Twixt

Francis Coppola comes nearly full circle in his career with this embarrassing, juvenile horror pastiche, analogous to porn-parody in its mainstream pastiche of the genre. After breaking into show biz with soft porn, he first garnered attention 50 years ago with "Dementia 13" for Roger Corman, and unlike Corman's classic Poe adaptations of that era, Coppola's Poe pastiche here is terrible.

Main failing is a complete lack of self-awareness, which often besets artists full of themselves. As indicated in the dreadful "Making of" short subject directed by his grand-daughter Gia, Francis is caught up in the craft of filmmaking, including dabbling with that ever-trendy (and pointless) gimmick 3-D, oblivious to the silliness of his script and the lousy scenes printed. Clearly living in the past of his successes, married with an ill-advised affinity for independent (and amateurish) modern filmmaking, he seems to lack the necessary self- criticism that helped him fashion classic work 40 years back.

Similarly, his lead Val Kilmer is also a has-been, content with underplaying most scenes and overacting crucial emotional ones, when not indulging in idiotic impressions (the Kevin Spacey syndrome), as when egged on by Coppola to "do Mark Twain". Apparently both star and director expect to earn brownie points for not caring one whit whether they make fools of themselves.

Early in the film I sensed a promising return to a type of fantasy and horror that once gave birth to the seminal classic "Lemora" starring Rainbeaux Smith, beloved by connoisseurs if not the general public. Its director Richard Blackburn was a one-hit wonder, or perhaps less since this was not a hit but more of a cult classic.

But to paraphrase Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, as applied not to Dan Quayle in the political arena, but to leading lady Elle Fanning, "You're no Rainbeaux Smith". A talented young actress, Fanning is a dead space on screen here in the crucial part of the mysterious undead girl who lures Val into the story. Besides soft porn roots, Coppola in the '80s was famously a hanger-on to the Adult industry, attending annual AVN awards dinners and hob-nobbing with sexy XXX starlets. Had he chosen porn rather than horror for this 2011 backsliding exercise, he could have cast the perfect young beauty Elsa Jean or even fulfilled by dream of giving current jail-bait superstar Piper Perri a chance to show her acting chops in Elle's role.

Storyline of has-been, bargain-basement Stephen King horror writer Val (character name: Hall) ordered by his publisher to come up with a "bulletproof" ending for his new novel, or else, it was sad to see how perfunctory and dissatisfying an ending triple-threat Coppola concocted for this movie. The tongue-in-cheek performances (especially by Bruce Dern as sheriff and transparent bad guy, another Corman graduate) and series of stupid scenes included a rather lame in-joke of Val's nasty and venal wife played by his real wife Joanne Whalley (ex hyphenate Kilmer in her stage name). I would have preferred Nastassja Kinski doing a snake dance. Similarly, the handling of the red-herring goth cult of youngsters dangled for us was pure cliché and even less believable than such filler as presented in '60s softcore movies.

The acid test for this junker is how it would have been greeted had it not borne the prestigious Coppola name in its credits. Perhaps critics and audiences would have felt sorry for an unknown filmmaker breaking in with a failed but technically adept genre piece. But for an all-time great wasting his time and intelligence on such crap -unforgivable.

The decadent writer of witch tales Hall Baltimore (Val Kilmer) travels to Swann Valley, a small town where people go to be forgotten, as part of his tour to promote his recent novel. The town does not have a book store, and Hall stays in a hardware store waiting for his nonexistent fans. Later Sheriff Bobby LaGrange (Bruce Dern), who is an aspirant writer, arrives and tells that he is his fan and asks for an autograph in his book. Then he asks if Hall could read his recent work and invites him to go to the morgue to see the body of a victim of a serial-killer that was murdered with a stake through her heart. Then Hall goes to a coffee shop and discovers that Edgar Allan Poe has once come to a hotel in the town where twelve children have been murdered. He goes to his room and tells his wife through Skype that he is going to write a novel based on the weird events at Swann Valley. Hall falls sleep and in his dream, he walks along a park where he meets the twelve year-old Virginia "V" (Elle Fanning) that tells that is her fan, and then with Edgar Allan Poe (Ben Chaplin). On the next morning, Hall decides to team-up with Bobby to write a story based on his idea, but he is blocked and uses pills to sleep and dream. Along the creation process, Hall entwines reality with his dreams.

"Twixt" is a stylish and Gothic movie by Francis Ford Coppola, with a ghost story about the writing process, magnificent cinematography and atmosphere and great performance of Val Kilmer. Unfortunately, the screenplay is messy and disappoints most of the viewers including me. The potential of the storyline is lost with the poor script. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Virginia"

Note: On 20 July 2016, I saw this film again.

Note: On 23 March 2025, I saw this film again.

"Maybe this is what I need, this story." Hall Baltimore (Kilmer) is a writer that has seen his recent sales drop. He begins to travel from town to town promoting his new book with book signings no one cares about. When he comes to a small town he meets the sheriff Bobby LaGrange (Dern) we is interested in writing with him. When he shows Hall the town's most recent murder victim he becomes intrigued. After learning of the town's past Hall becomes obsessed with his new story idea and wants to find the truth. I was torn before I watched this. I am a huge Coppola fan, the Godfather is my favorite movie, but the fact that Val Kilmer was in this made me a little leery. After about 20 minutes I found out that Coppola out-ways Kilmer. The movie is very interesting and sucks you in enough to keep you watching and wondering what is going to happen next. A somewhat original idea but the writing and story make it seem fresh and exciting. This is easily Kilmer's best movie since Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Coppola's best since the Rainmaker. While the movie isn't for everyone I think it is worth seeing and it's nice to see a horror movie that isn't just how many people can we chop up in an hour. Overall, a movie I liked but again isn't for everyone. I give it a B.

Francis Ford Coppola (THE GODFATHER, APOCALYPSE NOW, THE CONVERSATION, BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA, etc.) is an inarguable master filmmaker. Since 2000 he's only made four films and I haven't seen any of them until now. Originally released as TWIXT, this version, B'TWIXT NOW AND SUNRISE, is a re-edited director's cut of the film that's shorter than the original. I never saw the original cut, so I can't compare, but I can say I enjoyed this oddball low-budget film. Val Kilmer plays a barely famous horror writer stopping by a small town for a book signing and then becomes intrigued by a local murder mystery involving a young girl and possibly vampires. Kilmer is good, as always, and Bruce Dern plays the colorful over-the-top sheriff (and wannabe horror novelist). There's also a great supporting cast that includes Elle Fanning as a ghost/vampire/murder victim, David Paymer as Kilmer's agent, and Joanne Whalley (Kilmer's real-life ex-wife) playing his ex-wife, which is delightfully meta and funny. The entire film feels like Coppola is doing a goof and just having fun. After watching the behind-the-scenes documentary by his granddaughter Gia Coppola, I feel even more convinced of that or maybe it's just that Coppola runs a very casual relaxed set. It doesn't feel as substantial or weighty as his other work, but Coppola is a master filmmaker and you can see it in his frame compositions, the way scenes cut together, and the dreamlike quality he brings to the film, even if the material seems rather light and inconsequential. Overall, I'm not sure I'd recommend this film to anyone outside of Coppola or Kilmer die-hards, but I count myself as one on both parts, so this film worked for me.

I'm so surprised by the low ratings. This is exactly what I look for in a surreal murder mystery. Now I'm going to have to go back and watch Twixt. All the actors are fantastic and timeless while invoking classic literature, such as Edgar Allan Poe's style.

Hopefully B'Twixt will open this classic to a wider audience, I'm sure there are a lot of people who would appreciate this film, and give it the recognition it deserves.

I love the dreamy flow of the story. I can't think of anything that resembles B'Twixt, it's funny and spooky. The camera work and editing makes it an ethereal journey from beginning to end.