William Friedkin’s surreal, nasty 1990 horror film, “The Guardian” is not the 2006 movie starring Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher as heroic Coast Guardsmen.
It’s a common mistake, though an odd one, as two films with the same name couldn’t possibly be more dissimilar.
The movie I’m thinking about is the one about the man-eating tree, the army of supernatural wolves and, at its twisted center, a diabolical nanny who kidnaps children and can fly. At no point does Ashton Kutcher appear and pull someone out of the ocean and into a helicopter.
“The Guardian” was Friedkin’s highly touted, overtly mainstream-courting return to the genre that, due to “The Exorcist” (1973), catapulted his filmmaking stature. I have a soft spot for “The Guardian,” but it’s worth noting that, decades later, we’re still talking about “The Exorcist” and not “The Guardian.”
Carey Lowell (the Bond girl of the 1989 “License to Kill”) and Dwier Brown (the ghostly dad of “Field of Dreams”) play Kate and Phil, a wealthy couple in need of a nanny to watch over their newborn. They unwisely choose Camilla, a striking, seemingly skilled candidate with an exotic accent.
Camilla is played by Jenny Seagrove (best known for Bill Forsythe’s “Local Hero”), who is so good, the film almost always succeeds.
We learn early on (and before the doomed couple) that Camilla has an insidious plan and dark powers (the latter changes according to needs of the screenplay at any given moment). Seagrove plays the role with such straight-faced sensuality, intensity and feline survivalist instincts, the character works and the threat she embodies is truly unsettling.
The couple take too long to notice that the nanny’s references don’t check out, she doesn’t remain in her living quarters at night and people in their neighborhood are dying. Then, there’s the scene with an evil tree…
The opening sequence, portraying a pleasant family and the nanny who kidnaps their baby while they’re away, is so simple and nightmarish, Friedkin’s clear intent on making this a contemporary gothic horror fable comes across.
A sinister “Hansel and Gretel” pop-up book winds up providing Dad a huge clue as to Camilla’s intentions.
Despite how truly nonsensical it is, particularly in its last half, “The Guardian” deserves a retrospective and is a great deal more stylish, beautifully crafted and scarier than most remember.
I’m not claiming the film is misunderstood. Either the story grabs you or it doesn’t. I always found portions of it to play like camp, but the majority of the horror is potent and visceral.
Now that I’m a parent, I found it much more unsettling than the subsequent, more “realistic” “The Hand that Rocks the Cradle” (1992).
Friedkin did not create another “Exorcist” and let horror fans down by not traumatizing them that way again- he would be accused of this earlier, by not following “The Exorcist” with another genre film but with the initially divisive, career highlight cult favorite “Sorcerer” (1977).
The disastrous box office of “Sorcerer” led to a slew of subsequent films that were widely dismissed (some, like “Deal of the Century,” for good reason). Even after directing the undeniably great “To Live and Die in L.A.” (1985), Friedkin was blessed and cursed with the tag of “from the director of ‘The Exorcist’,” a movie that couldn’t be matched or duplicated (just ask John Boorman).
What doesn’t always work for “The Guardian” are overt supernatural elements that come and go at random times, without any explanation.
Taken as a dark fairy tale that taps into parental fears, “The Guardian” still works, even as its melodrama becomes truly ridiculous. A wolf attack, the chase scene with Camilla flying and her reappearance in the last half (when she appears to be comprised of forest elements) are perfectly nightmarish.
The Guardian (1990, Friedkin) pic.twitter.com/uMqtbP5hkX
— Will (@SilentDawnLB) May 3, 2023
The center piece with the killer tree, however, teeters between being agreeably gruesome and unavoidably campy. A noted set piece, in which a gang right out of “Last House on the Left” (1972) terrorizes Camilla and gets their gruesome comeuppance by an unlikely ally, is so insanely violent, it plays like a “South Park” parody.
It’s a sequence that, for all the tension Friedkin establishes, you can tell he’s pushing too hard. The problem here is that you can sense Friedkin is visibly trying to live up to his standing as a genre groundbreaker.
Sam Raimi was reportedly attached at one point and decided instead to direct “Darkman” (1990). For an idea of what Raimi’s version might have been like, look no further than the film’s final confrontation, in which a chainsaw plays a big part.
In the best way, it’s very “Army of Darkness” (1993).
Comparisons to “The Exorcist” won’t work, and there’s no denying that a few moments intended to shock come across as unintentionally funny.
Keeping in mind the film’s clearly established identity as a modern-day fairy tale, the film plays fair by those standards, though not everyone will go with it. In a similar way that not everyone gets on board with the eccentric visions and genre tweaking whimsies of M. Night Shyamalan, “The Guardian” is easy to laugh at if you question the reality of the scenario.
In terms of adding supernatural horror to universal fears in parenting, it’s not a competitor to “The Exorcist” but a thematic companion piece.
“The Guardian,” works if you accept it as a lucid nightmare and not any way grounded in reality. I’ve always admired this film, despite the killer tree at its goofy center.
Scare me? Heck, I GOTTA see a movie with a man-eating tree! Thanks for the heads-up.