HORSEMEN

US, 2009. 90 minutes, Colour.
Dennis Quaid, Ziyi Zhang, Lou Taylor Pucci, Clifton Collins Jr, Barry Shabaka Henley, Patrick Fugit, Eric Balfour, Paul Dooley, Chelcie Ross, Peter Stormare.
Directed by Jonas Akerlund.

Horsemen is an unusual thriller, set in the state of Minnesota, focusing on a detective, recently bereaved, still grieving his wife, father of two sons.

With a gruesome murder, involving the extraction of teeth, he is called in and becomes involved in an increasing number of bizarre murders. On the walls, written in blood, is “Come to me”. The detective is played by Dennis Quaid with Lou Taylor Pucci as his disturbed son.

Getting advice from the parish priest, Paul Dooley, the text is explained as from the Book of Revelation – and the murders begin to resemble the mission of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Clifton Collins Jr and Barry Shabaka Henley join the detective in the investigations. There is a bit bizarre connection with the initial murder, a father, Peter Stormarre, and his adopted children, especially the Chinese girl played by the Ziyi Zhang (Crouching Dragon, Hidden Tiger, Memoirs of a Geisha). About halfway through, a character played by Patrick Fugit also appears, introducing a theme of homosexuality, and the weary detective makes a link between various characters, seeking psychological therapy, including his son, who are acting out their traumas on various victims, according to the scriptural text.

There were some difficulties in production and dispersion this version seems to have been strongly edited.

1. The title? The Book of Revelation? The four horsemen, symbolism of pestilence and death?

2. The film as a murder mystery, touches of horror, grim and grizzly?

3. The American city, the landscapes, the details of the city, the locations, apartments and homes, sinister locations for the deaths? The musical score?

4. The grim murders, the focus, the detail of the deaths, sadistic touches, the hooks on the machines, the bodies, the torture? The impact of the visuals of the deaths?

5. The writing on the wall, Come and See? Breslin as churchgoing, with his children, the priest and his sermon, Breslin’s visit and the explanations of the text and the implications?

6. Breslin, working hard on his job, widower, his two boys, the neglect, inability to talk, the silences in the home? The tickets for the baseball match, his being called out? The consequences for his son?

7. The tattoo parlours and the building of the machines and the sales?

8. Breslin at work, the first death, the teeth, his expertise? On site, the bodies, identifying them, the autopsies? Stingray and Tuck, their friendship with Breslin, their work at the murder scenes? Speculations, clues, information?

9. The family of the murdered woman, the father and his grief, the children, Kristin as adopted, Chinese? The reactions?

10. The body in the hotel, the apartment, the mystery, not tortured like the others?

11. The clues, religious, date for the apocalypse, Breslin and his working to prevent further killings? The theory about several killers?

12. Corey, his character, with his brother, the taunts about his being gay? Reactions? The location, his brother on the hooks, tortured? Corey and the knife,
slicing himself in suicide?

13. The investigation, what the victims had in common? The psychiatrist in therapy? The messages? The discussions with Kristin, her brashness and heartless comments? Breslin and Alex, finding his son with the hooks, hanging, his death?

14. Kristin, the sexual abuse by her father, the therapy, meeting with Corey and Alex, the combination, vengeance?

15. The after effect of the killings?