Nicolas Cage's 27-Year-Old Detective Thriller Makes Se7en and Mindhunter Look Tame

Published Aug 1, 2026, 4:01 PM EDT Cathal Gunning has been writing about movies, television, culture, and politics online and in print since 2017. He worked as a Senior Editor in Adbusters Media Foundation from 2018-2019 and wrote for WhatCulture in early 2020. He has been a Senior Features Writer for ScreenRant since 2020. Even though one of the best serial killer thrillers was written by the screenwriter of Se7en, this grim, brutal Nicolas Cage vehicle is almost never mentioned alongside Mindhunter as a masterpiece of the genre. It is always tricky for psychological thrillers to delve into the world of criminal psychology. Viewers are morbidly fascinated by murderers, but if they get too explicit and exploitative, creators risk alienating their core audience with a show or movie that feels too sleazy for its own good. This is exactly the careful line that projects like the upcoming Bret Easton Ellis adaptation The Shards must tread, and one that will be instantly familiar to anyone who survived the serial killer thriller booms of both the 1990s and 2000s. In the former era, the success of Silence of the Lambs and Se7en led to movies like The Bone Collector, Taking Lives, Copycat, The Cell, Kiss the Girls, and Along Came a Spider attempting to replicate the appeal of those police procedural/psychological horror mashups. While Netflix’s upcoming psychological thriller The Whisper Man hopes to bring back this style for a new generation, it is worth noting how few of the movies listed above truly recaptured the gritty intensity and psychological depth of Silence of the Lambs or Se7en. In contrast, one movie from the era that has since been almost completely forgotten did an admirable job of making a serial killer thriller that feels truly, genuinely shocking, and it came from the most unlikely actor/director combo. That movie was 1999’s 8MM, a Nicolas Cage vehicle from Batman and Robin’s Joel Schumacher. 8MM Is One Of The Darkest Serial Killer Thrillers Ever A lot of readers might balk at the idea that Schumacher, the director often credited with adding nipples to the Batsuit, could have helmed an authentically upsetting thriller. Meanwhile, Cage’s infamously goofy performances in projects like 2006’s The Wicker Man remake and Con Air might make it equally hard to imagine him offering a genuinely gripping, raw turn in this underrated psychological thriller. However, it is important to remember that Schumacher was also the director behind the unsettling revenge drama Falling Down, as well as Colin Farrell’s underrated war movie Tigerland. Cage, meanwhile, might be infamous for his gurning, over-the-top turns in plenty of laughably bad movies, but he has also delivered compelling, unpredictable performances in everything from Vampire’s Kiss to Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, to Bringing Out the Dead. Cage even won a well-earned Oscar for Leaving Las Vegas, and 8MM relies on the same sweaty intensity and world-weary heartache as that all-time great turn. Penned by Se7en screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker, 8MM begins with Cage’s PI Tom Welles taking on a traumatic case. When a wealthy business magnate’s widow discovers what seems to be a genuine snuff film among her husband’s effects, her attorney asks Welles to find the people behind the film and reassure her that the girl who was seemingly killed in its production is, in reality, alright. 8MM Has One Of The '90s Best Casts While fans of psychological thrillers have probably already guessed that the movie’s victim is not, in fact, safe and well, it would still be tough for viewers to guess just how dark the ensuing saga becomes. Welles works with Joaquin Phoenix’s charismatic adult store clerk Max California to hunt down the movie’s creators, eventually uncovering a snuff film ring that makes the antics of Se7en’s killer seem tame in comparison. With a pair of superb central performances from Cage and future Oscar winner Phoenix, 8MM also boasts one of the most stacked supporting casts of the decade. The future star of The Sopranos, James Gandolfini, is chilling as a pragmatic, amoral villain, while a scene-stealing Peter Stormare takes the exact opposite approach as the comically sadistic, overwrought director of the gruesome movie. Catherine Keener plays a small but vital role as Welles’ wife, while future star of The Walking Dead franchise Norman Reedus makes an early, memorable appearance in a minor role. With True Blood’s Chris Bauer rounding out the cast with an unforgettable supporting part, 8MM makes the most of this astounding lineup to deliver a rare star-studded mainstream Hollywood movie that feels legitimately unsettling and unpleasant. 8MM Remains Criminally Underrated 27 Years Later Of course, it would be fair if readers were to wonder why anyone would want to seek out a movie whose main selling point is its sheer unpleasantness. In fact, critics at the time seemingly agreed with this assessment. The majority of reviews for 8MM called Schumacher’s movie too dark, grotesque, and disturbing to be watchable, although the legendary Roger Ebert singled the psychological thriller out for praise while admitting that its violence would put off plenty of potential viewers. Admittedly, it is truly shocking how dark and grim 8MM gets for such a major movie, but this is no bad thing. Se7en’s final scene is one of the most upsetting in the history of cinema, but it fits the movie’s world, and its story, and the same can be said for every downbeat twist and turn in 8MM’s story. Schumacher’s movie handily outdoes many of the spate of late ‘90s serial killer thrillers precisely because its script isn’t afraid of plumbing depths of depravity that most crowd pleasers don't dare to explore. It is almost quaint to see how appalled critics were by 8MM back in 1999, when franchises like Hostel and Saw would make much more graphic violence a multiplex staple less than a decade after the movie’s release. However, the horror that reviewers felt on seeing the movie exposes an interesting truth about the psychological thriller subgenre, particularly because many of 8MM’s most violent scenes take place offscreen. 8MM is far from the bloodiest or goriest movie ever made, and this is arguably why it struck such a chord with reviewers. From Cage’s shaky central performance to Schumacher’s assured but unobtrusive direction, the serial killer thriller doesn’t exaggerate its horrors or push its story into the more excessive, almost reassuringly cartoonish extremes of Se7en’s murders. While Se7en seems to take place in a nightmare, 8MM feels rooted in the same horrifying reality as Mindhunter, and this allows the underrated psychological thriller to get under the viewer’s skin with its horrifying story. Release Date February 26, 1999 Runtime 123 minutes Director Joel Schumacher Writers Andrew Kevin Walker