BEYOND THE BLACK RAINBOW is a luridly delightful throwback to the midnight movies of yore
BEYOND THE BLACK RAINBOW (Panos Cosmatos, 2011)
Cinema Village
22 East 12th St. between University Pl. & Fifth Ave.
Opens Friday, May 18
212-924-3363
www.cinemavillage.com
www.magnetreleasing.com
Writer-director Panos Cosmatos’s debut feature is a creepy homage to those rainy Saturday afternoon low-budget horror movies of the 1970s. Paying tribute to such films as John Carpenter’s Dark Star, Don Coscarelli’s Phantasm, Richard Fleischer’s Soylent Green, Dario Argento’s Suspiria, and even Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, Cosmatos has created a mysterious psychological thriller set in a futuristic past, going from 1983 to 1966, with cinematographer Norm Li alternating between black-and-white scenes to a world bathed in a lurid red, ruled by a cosmic white pyramid. Michael Rogers, sporting the best hairstyle this side of Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men, stars as Barry Nyle, a psychiatrist whose only patient, kept trapped in a padded cell, is Elena (Eva Allan), a frightened young woman trying to regain control of her life — something that Nyle is not about to allow. Beyond the Black Rainbow is a head trip of a flick, a midnight movie with a thumping electronic score by Sinoia Caves, wonderfully cheesy production design by Bob Bottieri, and some classically inexplicable moments filled with strange close-ups, blurry visions, and appropriately substandard acting. Just listening to Nyle breathe deep and heavy is a hoot. We have no idea what the movie is about, but that didn’t detract from our enjoyment of it; in fact, it might have helped.