Pretty much every Chris Nolan movie could be referred to as a horror film. His protagonists are always caught in nigh-on nonsensical nightmares, surrounded by corruption, unable to trust the people or worlds around them, unable to trust even their own perceptions and memories. Even a happy ending is shrouded in ambiguity and comes at incredible cost. The film that bests demonstrates this is The Prestige, his most underrated (and, save for a zero gravity hallway sequence, best) picture. The Prestige is about the pursuit of perfection, the drive to be the very best at what you love. For Nolan, that love is filmmaking, and he pushes himself to extremes to capture these specific cinematic visions, often at the expense of millions of dollars and the frustration of himself and the people he works with. For the characters in The Prestige, their love is illusions and secrets, the cost of which are much steeper and more intimate. Both Borden (Christian Bale) and Angier (Hugh Jackman, in career best work) destroy themselves to be better than the other, and every time you think theyve finally reached bottom, they push further, until even the laws of the natural world are forfeit. The final toll is staggering, including suicides, murders and a couple different fates worse than death. But then Nolan does one better, pushing the film from engaging thriller to unnerving, lingering horror: He dares to end the film by suggesting that this, all this ruin that the two men have wrought on themselves and those that they love, that maybe it was all justified. Maybe true art really is worth the cost, however steep. MOST HORROR MOMENT: We took turns. If youve seen the film, you know what that line means, and you know just how gross the implications are.
Brendan Foley is a pop-culture omnivore which is a nice way of saying he has no taste. He has a passion for genre movies, TV shows, books and any and all media built around short people with hairy feet and magic rings. He has a Bachelor's degree in Journalism and Writing, which is a very nice way of saying that he's broke. You can follow/talk to/yell at him on Twitter at @TheTrueBrendanF.
