PopHorror Let's Get Scared
On March 10, 2000, Director Roman Polanski (Rosemary’s Baby 1968) introduced the world to The Ninth Gate, a live action rendition of author Arturo Pérez-Reverte’s book, The Club Dumas. Here’s a list of 10 things I bet you didn’t know about this film.
The Ninth Gate follows the story of a rare book dealer (Johnny Depp) who seeks out the last two copies of a certain demon text. Soon, his world turns as he gets drawn into a conspiracy with supernatural overtones.
10 Trivia Facts
1) In the film, the ancient book, The Nine Gates, displays an inverted pentagram on its cover to represent its Satanic content. However, the inverted pentagram only became associated with Satanism and evil in the late 19th century, due largely to the work of the French occultist Eliphas Levi. As these books were said to be in their original 17th century Venetian bindings, the appearance of the inverted pentagram is an anachronism.
Check out our interview with Ian Pidgeon on the Occult and how it’s portrayed in horror movies here.
2) All engravings appearing in The Nine Gates were commissioned for the novel by author Arturo Pérez-Reverte himself. The only exception is the one showing the girl riding a dragon, which was altered to make it appear similar to The Girl’s (Emmanuelle Seigner) face.
3) The cigarettes that Liana smokes are called Black Devils.
4) Johnny Depp didn’t take his usual $10 million dollar fee for the chance to work with director Roman Polanski.
5) The mystery girl reads the book How to Make Friends and Influence People, a tome also used by Charles Manson who orchestrated the tragic killing of director Roman Polanski’s wife, Sharon Tate.
6) The title from its source novel, The Club Dumas, is so named because the story centers around a secret society obsessed with serialized novels, such as those written by Alexander Dumas.
7) The Nine Gates is a fictional book that was written for the movie.
8) The little girl that stares at Corso at the Paris Airport is played by Roman Polanski’s daughter, Morgan.
9) When Johnny Depp folds the book into the cloth, it matches the five points of a pentagram.
10) The Mystery Girl represents the Whore of Babylon from the Bible.
Bonus Fun Fact!
11) The surname of Liana Telfer resembles the German word Teufel, which means “devil.”
