dressed up as action cinema. Taken as a whole, Constantine is an imperfect but memorable ride: stylish, occasionally profound, frequently ridiculous, and ultimately more interesting than many cleaner, safer adaptations.

Horror Review: The Sadness (dir. by Rob Jabbaz)

Posted on October 5, 2025 by Arleigh

Zombie and infection films have long been a proving ground for aspiring horror filmmakers. The subgenre is relatively inexpensive to produce, often relying on claustrophobic settings, survival scenarios, and plentiful blood-and-makeup effects. Because of this, it’s become an enticing entry point for directors looking to make their mark. But while horror can be a forgiving sandbox for experimentation, creating a film that is not just watchable but truly memorable is another matter entirely.

That’s why Rob Jabbaz’s 2021 debut feature The Sadness feels like both a breath of fresh air and a brutal gut-punch. In a cinematic landscape oversaturated with lifeless zombie rehashes, The Sadness stands out as one of the rare gems in the rough: an uncompromising, unfiltered vision that twists infection horror into grotesque new extremes.

The film’s timing alone heightens its impact. Premiering in 2021 as the world was still reeling from COVID-19, The Sadness unfolded against a backdrop of real-world uncertainty and fear. Set in Taipei, it follows a young couple, Jim (Berant Zhu) and Kat (Regina Lei), as they struggle to reunite while a viral outbreak ravages the city. But this isn’t a traditional zombie plague. Those infected don’t stumble through streets in mindless hunger—instead, they shed every shred of empathy and morality, indulging instead in the darkest, most depraved impulses imaginable.

What makes this outbreak particularly disturbing is not the survivalist violence we expect from zombie cinema, but the sadistic cruelty with which the infected embrace their new instincts. They don’t just kill. They torment, torture, and mutilate with gleeful abandon. And yet, in one of the film’s most haunting touches, many of the infected appear to be crying as they carry out these atrocities. Buried deep in the recesses of their corrupted minds is an awareness of the horror of their actions, a recognition that what they are doing is monstrous and wrong. But the virus strips them of the ability to stop themselves, forcing them to participate in their own cruelty even as they mourn it. This paradox of weeping while committing acts of unthinkable violence underlines the film’s title: The Sadness is not simply about gore or shock, but about the profound tragedy of human beings imprisoned within impulses they are horrified to enact.

On its surface, the film invites comparisons to Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later—especially in its depiction of a city descending into viral chaos. But where Boyle’s rage virus unleashed primal anger, Jabbaz’s strain of infection is even more terrifying: it revels in cruelty, poisoning not just the body but the soul. The Sadness also recalls Garth Ennis’ infamous Crossed comic series—widely deemed unfilmable due to its extremes. That connection is impossible to ignore, both in subject matter and in its deliberate transgressiveness.

As writer, editor, and director, Jabbaz approaches the material with unnerving precision. The first act foreshadows the viral threat in subtle ways—background chatter on TV screens, fleeting moments of sudden aggression—before Taipei collapses into anarchy almost overnight. The narrative remains lean and purposeful, stripping away filler in favor of pacing that escalates terror with brutal efficiency.

Shot in just 28 days, the film nevertheless carries an impressive polish. Cinematographer Jie-Li Bai and production designer Liu Chin-Fu infuse the movie with a grounded sense of place: crowded subways, sterile hospitals, bustling street corners. Each environment feels authentically lived-in before they transform, piece by piece, into blood-soaked arenas of carnage. Practical gore effects are prioritized over CGI, and the result is viscerally effective—sickening yet strangely mesmerizing, almost operatic in their execution. Like the best extreme horror, it locates a twisted beauty in its spectacle of destruction.

The Sadness is more than just gore for gore’s sake. Released during the height of a global pandemic, the film functions as a thematic mirror, reflecting society’s fractures under pressure—our denial of crisis, government missteps, selfish impulses, and the darkness that emerges when rules and trust collapse. Whether or not Jabbaz meant the film as a direct allegory is almost irrelevant; in its execution, it feels pandemic-era, uncannily timely, and raw.

Unsurprisingly, the horror community quickly drew parallels to Ennis’ Crossed. The comparison resonated so strongly that Jabbaz himself has since been attached to direct a live-action Crossed adaptation. If The Sadness is any indication, he may be the rare filmmaker with both the vision and the audacity to bring such an “unfilmable” work to life.

From its deceptively calm beginning to its bleak and nihilistic finale, The Sadness never loosens its grip. It is not a film for everyone—many will find it too transgressive, too nihilistic, or simply too traumatic to endure. But for horror fans who crave extremity, who embrace the genre as a place where boundaries should be tested, The Sadness is more than another zombie flick. It is a tragedy as much as it is a nightmare, and the sight of its infected monsters weeping as they commit atrocities lingers long after the credits roll. That image embodies the very essence of the title: a work that confronts not only our capacity for violence, but the unbearable sorrow of being aware of it, powerless, and consumed.

It is a defining statement in 21st-century horror: brutal, relentless, grotesque, and timely. Rob Jabbaz’s debut doesn’t just enter the infection canon—it tears through it, leaving behind a benchmark of modern extreme cinema.

The Preacher Is About To Begin Mass

Posted on November 1, 2015 by Arleigh

Preacher the comic book that came out in 1995 and became the title that everyone gravitated to to balance out all the superhero titles that were coming out from Marvel, DC, Image and every small publisher in-between. The book was written by Garth Ennis and drawn by Steve Dillon. It was the book that took on the institutions of the Church, government and family in the most irreverent and blasphemous way one could think of at the time.

The book had been talked of within Hollywood since it’s release as one title that producers (seems all of them at one time or another) wanted to adapt for the big-screen. It wasn’t a superhero title so there was no need to worry about trying to adapt tights-wearing heroes and villains. Yet, the book’s subject matter which tended to go into the extreme at times became something that kept the title from being adapted.

After almost two decades of futile attempts to get Preacher up onto the big-screen it took the star-power of one big-screen star (Seth Rogen) to finally get the book adapted, but not on the big-screen, but on the small-screen to become part of AMC’s stable of unique series titles (The Walking Dead, Better Call Saul, Into the Badlands).

So, fans of the books only have until 2016 to wait for their dreams of Preacher finally coming to live-action life and non-readers will finally see what all the hype has been all about.

“Crossed + One Hundred” #1 : Zombie Apocalypse, Alan Moore-Style

Posted on December 9, 2014 by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

Who are we kidding? Of course I was gonna pick this book up — despite having no previous experience with, or knowledge of, the Crossed “universe” — because, hey, it’s a new six-part Alan Moore series, and while there are very few creators who can “sell me” on a new title based on their involvement alone, Moore is (and frankly always will be) one of them. Still, for those (like myself) who need a brief history of the basic premise here before diving in, here goes —

Crossed is veteran comics writer Garth Ennis’ take on the zombie apocalypse. No one knows what caused it. The zombies are called “the crossed.” To date there have been several mini series set in this world, each featuring a different cast of characters. They’ve all been published by Avatar Press. That’s it.

A threadbare setup? Sure. But that has its advantages — namely, other creators can jump in and provide their own unique take on the proceedings, and to date, many have (most notably David Lapham and Simon Spurrier). Now it’s Moore’s turn, and what’s not to be over-the-moon thrilled about? Rich, detailed, amazingly-well-realized speculative worlds have always been his stock in trade, going all the way back to Halo Jones, and with Crossed + One Hundred he’s taking us, as the title would imply, a century into the future after the dead got up and started walking around. The cast of characters is entirely new for this series, and if you’ve never read any Crossed comics before this, you’ll do just fine. So get it! Now, let me tell you why —

In truth, the aforementioned Halo Jones is a pretty apt comparison for what’s apparently going on here as a whole, since our protagonist, one Future Taylor, is a young lady trying to make her way in a world that both she, and we, don’t fully understand — and, as with Halo, Moore has created an entirely unique, dense-but-eminently-decipherable dialect for his characters to speak in. It may take one read-through or so to fully get your head around the various terms used, all of which have evolved from where our language is at right now, but that’s part of the fun here. For those who struggled with the first chapter of Moore’s prose novel, Voice Of The Fire, rest assured, this is nothing like that, and really, you’re not going to have too much difficulty figuring out what folks are saying.

Okay, so, with all of that out of the way, then — how’s the story? And the art?

I’m pleased to report both are astonishingly good. Moore has given us a rag-tag group of survivors, living in a converted steam train, that are immediately fascinating and complex. Ms. Taylor, our entry point into this great unknown, is the band’s “archivist,” a sort of scavenger of lost knowledge and information, and most of the action in this initial chapter takes place in an abandoned library that our intrepid nomads come upon. Through Future’s (an interesting thing to note here is how all the youthful characters have optimistic names) journal entries and her interactions with others we come to see her, in no time flat, as a strong-willed, inquisitive, multi-faceted woman who hopefully has what it takes to survive, and possibly even thrive, in this hostile world. There’s a lot of talk about “strong female characters” in various media this days, and within the space of about six pages Future Taylor puts the likes of Katniss Everdeen (or however you spell that) to shame by being a living, breathing, realistic person who just happens to have been born in a time, and under a set of circumstances, that have caused human civilization to go down, to put it in the mildest possible terms, an unexpected path.

As for for the other inhabitants of this perhaps-dystopian-and-perhaps-not makeshift “society” — knowledge and learning are at a premium here, since everyone knows so little of how they came to be in the world got to be in its current state and there’s no centralized education system (or, for that matter, centralized anything) left. I get the feeling that Moore intends to use this situation as a spring-board for exploring some of his well-known anarchist ideals, but we’ll see — I hate to predict any sort of plot trajectory with any degree of certainty when it comes to The Bearded One because his capacity to completely surprise us is so firmly established.

One thing he also firmly establishes here, though, is an overwhelming sense of dread. I mean, dread so thick you can cut it with a knife. Future and her cohorts only have the briefest of encounters with The Crossed in this first issue, and survive these skirmishes with relative ease, but there’s nothing but unease hanging over them from page one to page 24. It definitely takes skill to wring that much tension out of nearly-thin air, and if there’s one thing Crossed + One Hundred excels at right out of the gate it’s in imbuing its readers with a sense of confidence that they’re in mightily capable creative hands. Moore knows exactly where he’s going with this story, it’s just us readers — and his characters — who are in the dark. That makes for some page-turning excitement no matter how much — or even how little — is going on.

The art for this series is being handled by Gabriel Andrade, who has worked on a handful of other projects for Avatar in recent years, and he does a really fine job here. His people look like — well, people — his monsters look suitably monstrous, and while there’s nothing particularly “flashy” about his style, his eye for detail is very welcome here as it takes more than words alone to bring a fully-fleshed-out alternate reality to life. Plus, he provided all eight of this first issue’s variant covers, so that speaks well of his ability to do a quality job even with the heaviest of workloads — I’m therefore reasonably optimistic that all six issues of this series will be coming out on time, and will manage to do so without looking half-assed or rushed.

Are you excited yet, friends? I sure hope so — and I know I am. The zombie apocalypse is certainly thoroughly -charted territory by now as far as genre premises go, but if anyone can breathe some new life into it and challenge, if not entirely overturn, our preconceived notions about what such a scenario would necessarily entail, it’s Moore and Andrade. These guys are bringing their “A game” and are flat-out eager to show us something new and entirely unexpected. This promises to be not just the Crossed story to beat all Crossed stories, but a seminal tale in the history of “zombie fiction” as a whole. The next four weeks can’t pass quickly enough, I’m completely hooked and counting down the days to the second issue.