30 NIGHTS OF NIGHT, Night 2: TWIXT (2012)

Francis Ford Coppola’s Twixt is a small gem of a ghost story, an ode to the director’s roots in horror. Though he’s made some of the best films of all time, Coppola has always had an appreciation for all things spooky and creepy and crawly. He produced the Jeepers Creepers series (the third of which has been unforgivably long delayed), and his first film, Dementia 13, was a micro-budgeted shocker that hinted at what he was to become. Twixt, which he wrote and directed, has a preposterous and convoluted story that I wasn’t quite sure I’d grasped at the end, but I was surprised at how much it didn’t matter.

This is a movie about atmosphere, and Coppola creates a living, breathing setting in the small ghost town of Swan Valley. Hall Baltimore (Val Kilmer), a semi-successful horror author who’s forever lived in the shadow of Stephen King, drives into town for a book signing which attracts distressingly little attention. The exception is the sheriff, Bobby LaGrange (Bruce Dern), who’s interested in partnering with Baltimore on a book about the mysterious deaths of 13 young girls, and their connection to a group of devil-worshipers that have set up shop at the outskirts of town.

As Baltimore walks through the town at night, it begins to take a different shape from the boring, nearly abandoned town he sees during the day. He speaks with several inhabitants, some of whom may no longer be alive. It provides a pensive escape from the daytime, when he battles with his estranged wife (Joanne Whalley, Kilmer’s real-life ex-wife) over money, fends off the sheriff’s ambitious advances, and investigates the strange occurrences in the town’s history.

The story is difficult to follow. I’m not even sure that Coppola intends for us to do so. The past blends with the present, and characters seem to weave back and forth in time, and neither Baltimore nor we are quite sure what year it is. The film inhabits Baltimore’s mind as he explores the town and sees it through the filter of a ghost story. He meets a young girl (Elle Fanning) who by all accounts existed in the 19th century but appears to know who he is. And in the film’s weakest sub-plot, he carries on conversations with a dour, humorless spectre of Edgar Allan Poe (Ben Chaplin).

But never mind the plot. Look at the joy Coppola takes in visiting classic horror traditions. The heptagonal clock tower that for some reason broadcasts seven different times. The oddball clock repairman (Don Novello—yes, Don Novello) who seems to exist at all times in history. The body in the morgue with the stake driven through its heart. The small-town strangeness of Dern’s performance as the opportunistic sheriff, and his relationship with the Renfieldesque deputy, as well as the kid who hangs out at the station and plays games.

Kilmer’s strong performance is an anchor for the film’s traverses. He’s believable as the down-and-out author, and provides something to follow even when the film goes off the rails. (He also finds occasion to revisit the impressive Brando impression he showcased in The Island of Dr. Moreau.)

Twixt is overcrowded and goes overboard a little too often, but it’s also made with the subtle attention to detail that inhabited Val Lewton’s films. Most ghost stories nowadays throw in more gimmicks than they need. This one is what it is.

*** out of ****