L'Esprit de Caïn

I like weird films, but Raising Cain isn’t weird enough to be interesting, nor is it normal enough that it doesn’t feel weird. It made me suffer for most of the time, it was annoying, and if it wasn’t so well made (a walk through a building in one take), I would have no problem giving it two stars. (16/05/2010)

In its official version, Raising Cain offers an imperfectly constructed yet superbly directed paraphrase of Psycho. Many of the ills that plague the version released to cinemas are remedied by the fan-made “director's cut”, which was based on the original screenplay and enthusiastically endorsed by the director himself. In both versions, however, it is not only John Lithgow’s delightfully deranged performance that stands out, but also the almost fetishistic directing. De Palma thoroughly enjoys staging spectacularly artificial but ingeniously layered scenes that come across as tableaux vivants in which kitschy surrealism is combined with exaggerated drama. (27/12/2022)

Brian De Palma is a better director than a screenwriter, and thus his far-fetched screenplay about child abductions and experiments on them is kept afloat by excellent direction that tries to follow in the footsteps of the famous thrillers of A. Hitchcock. The film is intentionally shot in a way that makes it look about thirty years older at first glance. The film industry has produced plenty of crime thrillers and horror films about split personalities, and Raising Cain isn't among the best, but John Lithgow played his psychopath incredibly convincingly and won me over with all the nuances that this role offers. The film deserves three stars. Overall impression: 65%. If I were a psychiatrist, my rating would probably go down and there would be many professional reservations in my review. (07/08/2010)