The Cell (2000) on Netflix
R20001h 47mHorrorSci-FiThriller
Psychologist Catherine Deane enters coma patients' minds with an experimental device. FBI agent Peter Novak asks her to search comatose serial killer Carl Stargher's mind for his latest victim.
- Netflix3.1/5
- IMDb6.4/10116,024 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes45%
Trailer
Plot summary
Catherine Deane is a child psychologist who uses an experimental device to enter the mind of a patient in a coma and try to coax that person back to consciousness. Doctors Henry West and Miriam Kent run the system, which the parents of her patient Edward Baines fund. A viral infection has left the boy comatose and brought on an unusual form of schizophrenia, and a figure in his mind blocks her work. Elsewhere, Carl Rudolph Stargher abducts women and seals them in a glass cell that an automatic timer fills with water. He falls into the same illness and into a coma as the FBI closes in, leaving no clue to the whereabouts of his latest captive, Julia Hickson. Agent Peter Novak learns of the device and asks Deane to go into Stargher's mind and find her.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Cell (2000)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Preparing to play the serial killer Carl Rudolph Stargher, Vincent D'Onofrio isolated himself from his wife and children and spoke with FBI agents to understand the minds of serial murderers. Working with Singh, he developed a makeshift case study of the character to analyze the fragments of his personality.
- Singh said in a DVD commentary that the water-filled tank sequences with actress Tara Subkoff were marred by difficulties, which he put down to her struggling to hold her breath for extended periods; some of those scenes had to be completed using long shots.
- The scene in which Peter Novak first enters Carl Stargher's mind and meets three women with their mouths open to the sky is based on Dawn, a painting by the Norwegian artist Odd Nerdrum. Catherine's chase through a stone hallway is based on H. R. Giger's painting Schacht.
- Answering criticism of Catherine Deane's costume in the climax, Singh said he had not meant the Virgin Mary but a Brazilian water goddess, modeled on the kitsch gods and goddesses Indian truck drivers put on matchbox backs. He conceded that the scene where Peter Novak's intestines are wound out was inspired by Spanish Inquisition torture.
