entertainment

THE MONK

⋆⋆ ½ out of four stars

Rating: R for some sexuality, brief graphic nudity and some violence. In subtitled French.

Theater: St. Anthony Main

This adaptation of the classic anticlerical gothic novel is genuinely eerie, but told at a too-stately pace. Vincent Cassel plays Brother Ambrosio, abandoned at the door of a Spanish monastery as an infant and now a devout Capuchin friar. A model of rectitude, he becomes a legend in 17th-century Madrid, drawing overflow crowds for his brilliant and moving sermons. His inflexible righteousness leads him to reveal a nun’s pregnancy to her prioress with unspeakably cruel consequences, and, as if in retribution, his faith is put to the test. A mysterious lad wearing a mask to cover his fire-scarred face arrives at the monastery and becomes Ambrosio’s confidant. The relationship leads the unworldly Ambrosio through a maze of duplicity, depravity and lust. The story is chockablock with twists and surprise revelations that make its tastefully rendered depravity all the more disturbing. If only director Dominik Moll (who has clearly studied his Luis Buñuel) had not staged this bitter psychological horror story at half speed.

JOHN DIES AT THE END

⋆⋆ ½ out of four stars

Rating: R for bloody violence and gore, nudity, language and drug content.

Theater: Lagoon.