After 'Se7en,' Its Writer Made a Thriller With Nicolas Cage, James Gandolfini, and Joaquin Phoenix — And Critics Simply Hated It

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Based on its subject and mass critical panning upon release, no film was suited for a cult revival quite like 8mm. The 1999 crime thriller caught its principal stars and creative figures at inflection points in their careers. Nicolas Cage was at the peak of his stardom, but the tides were shifting, as his brand of overacting verged into meme territory. On the flip side, Joaquin Phoenix and James Gandolfini were on the cusp of becoming household names. If anyone needed to hit the reset button, it was director Joel Schumacher, who was reeling from the fiasco that was Batman & Robin. Luckily, he got hold of a script by Andrew Kevin Walker, hot off the success of Seven, which turned into another grimy, investigative thriller set in the disturbing underworld of hardcore pornography in 8mm, a film that appalled critics but found acceptance with audiences.

'8mm' Tackles Transgressive and Disturbing Material

Nicolas Cage and Joaquin Phoenix watching a tape in '8mm'

Seven, the film that announced David Fincher as one of the premiere directors in Hollywood, inspired a wave of serial killer thrillers that put zero guardrails on graphic and lurid material. To this day, any police procedural film is compared to the diamond-cut precision and somber meditations on morality in Seven. Screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker certainly would've felt the pressure of following up on one of the best films of the 1990s. With 8mm, he doubled down on the horrific, nihilistic depravity of his breakout film. 8mm, following Tom Welles (Cage), a private eye hired by a wealthy widow to discover the validity of a "snuff film" found in her late husband's vault, makes Seven look like a light, autumnal rom-com. As Welles submerges into the world of BDSM in Hollywood, guided by adult video store clerk Max California (Phoenix), he spirals into obsession and uncovers a macabre conspiracy about the graphic 8mm film reel.

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With material this transgressive, one could imagine Joel Schumacher, a certified style-over-substance filmmaker, crafting the most lurid and dazzling visuals for the screen. Schumacher, specializing in slick trash like The Lost Boys, Falling Down, and A Time to Kill, pushed his flashy aesthetic too far in Gotham City, as his widely derided Batman & Robin eventually forced studios to ground superhero properties with dignified nuance. Following his Batman sojourn, Schumacher returned to familiar territory in 8mm, but he displayed newfound restraint with a film that inherently called for dynamic formalism.

For better or worse, the film is shot like a middlebrow studio programmer with just enough visual panache not to seem phoned in. The baroque production design of his Batman films or the head-induced sleaze of Falling Down and his John Grisham adaptations is muted in favor of distinct performance work. Evoking the ostentatious Schumacher flair are James Gandolfini and Peter Stormare as the villainous, seedy pornographers. Released in theaters when The Sopranos first hit the airwaves, Gandolfini plays a rotten version of Tony Soprano bereft of any moral high-ground.

'8mm' Explores the Psychological Effect of Submerging Into the Underbelly Society

In retrospect, the outcry against 8mm among critics is mysterious, as the film does not indulge in Schumacher's usual taste for cheap exploitation. The heart of the film doesn't lie with its garish subject, but rather, in its examination of obsession and humans' perverse fascinations with the underbelly of society. Sitting at a lowly 24% on Rotten Tomatoes, critics were so disturbed by the film's depiction of hardcore pornography and sexual assault (understandably so), that they decried 8mm as if it were a snuff film itself. Roger Ebert, who was quick to denounce films as morally objectionable (notably in his notorious review of Blue Velvet), surprisingly stuck up for 8mm, praising it as a morality fable. Sure, the movie may lack the artful and cerebral touch that David Fincher brought to Seven, but it is way more about the people making and chasing after the titular film reel rather than the disturbing content of the film reel.

Ultimately, audiences didn't care about the blowback, as 8mm grossed a strong $96 million at the box office. Not only was Nicolas Cage, coming off Face/Off and Con Air, money in the bank, but the post-Seven wave of serial killer movies made this February release a noteworthy event. Cage's haunted gaze in Leaving Las Vegas and Bringing Out the Dead is used to full effect in this context, as he is just an ordinary family man who stumbled into a depraved world because his curiosity ran too free. Unseemly desires are at the root of 8mm, from the conspirators' inexplicably twisted fetishes, to Welles' motivation to murder Eddie Poole (Gandolfini). While not the most sophisticated portrayal of violence and vigilantism, as the film does everything it can to valorize Welles as a hero, 8mm nonetheless reckons with the inhumane nature of being exposed to human atrocities, rather than exploiting them.