While rewatching this, I realized, that portions of my "book" (specifically chapters 7 and 11, I guess) were inspired by certain scenes from the movie, and maybe a little bit by its atmosphere. This is not saying much about quality of the movie, but it is still saying way more compared to 2024 version. And I am not saying this because of nostalgia glasses.
This is genuinely a good story. At least for the format. It shows a lot of things in small details instead of saying them out loud or showing a prolonged scene. We are not shown a 50 minutes love story: we just learn, that they were about to get married. We are not shown the whole murder scene at once: we are shown only glimpses of it, but even those glimpses are enough for us to know that what happened was brutal and was done by regular humans. That's why we can believe that this was worth it for "gods" or whatever to resurrect Eric.
Speaking of him: we are not shown his backstory as well. He is already dead, and is not spilling his story to anyone, it's the different mementoes and phrases from other people that tell us about him. Which is great, because it allows the action to start right away. Flashbacks also make absolute sense here, since they are also used to show how Eric's soul is tortured, which justifies him in our eyes even more. There was no "devilish" ploy or whatever, this was just human brutality, which, in turn, gets punished by inhuman brutality.
And it's not gory even. But it still feel brutal, there is weight behind every action, there is meaning. There is even a small scene that explains where the make-up comes from. Again without any words, it's just shown. There is also no special "mystery man" that explains things: the powers are shown to us in a way, that we understand the rules of those powers right away. Because, as everything, they have meaning.
It's not perfect movie, of course, especially by today's standards. I think my main problem with it would be humor, that sometimes felt a bit out-of-place, especially towards the end. On the other hand it also kind of played into the character's more "human" side. The sound recording is not great, too, CGI are painfully outdated. But the whole atmosphere of... The slums... The gothic-ish style of it all... It all works together. And it's not just a dark violent movie. It has strong clear moral, and it's not scared to show that it's humans (and not demos or devil or whatever else), that do bad things, and that those bad things need to be punished. It's the right message, no matter how you slice it.
If you haven't watched it yet - do it. It's worth it, especially since it got a 4K remaster recently. They really do not make movies like this anymore.
