Twixt

A writer with a declining career arrives in a small town as part of his book tour and gets caught up in a murder mystery involving a young girl...
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Inspired by the gothic horror of Edgar Allen Poe, Coppola's latest tells the tale of a burnt-out mystery writer (Val Kilmer) who gets mixed up in murder and evil in a California town.

Programmer's Note

Before The Godfather, before Apocalypse Now, Francis Ford Coppola made horror films for producer Roger Corman. A gothic-horror romance — his first since 1992’s Dracula — Twixt is a return of sorts to the legendary director’s roots, as well as a cathartic exploration of a father’s pain.


Hall Baltimore (Val Kilmer) is a struggling author of third-rate thrillers, flogging copies on a book tour through sleepy small towns. When Hall arrives in the grim outpost of Swan Valley, the local sheriff (Bruce Dern) snares his attention with the tale of a young girl’s mysterious death. That night, Hall, who lost a daughter of his own, encounters the ghost of a girl (Elle Fanning), and she gives him a tour of the town’s dark secrets. What Hall finds reveals more about his own past than even he could previously grasp.


Inspired by the writings of Poe and Hawthorne, Twixt charts the descent into the mind of a tortured writer as he slips into a dream world where imagination meets deep-seated fear. Drawing on the iconography and atmosphere of the gothic tradition, Coppola steeps Twixt in the romance of the strange. A spectral clock tower looms ominously over the town; youth and blood seem inextricably linked; dreams blow in like strong winds and buffet the thoughts of the hero. (Among its many sources of fascination, Twixt suggests a secret link between the worlds of Coppola and Guy Maddin.)


Long assured a permanent place in cinema’s pantheon, Coppola continues to experiment. Though the flares of colour within black-and-white images might be familiar from his previous work, here he incorporates stereoscopic imagery to further draw the viewer in. For Coppola, 3D is a texture to be used occasionally rather than throughout a film. Defined by its contrasts, Twixt is a classical gothic story transformed into a futuristic cinematic experience.
Cameron Bailey
Director's Bio

Francis Ford Coppola was born in Detroit. He studied theatre at Hofstra University and cinema at UCLA. His films include Dementia 13 (63), The Rain People (69), The Godfather (72), which won the Academy Award® for best picture, The Conversation (74), which won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, The Godfather Part II (74), which won the Academy Award® for best picture and best director, Apocalypse Now (79), One from the Heart (82), The Outsiders (83), Rumble Fish (83), The Cotton Club (84), The Godfather Part III (90), Dracula (92), Youth Without Youth (07), Tetro (09) and Twixt (11).