***MAJOR SPOILERS*** ***MAJOR SPOILERS*** ***MAJOR SPOILERS***
Harvey Hart's THE PYX is about as unsettling of a paranoid 1970s thriller as you can ask for. Imagine THE PARALLAX VIEW but with Satanists and you'll see what I'm getting at. The film revels in it's urban paranoia right down to having an apparently vast international consortium run by Satan controlling human events from behind the scenes via conspiracy, and some oblique twists and turns in it's flashback centered plot that only become apparent once the film is over and the unease has settled into the mind of the viewer. You start to replay events and developments in your head and realize that plot points which occur in the last hour were explained in the first twenty minutes, but only make sense when the concluding fifteen minutes are taken into consideration as the film's story tells itself backwards + sideways, ala PULP FICTION. I honestly don't think we are supposed to know exactly what happened when all is said & done but the mind can't help but try and reason it out. While not a particularly satisfying thriller it's one hell of a manipulation, and this is what I came up with as far as my own answers:
Christopher Plummer gives a blasé, half-aware performance as a Montreal homicide detective assigned to unravel the mysterious death of a prostitute played by Karen Black who may have known all along what was going to happen but felt so trapped in the web of paranoia and her own disenfranchisement that she sort of goes along with it. Her story is told in flashback with Plummer stumbling upon clues to the mystery in the film's real time, which is made all the more confounding by not having anyone come right out and say "She had been targeted for sacrifice by a Satanic cult." I'm not even sure how she ended up dead on the pavement below a 20 story apartment complex: Did she willfully kill herself to provide the police with clues to the sinister group that she found herself shadowed and eventually absorbed by? Or was she pushed off the terrace by the cult leader as a genuine sacrifice? When we finally see how she dies the way the scene is staged is completely ambiguous, no doubt on purpose.
And who is this cult leader anyway? Since the normal approach within modern thinkers is to disavow supernatural answers to riddles and look for prosaic, down to earth explanations, the natural conclusion is that the guy was simply insane, rich, omnipotent, and delusional. But that conclusion ignores a revelation literally made in the film's final few moments which would have been impossible for a mere human to have been aware of. Which is that deep down inside Plummer was secretly delighted when his estranged wife was killed in a car accident years before the film's actions take place. Granted someone rich and powerful enough might have deduced that about Plummer after being informed that he was the one assigned to the case & done their homework on him, but Plummer never responds to the charge verbally and we can only observe the look of horror on his face and conclude that the cult leader was actually possessed by Satan, as he thanks Plummer for freeing him by murdering him in cold blood.
What the film may lack in action or thrills is more than compensated for by simply refusing to not answer any of the questions it poses. The film is also unremittingly bleak and dismal, presenting viewers with a cold, wet, claustrophobic Montreal that is devoid of any warmth, comfort, or sanctuary. The only light hearted moments in the movie are unintentional, specifically a section of Gregorian chant on the soundtrack slowed down & sped up to simulate a hallucinogenic drug soaked Satanic ceremony that comes off sounding like Alvin & The Chipmunks. It's silly but at the same time you can sort of see what they were getting at, an observation that speaks for the whole movie, which eschews a traditional Gothic horror structure for an X-Files like procedural that ends up coming to an unsettling, paranoia inducing conclusion. If the point of the film was to induce a feeling of unease within it's viewers that only surfaces once the story is over it succeeded marvelously. It's been over 12 hours and a good night's sleep since I saw the movie and I'm still walking around feeling depressed, paranoid, and doubtful. Nice job.
Sadly the surviving current elements available to contemporary viewers are unsatisfactory pan/scan small screen re-formattings of the original widescreen photography, which at the same time contributes to the film's claustrophobia and yet robs viewers of being able to actually see what is happening in key scenes. There's one murder in particular that is difficult to understand because you can't see who or what is in the side of the picture for two or three fleeting seconds. Widely available on bargain bin DVD sets for years (under the dubiously sensationalist title THE HOOKER CULT MURDERS), the film is in dire need of a restoration that most probably won't ever happen, meaning that like it's characters the film itself is condemned to take it's mysteries to the grave.
6/10: Worth seeing, and difficult to shake.
Harvey Hart's THE PYX is about as unsettling of a paranoid 1970s thriller as you can ask for. Imagine THE PARALLAX VIEW but with Satanists and you'll see what I'm getting at. The film revels in it's urban paranoia right down to having an apparently vast international consortium run by Satan controlling human events from behind the scenes via conspiracy, and some oblique twists and turns in it's flashback centered plot that only become apparent once the film is over and the unease has settled into the mind of the viewer. You start to replay events and developments in your head and realize that plot points which occur in the last hour were explained in the first twenty minutes, but only make sense when the concluding fifteen minutes are taken into consideration as the film's story tells itself backwards + sideways, ala PULP FICTION. I honestly don't think we are supposed to know exactly what happened when all is said & done but the mind can't help but try and reason it out. While not a particularly satisfying thriller it's one hell of a manipulation, and this is what I came up with as far as my own answers:
Christopher Plummer gives a blasé, half-aware performance as a Montreal homicide detective assigned to unravel the mysterious death of a prostitute played by Karen Black who may have known all along what was going to happen but felt so trapped in the web of paranoia and her own disenfranchisement that she sort of goes along with it. Her story is told in flashback with Plummer stumbling upon clues to the mystery in the film's real time, which is made all the more confounding by not having anyone come right out and say "She had been targeted for sacrifice by a Satanic cult." I'm not even sure how she ended up dead on the pavement below a 20 story apartment complex: Did she willfully kill herself to provide the police with clues to the sinister group that she found herself shadowed and eventually absorbed by? Or was she pushed off the terrace by the cult leader as a genuine sacrifice? When we finally see how she dies the way the scene is staged is completely ambiguous, no doubt on purpose.
And who is this cult leader anyway? Since the normal approach within modern thinkers is to disavow supernatural answers to riddles and look for prosaic, down to earth explanations, the natural conclusion is that the guy was simply insane, rich, omnipotent, and delusional. But that conclusion ignores a revelation literally made in the film's final few moments which would have been impossible for a mere human to have been aware of. Which is that deep down inside Plummer was secretly delighted when his estranged wife was killed in a car accident years before the film's actions take place. Granted someone rich and powerful enough might have deduced that about Plummer after being informed that he was the one assigned to the case & done their homework on him, but Plummer never responds to the charge verbally and we can only observe the look of horror on his face and conclude that the cult leader was actually possessed by Satan, as he thanks Plummer for freeing him by murdering him in cold blood.
What the film may lack in action or thrills is more than compensated for by simply refusing to not answer any of the questions it poses. The film is also unremittingly bleak and dismal, presenting viewers with a cold, wet, claustrophobic Montreal that is devoid of any warmth, comfort, or sanctuary. The only light hearted moments in the movie are unintentional, specifically a section of Gregorian chant on the soundtrack slowed down & sped up to simulate a hallucinogenic drug soaked Satanic ceremony that comes off sounding like Alvin & The Chipmunks. It's silly but at the same time you can sort of see what they were getting at, an observation that speaks for the whole movie, which eschews a traditional Gothic horror structure for an X-Files like procedural that ends up coming to an unsettling, paranoia inducing conclusion. If the point of the film was to induce a feeling of unease within it's viewers that only surfaces once the story is over it succeeded marvelously. It's been over 12 hours and a good night's sleep since I saw the movie and I'm still walking around feeling depressed, paranoid, and doubtful. Nice job.
Sadly the surviving current elements available to contemporary viewers are unsatisfactory pan/scan small screen re-formattings of the original widescreen photography, which at the same time contributes to the film's claustrophobia and yet robs viewers of being able to actually see what is happening in key scenes. There's one murder in particular that is difficult to understand because you can't see who or what is in the side of the picture for two or three fleeting seconds. Widely available on bargain bin DVD sets for years (under the dubiously sensationalist title THE HOOKER CULT MURDERS), the film is in dire need of a restoration that most probably won't ever happen, meaning that like it's characters the film itself is condemned to take it's mysteries to the grave.
6/10: Worth seeing, and difficult to shake.