Cop Supernatural Thrillers?

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  • Cop Supernatural Thrillers?

    Can anyone help me out and with movies along the lines of Fallen?

    It's not easy pulling off a gritty cop drama with a supernatural antagonist without making it come across as Buffy meets Supernatural...

    Thanks in advance.
    I wanna tell you about the time I almost died....


  • #2
    Re: Cop Supernatural Thrillers?

    I'm pretty fond of SPLIT SECOND with Rutger Hauer. I've not read the script, though. The monster is interesting.

    I COME IN PEACE (aka DARK ANGEL) is another one, the antagonist in this one is alien, not supernatural. It's a fun movie though.

    There's one with Lou Diamond Phillips too.. THE FIRST POWER.

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    • #3
      Re: Cop Supernatural Thrillers?

      Whilst I wouldn't call it gritty, Innocent Blood is a fun vampire/cop/mobsters movie.

      And if you can accept a private detective instead of a cop, check out Angel Heart. That one is gritty.
      "Only nothing is impossible."
      - Grant Morrison

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      • #4
        Re: Cop Supernatural Thrillers?

        Angel Heart -- though he's not a cop, he's a PI.
        "There's one way to guarantee something won't be in the movie: put it in the screenplay."
        -Dan O'Bannon

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        • #5
          Re: Cop Supernatural Thrillers?

          Cheers guys, not a quality body of work by any measure...

          Angel Heart is pretty close to what I'm after.

          I really enjoyed Fallen, it was subtle and believable which is what I am looking for, it is not easy convincing an audience of something supernatural while set in an ordinary world.

          A way around that ordinary world is to set it in a futuristic or fictional city where boundaries of believability can be pushed, Max Payne and Dark City come to mind and both use Neo-Noir to set a sinister tone.

          I am however trying not to go down that path, imagine an NYPD Blue episode where they come up against a supernatural force, IMO it has to be subtle and vague, rather than trying to explain/convince the audience the theory behind it, but it is not that an easy, I have a concept but I am having trouble giving that idea birth, trying to ground it in evidence/substance.

          If I avoid explanation as to the origin, as an 'X-File' type scenario the big questions are why now, why here? Surely these have to be answered to some degree? The antagonistic force needs a motive does it not?

          To explain or not to explain...

          Any ideas?
          I wanna tell you about the time I almost died....

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          • #6
            Re: Cop Supernatural Thrillers?

            One cop supernatural thriller I can think of is FALLEN, which you have mentioned already. It is a good flick and yes, subtle.

            There was an X-Files episode I remember that dealt with a supernatural force that manifested as the greatest fear its victim had. I don't remember the exact episode but it was entertaining.

            If you're going down that road with a cop as your protagonist, the questions about the how and why need to be explored by them, like a who-dunnit story. I think this works best when the force at question is somehow a projection of the problem the protagonist is dealing with, i.e. A ghost of a young girl with a possible link to his dead daughter or a demonic spirit he witnessed at the scene of his father's death as a child.

            Explore that dark area of your protagonist's soul, what's the one thing he/she is hiding and not confronting. Find that.

            Good Luck

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            • #7
              Re: Cop Supernatural Thrillers?

              Originally posted by one seven spectrum View Post
              There was an X-Files episode I remember that dealt with a supernatural force that manifested as the greatest fear its victim had. I don't remember the exact episode but it was entertaining.
              Episode title is "X-Cops". It's a great episode -- especially if you like both the X-Files and "Cops".

              TATAM78:

              Having a hard nosed by-the-book NYPD esque cop struggling to solve crimes that may be supernatural is intriguing.

              I don't think the cop element makes it any more difficult to pull off a supernatural storyline, though.

              If you're going down the supernatural path, then it's ultimately going to be more about how cool the supernatural elements are.

              Instead of looking for cop movies that have supernatural elements, I'd suggest looking for supernatural movies that have the tone and feel you're looking for.

              From what you've described, I'm thinking along the lines of THE EXORCIST or THE SIXTH SENSE.

              These movies feature grounded, professional lead characters facing supernatural forces. Which is the paradigm you seem to be going for.

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              • #8
                Re: Cop Supernatural Thrillers?

                Check out Hoblit's other film, Frequency. The antagonist isn't supernatural, but the cop son and firefighter dad use the supernatural to capture a criminal.

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                • #9
                  Re: Cop Supernatural Thrillers?

                  Cheers guys, I have Frequency on the radar so will look at that.

                  I am also going to look at Jacob's Ladder and Manhunter, both of which I haven't seen.

                  My script is billed as Kramer v Kramer meets Fallen so it is very much a procedural cop story but with a supernatural antagonistic force.

                  I obviously already have the supernatural concept but don't want to weigh it down too much with explanatory detail, and as I said I like the subtlety of Fallen, where the demon comes across as matter of fact, rather than some kind of fantasy element that needs to be explained and shoved down the audiences throat so they believe it, often the scariest things are something we know very little about, so I am trying to stick to that delivery method.

                  But I think I still need to show the reasons, why now and why here, rather than just have a random supernatural force appear without explanation or at least some kind of trigger event.

                  I will also look at that X-Files episode, thanks.
                  I wanna tell you about the time I almost died....

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                  • #10
                    Re: Cop Supernatural Thrillers?

                    Not supernatural but an alien one... the hidden http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093185/ Saw it way back when and it seemed OK then, probably 80's cheese now
                    I heard the starting gun


                    sigpic

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                    • #11
                      Re: Cop Supernatural Thrillers?

                      Originally posted by Southern_land View Post
                      Not supernatural but an alien one... the hidden http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093185/ Saw it way back when and it seemed OK then, probably 80's cheese now
                      But it's good cheese.

                      HH

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                      • #12
                        Re: Cop Supernatural Thrillers?

                        Originally posted by haroldhecuba View Post
                        But it's good cheese.

                        HH
                        +1
                        "Only nothing is impossible."
                        - Grant Morrison

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                        • #13
                          Re: Cop Supernatural Thrillers?

                          better cheese comes from the 70's: kolchak, the night stalker

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                          • #14
                            Re: Cop Supernatural Thrillers?

                            The title always stuck in my head. Can't remember if it's any good though...

                            The First Power

                            http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099578/
                            "I was dreamin' when I wrote this, forgive me if it goes astray." - Prince

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                            • #15
                              Re: Cop Supernatural Thrillers?

                              What about Exorcist lll? Even though it goes completely off the rails during the third act, I think Blatty tried to make a good movie. Plus there's a really creepy scene with Brad Dourif looking like The Joker before Heath Ledger got to the part.

                              HH

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