Roman Polanski will always be associated with the devil. He made the influential horror masterpiece Rosemary’s Baby and was falsely rumored to have recruited Anton Lavey, the head of the Church of Satan, to advise on it and possibly portray the uncredited Lucifer. It was shot in The Dakota, the exclusive Manhattan apartment building where John Lennon was shot. John Lennon’s Revolution and its audio landscape Revolution 9 unhinged Charles Manson, who shattered Polanski’s life in a too-real bloodbath at a house where Lennon stayed while The Beatles were in California.

But rarely has a director made a movie that invited comparison to two of his own films as readily as Roman Polanski has with The Ninth Gate:.

Sometimes the universe comes together in a bad way. Polanski exiled himself from America after committing a sinister act, probably as a result of the trauma he endured after the slaughter of his wife and unborn child. He has never shied away from horror in his films. That doesn’t necessarily mean his films, even his horror films, are always scary.

Thirty years after Rosemary’s Baby, Polanski conjured the devil again and mixed it with his noir classic Chinatown for the 1999 French-Spanish-American thriller The Ninth Gate. Johnny Depp stars as a man descending into evil as easily as he would slip into a hot bath. It is part of a very exclusive subgenre in film, the Satanic Detective Movie, of which there is only one other,Angel Heart. Fallen, starring Denzel Washington is a satanic cop movie, although it shares some noir trademarks.

The Ninth Gate is an adaptation of The Dumas Club, a book written by Spanish novelist Arturo Pérez-Reverte. The story of a book detective who is hired to authenticate, among other things, De Umbrarum Regis Novum Portis (The Nine Doors To the Kingdom of Shadows). The fictional Nine Gates was written by the equally fictional Aristide Torchia when he was in Venice in 1666, while in possession of the Delomelanicon, another fictional book allegedly written by the devil himself. Lucifer gets partial credit for woodcut engravings, but no residuals because all but three of the books were burned at the stake along with the author. A cult formed around the book that believes it contains instructions on how to raise Satan. Aristide Torchia is probably based on the life of Giordano Bruno, who was burned at the stake by the Catholic Church for his belief in pantheism.

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Reluctant movie heartthrob Johnny Depp plays the book mercenary Dean Corso with a cruel, aloof undertone and a devil-may-care charm. Frank Langella, who starred as Dracula on stage and screen when he was still a heart-throb, plays the bad bibliophile, Boris Balkan, with a Mephistophelian glee. Lena Olin plays Liana Telfer, a member of the cult of the book of the Ninth Gate and the seductive widow of the book’s previous owner Andrew Telfer, who committed suicide. Polanski’s wife, Catholic convent student turned model and Ultra Orange singer Emmanuelle Seigner, plays the Girl, a kickboxing imp in mismatched socks.

Polanski borrowed Barbara Jefford from the Royal Shakespeare Company to play the wheelchair bound, stump-armed Baroness Frida Kessler. Jack Taylor, who made a nude appearance in Jesus Franco’s 1974 pornographic horror film, Female Vampire, plays Victor Fargas. Production manager Jose Lopez Rodero plays both Pablo and Pedro Ceniza, the identical-twin, chain-smoking book dealers with a gift for artistic forgery.

The screenplay was written by Enrique Urbiz, Roman Polanski and John Brownjohn. Darius Khondji is the cinematographer and Wojciech Kilar composed the orchestral strains of dread. The Ninth Gate was filmed at the Parisian Hotel Cayre and the Château de Ferrieres near Paris. Balkan raises the devil in the Château de Puivert, the castle where the Catholic Church began the crusades against the Cathars, the heretics of the South of France.

The film begins with Andrew Telfer hanging himself from the chandelier in his library. It is not an easy death. He doesn’t break his neck. He chokes to death. Maybe he killed himself because of the missing book the camera is so interested in. We meet Dean Corso as he is gutting a couple out of a rare copy of Don Quixote while the owner, a stroke victim, silently digs holes in his knees with this fingers at his agitation over being ripped off. While he is leaving, Corso is confronted by another book dealer for being an unscrupulous vulture. After snoozing through a lecture where he notices a woman who notices him, Corso is summoned to see Boris Balkan’s esteemed book collection, all with one protagonist, the devil. Balkan acquired one of only three surviving copies of the ancient book Nine Gates to the Kingdom of Shadows by Aristide Torchia, from the late Andrew Telfer.

The author was burned at the stake in the 1600s for writing it in collaboration with Lucifer. The “Nine Gates” reputedly contains a puzzle that forms a ritual that will allow the reader to summon the devil. Balkan believes that something is not right about his copy. Corso asks “What’s wrong, the Devil won’t show up?” Balkan pays Corso to inspect the book against the other two existing copies and to obtain an original, non-forgery by any means possible. Corso meets with Telfer’s widow who is upset that this book, which was very special to her husband, had been sold. Corso stashes his copy at Bernie’s Rare Books.

Mischief Night is an informal holiday on which children and teenagers engage in pranks and vandalism. It is known by a variety of names including Devil's Night, Gate Night, Goosey Night, Moving Night, Cabbage Night and Mat Night.^[1]

Historical background[edit]

The earliest reference to Mischief Night is from 1790 when a headmaster encouraged a school play which ended in 'an Ode to Fun which praises children's tricks on Mischief Night in most approving terms'.^[2] In the United Kingdom, these pranks were originally carried out as part of the May Day celebrations, but shifted to later in the year, dates varying in different areas, some marking it on 30 October, the night before Halloween, others on 4 November, the night before Bonfire Night. According to one historian, 'May Day and the Green Man had little resonance for children in grimy cities. They looked at the opposite end of the year and found the ideal time, the night before the Gunpowder Plot.'^[2] However, the shift only happened in the late 19th century and is described by the Opies as 'one of the mysteries of the folklore calendar'.^[3]

Naming variations[edit]

In the United States and Canada[edit]

In most of New Jersey, as well as in New Orleans, Philadelphia, Eastern Pennsylvania, Delaware, parts of New York State, and Connecticut, it is referred to as 'Mischief Night' or, particularly in the Great Lakes region, 'Devil's Night'. In some towns in Northern New Jersey and parts of New York State, it is also known as 'Goosey Night'.^[4][5][6]

Meanwhile, in Baltimore, Maryland, it has traditionally been referred to as 'Moving Night' due to the custom of exchanging or stealing porch furniture and other outside items.^[7]

In Detroit, which was particularly hard-hit by Devil's Night arson and vandalism throughout the 1980s, many citizens take it upon themselves to patrol the streets to deter arsonists and those who may break the law. This is known as 'Angels' Night'. Some 40,000 volunteer citizens patrol the city on Angels' Night, which usually runs October 29 through October 31, around the time most Halloween festivities are taking place.^[8]

In rural Niagara Falls, Ontario, during the 1950s and 1960s, Cabbage Night (French: Nuit de Chou) referred to the custom of raiding local gardens for leftover rotting cabbages and hurling them about to create mischief in the neighbourhood. Today, the night is still celebrated in Ontario but is also commonly known as 'Cabbage Night' in parts of the United States areas of Vermont; Connecticut; Bergen County, New Jersey; Upstate New York; Northern Kentucky; Newport, Rhode Island; and Western Massachusetts.^[9]

It is known as 'Gate Night' in New Hampshire, West Kootenay (British Columbia), Vancouver Island, Winnipeg, Thunder Bay (Ontario), Bay City (Michigan), Rockland County (New York), North Dakota and South Dakota; the implication is that the Gates of Hell open the night before Halloween; as 'Mat Night' in English-speaking Quebec; and as 'Devil's Night' in many places throughout Canada, Michigan, and western Pennsylvania.^[10]Faces of war pc game.

In the United Kingdom[edit]

In some parts of the country, 'Mischief Night' is held on 30 October, the night before Halloween. The separation of Halloween tricks from treats seems to have only developed in certain areas, often appearing in one region but not at all nearby regions.^[10]

Mischief Night is known in Yorkshire as 'Mischievous Night' or the shortened 'Chievous Night' 'Miggy Night', 'Tick-Tack Night', 'Corn Night', 'Trick Night' or 'Micky Night' and is celebrated across Northern England on 4 November the night before Bonfire Night.^[11] In some areas of Yorkshire, it is extremely popular among 13-year-olds, as they believe it to be a sort of 'coming of age ceremony' .^[12]

In and around the city of Liverpool, Mischief Night is known locally as 'Mizzy Night'; trouble spots were being tackled by the Merseyside Police in 2015.^[13]

Contemporary practice[edit]

In the United States[edit]

Mischief Night is generally recognized as a New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Michigan phenomenon.^[14]

Mischief Night tends to include popular tricks such as toilet papering yards and buildings, powder-bombing and egging cars, people, and homes, using soap to write on windows, 'forking' yards, setting off fireworks, and smashing pumpkins and jack-o'-lanterns.^[10] Local grocery stores often refuse to sell eggs to children and teenagers around the time of Halloween for this reason. Occasionally, the damage can escalate to include the spray-painting of buildings and homes.^[15] Less destructive is the prank known as 'Knock, Knock, Ginger'.

In New Orleans in recent years, Mischief Night has included a series of unruly parade-like riots.^[16] According to participants, the Mischief Night 'krewes' follow in New Orleans' carnival's centuries-old tradition of 'walking parades', which mostly transpire in the lead-up to Mardi Gras. Mixing revelry with mindless violence, Mischief Night parades involve thematic floats and costumes as well as targeted vandalism and fires. Targets of vandalism, attacks and arson have included the police, innocent bystanders and property.^{[citation needed]}

Narcissu 1st and 2nd anniversary. When asked in an interview from 2017 how Mischief Night in New Orleans fits into the context of carnival, a parader replied 'Our Carnival traditions are those that actually want to 'turn the world upside down.'^[17] After a parade through downtown in 2016 that saw bonfires in the street, police cars hit with paint, and a now-removed white supremacist monument chipped away at with a sledgehammer, another participant wrote:

There is no longer a middle ground; that’s been seized for luxury condos. The choice is stark: we either collectively build a more combative spiritual practice or we collude in ceding our ritual spaces of encounter to the oppressors.^[18]

In some areas of Queens, New York, Cabbage Night has included throwing rotten fruit at neighbors, cars, and buses. Children and teenagers fill eggs with Neet and Nair hair remover and throw them at unsuspecting individuals. In the mid-1980s, garbage was set on fire and cemeteries were set ablaze. In Camden, New Jersey, Mischief Night escalated to the point that in the 1990s widespread arson was committed, with over 130 arsons on the night of October 30, 1991.^[19]

In popular culture[edit]

• In the 1994 film The Crow, the protagonist and his fiancé are murdered on the eve of their Halloween wedding on 'Devil's Night' by a street gang on the orders of Detroit's most notorious crime lord, Top Dollar. With the help of a mystical crow, Eric returns from the grave on 'Devil's Night' one year later to exact revenge against the crime lord and his henchmen.^[20]
• A 1999 episode of Rocket Power explores the joys of Mischief Night in The Night Before.^{[citation needed]}
• A 2006 film, Mischief Night, is based on events surrounding this night in Leeds, U.K.^[21][22]
• A horror film was released in 2013, Mischief Night, directed by Richard Schenkman.^[23]
• A different horror film was released in 2014, also called Mischief Night and directed by Travis Baker.^[24]
• Orange is the New Black: In season 6, episode 5, the main characters of Orange is the New Black are subjected to pranks throughout the episode because of “Mischief Night”.^{[citation needed]}

See also[edit]

References[edit]

1. ^'Dialect Survey Results'.
2. ^ ^abWainright, Martin (November 2, 2008). 'Traditionalist pranksters prepare for mayhem of Mischief Night'. The Guardian. Retrieved November 7, 2010.
3. ^Opie, Iona; Opie, Peter (2001). The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren. New York: New York Review Books. p. 255. ISBN0940322692.
4. ^Myles Ma (October 30, 2014). 'Mischief Night? Cabbage Night? Goosey Night? What does it all mean?'. NJ.com. Retrieved October 30, 2014.
5. ^'Mischief Night, apparently, is a Jersey thing. Here's how this mayhem started'. October 28, 2018.
6. ^'NEW JERSEY JOURNALZ HISTORIANS as well as law-enforcement officials are assessing last week's Halloween activities. Traditionally, on Halloween Eve - widely known as Mischief Night - pranksters armed with soap and eggs sally forth, bent on leaving their marks on car, store and garage windows, as well as on occasional pedestrians or even on other pranksters'. The New York Times. November 4, 1984.
7. ^'Neighbors take action as 'Mischief Night' pranks turn ugly'. The Baltimore Sun. October 31, 2008. Retrieved October 30, 2017.
8. ^'City of Detroit Angels Night – Home Page'. Ci.detroit.mi.us. Archived from the original on October 29, 2013. Retrieved October 30, 2013.
9. ^Ditko, Veronica MacDonald (October 1, 2010). 'Cabbage Night to You, Mischief Night to Me'. The Franklin Lakes Journal. Archived from the original on October 6, 2013. Retrieved October 5, 2013.
10. ^ ^abc'October 29, 2008-Devil's Night: The History of Pre-Halloween Pranks by Heather Whipps'. Live Science. Retrieved November 1, 2010.
11. ^Opie, Iona; Opie, Peter (2001). The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren. New York: New York Review Books. p. 276. ISBN0940322692.
12. ^'Confessions from a Mischief Night Brat'. BBC North Yorkshire. October 31, 2006. Archived from the original on March 19, 2007. Retrieved June 1, 2014.CS1 maint: unfit url (link)
13. ^'Merseyside Police take action to prevent Mischief Night trouble'. liverpoolecho. October 30, 2015. Retrieved October 31, 2015.
14. ^'Mischief Night, apparently, is a Jersey thing. Here's how this mayhem started'. October 28, 2018.
15. ^'Jackson Citizen Patriot: October 21, 2007-Halloween blow-ups vandalized in Springport by Jake May'. Blog.mlive.com. October 21, 2007. Retrieved November 1, 2010.
16. ^Crime Bits: Mischief Night Edition
17. ^New Orleans Mischief Night: An Interview with Revelers
18. ^Mischief Night Parade Breaks History
19. ^Fire and Police Departments Extinguish Pre-Halloween Arson Sprees
20. ^'The Crow'. Rotten Tomatoes. January 1, 1994. Retrieved November 6, 2015.
21. ^Mischief Night film review Retrieved on October 31, 2008
22. ^imdb ref Retrieved on October 31, 2008
23. ^'Trailer: Mischief Night'. HorrorNews.net. Retrieved November 5, 2013.
24. ^'After Dark Has a Release Plan for Mischief Night – Shock Till You Drop'. Retrieved October 7, 2015.

External links[edit]

• Confessions from a Mischief Night brat BBC Yorkshire report — November 2006
• Police Patrol for Mischief Night BBC Merseyside report — November 2006
• Dialect Survey Results US terms;prevalence and distribution