Angel Heart
Overview
Angel Heart is a 1987 North American/British mystery
Mystery film
Mystery film is a sub-genre of the more general category of crime film and at times the thriller genre. It focuses on the efforts of the detective, private investigator or amateur sleuth to solve the mysterious circumstances of a crime by means of clues, investigation, and clever deduction.The...

-thriller film written and directed by Alan Parker
Alan Parker
Sir Alan William Parker, CBE is an English film director, producer, writer and actor. He has been active in both the British cinema and American cinema and was a founding member of the Directors Guild of Great Britain.-Life and career:...

, and starring Mickey Rourke
Mickey Rourke
Philip Andre "Mickey" Rourke, Jr. is an American actor, screenwriter and retired boxer, who has appeared primarily as a leading man in action, drama, and thriller films....

, Robert De Niro
Robert De Niro
Robert De Niro, Jr. is an American actor, director and producer. His first major film roles were in Bang the Drum Slowly and Mean Streets, both in 1973...

, and Lisa Bonet
Lisa Bonet
Lisa Bonet , also known as Lilakoi Moon, is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Denise Huxtable Kendall on the long-running NBC sitcom The Cosby Show, and originally starring in its spinoff A Different World.-Early life:Bonet was born in San Francisco, California...

. The film is adapted from the novel Falling Angel
Falling Angel
Falling Angel is a 1978 horror novel by William Hjortsberg. Written in a "hardboiled" detective style with supernatural themes, it was adapted into the 1987 film Angel Heart.-Plot summary:...

by William Hjortsberg
William Hjortsberg
William "Gatz" Hjortsberg is a novelist and screenwriter best known for writing the screenplays of the movies Legend and Angel Heart....

, and is generally faithful to the novel with the exceptions being the introduction of a child of Epiphany Proudfoot conceived at a voodoo
Louisiana Voodoo
Louisiana Voodoo, also known as New Orleans Voodoo, describes a set of underground religious practices which originated from the traditions of the African diaspora. It is a cultural form of the Afro-American religions which developed within the French, Spanish, and Creole speaking African American...

 ceremony by "a devil", and that the novel never leaves New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, whereas much of the action of the film occurs in New Orleans.

A highly atmospheric film, Angel Heart combines elements of film noir
Film noir
Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...

, hard-boiled detective
Hardboiled
Hardboiled crime fiction is a literary style, most commonly associated with detective stories, distinguished by the unsentimental portrayal of violence and sex. The style was pioneered by Carroll John Daly in the mid-1920s, popularized by Dashiell Hammett over the course of the decade, and refined...

 stories and horror
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...

.
The movie opens in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, in January 1955.
Quotations

I gotta thing about chickens. [repeated line]

You come straight with me, you slime bag, or I swear, I'll save this state an execution!

I know who I am!

Alas... how terrible is wisdom when it brings no profit to the wise, Johnny?

You know what they say about slugs. They always leave slime in their tracks.

The flesh is weak, Johnny. Only the soul is immortal. [darkly] And yours belongs to ME [eyes chillingly shine yellow].

They say there's just enough religion in the world to make men hate one another, but not enough to make them love.

No matter how cleverly you sneak up on a mirror, your reflection always looks you straight in the eye.

I have old-fashioned ideas about honour. An eye for an eye... stuff like that.

I want you to show right now how much you love God! I want you to show as your tithe! I want you to open up your hearts! And open up your wallets! And open up your purses! And give it up! Praise the Lord! Somebody's been talking about me, talking about I've been riding around in a Cadillac! If you love me, and you wanna give to me, then I should be in a Rolls Royce!

 
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