Nightcrawler: Demons of the Past
Genre: Action/Superhero
Director: Mike Flanagan
Writer: Jimmy Ellis
Based on Marvel Comics characters
Cast: Jamie Bell, Astrid Berges-Frisbey, Liam Neeson, Kristin Scott Thomas, Diogo Sales, Bill Nighy, Simone Kessell, Oliver Stark
Plot:
September 6th 1996
We open at night, on a riverside in Bavaria, Germany. A beautiful red headed young woman is running alongside frantically, holding her little blue baby in her arms. She is clearly running from something, although we don’t know what. She gets to a well, and drops her baby in it. She says “I’ll come back for you Kurt, I promise. But he’s coming, and I have to leave.” She looks behind herself, and runs into the distance. We focus in on baby Kurt, lying in the well. All of a sudden, a black cloud of mist envelopes him, and he is gone.
PRESENT DAY
A fairly small circus, also in Bavaria. We see a tent with the words “The Green Witch” on it. There is a line of people waiting to get inside. One man enters, to see a mysterious green woman sitting in front of a fortune ball. This is Margali Szardos (Kristin Scott Thomas). She has some sort of mystical power, that she uses to put green mist everywhere in the air. The man sits in front of her. Margali looks at her fortune ball, and says “I sense great wealth in your future”. The man thanks her, and leaves. She gets up from her seat, and closes the attraction. She walks into the main attraction room, to see crowds of people and journalists gazing in awe as a grown up Kurt (Jamie Bell) uses his long, pointy tail to swing around ropes like an acrobat, teleporting from rope to rope. He finishes his act, the crowd cheers, and leaves. Margali congratulates him on another stunning performance, and Kurt asks her if he can finally know what happened to his parents. Margali says “I’ve told you a thousand times Kurt, I found you in a forest with your father lying dead beside you.” Kurt walks away. He knows this isn’t truly what happened, and he’s desperate to find out what did.
Meanwhile in New York City, newspaper articles are being published about the amazing circus in Bavaria, and about “The Nightcrawler”. Agent Sunspot (Diogo Sales) of the secret society called “The Hellfire Club” walks by and picks up one of the papers. He reads the Nightcrawler headline, and smiles.
That night, Kurt sneaks into Margali’s fortune telling room. He knows the fortune ball is real, as it’s powered by Margali’s magic. He asks it for answers, and sees a set of hideous, demonic yellow eyes staring back at him. Not unlike his own. Margali comes into the room just as Kurt teleports away, and starts running into the night. He’s going to find answers; he doesn’t know where they are, but he knows he’ll find them anywhere but the circus.
At the underground bunker which acts as the headquarters for the Hellfire Club, Agent Sunspot is talking to their leader, known only as “Agent Satan” (Liam Neeson). Sunspot shows him the article clipping, and Agent Satan looks taken aback for a few moments before recuperating himself. Sunspot says “Well anyway, I was thinking the Nightcrawler could take the place of the weapon we’re planning to build, if we harness his power correctly”. Agent Satan agrees, and tells Sunspot to lead an abduction team to the circus. Little did Sunspot know, Agent Satan’s intentions for Kurt are much deeper, and much more personal than he expects.
Kurt is still running away from the circus, when he arrives at a small village called Winzeldorf.
He enters, to see a man with a knife brutally killing the villagers. The villagers assume this demonic looking creature is an ally of the murderer, but they are proved wrong when Kurt teleports them all to safety, and after a moment’s hesitation, slits the throat of the murderer with his tail. The villagers thank Kurt, give him food and water for his journey, and he leaves. He sees a private jet flying pretty low down to the sky, but thinks nothing of it. We follow the jet as it lands at the circus. Out of it comes a group of sharpshooters, followed by Agent Sunspot, “Agent Pierce” (Oliver Stark), “Agent Selene” (Simone Kessell), and “Agent Fitzroy” (Bill Nighy). The circus actors rush out and to their horror, they are shot by the sharpshooters. Margali rushes out and starts fending them off with her powers, but she is eventually shot and killed. The four agents search the entire circus but are unable to find Kurt. Sunspot orders the sharpshooters to search everywhere within a 20 mile radius of the circus to find Kurt, and to capture him. Margali, with her dying power, telepathically communicates to her daughter Amanda Sefton (Astrid Berges-Frisby) who is living in New York City. She tells Amanda that there is another mutant who was at the circus named Kurt Wagner, and that he set out to find the answers she feared to give him. She senses that his search will eventually lead him to the Hellfire Club in New York City, and she wants Amanda to protect Kurt because “he’s looking for him”. Little do they know, from the Hellfire Club Headquarters, Agent Satan is telepathically eavesdropping in on this conversation. So is Kurt Wagner.
Kurt is determined to find out who the mysterious person everyone keeps referencing is, so he decides to head to New York. Kurt meets a woman who agrees to take him to New York City. The sharpshooter team search Winzeldorf for Kurt, killing all of the villagers in the process. Kurt senses their pain, and is angered. He arrives in New York to meet Margali’s daughter, Amanda Sefton. To Kurt, she just seems like a regular person. But she’s more than that. We get a few fun fish out of water moments as Amanda introduces Kurt to things of the modern society. However, when citizens see Kurt’s demonic looking figure, they are frightened and back away. Kurt takes a liking to Amanda, who is about the same age as him. They return to Amanda’s apartment.
That night, Kurt decides he wants to do what he did for the villagers: he wants to fight crime, and save innocent lives in danger. Amanda advises him not to by warning Kurt about the Hellfire Club, but Kurt goes out anyway. He finds a mugging going on. He defeats the mugger, but the victim is horrified of this demonic creature in front of her and runs away. Kurt, pretty sad, returns home. Amanda comforts him, as they’ve developed a pretty close bond already. Kurt wants to go out again and prove to the public he’s not some blue devil and that he’s an actual hero, but Amanda advises him to wait until the next night. At the Hellfire Club, the four agents prepare to tell Agent Satan that they failed and are fully ready for him to be mad, and to use some sort of evil power on them. They don’t know exactly what it is, but he’d used it before and they knew to be afraid. However Agent Satan isn’t mad, actually. He seems quite pleased. He tells the agents that Kurt is in New York City with them. The agents don’t question how, as they know that Agent Satan is capable of some... inhumane things. He tells the Agents to wait until the next night, then to find information on Kurt, and to capture him. He tells them that if they don’t succeed, he will kill them.
Over the next day, Kurt and Amanda spend more time together doing fun things out in the city. It is obvious they have a bit of romantic interest in each other, Kurt especially. Amanda tries to show Kurt that the city isn’t all that bad as he thinks it is. They go to a bar for Kurt to try alcohol for the first time. However, they are attacked by a group of men who call Kurt a freak. They fight back, and Amanda reveals that she is also a mutant, calling herself “Daytripper”. Her powers include illusion making, energy bolts, and basic magic powers like her mother. After they take out all the attackers, they return home and make love.
Meanwhile, the Hellfire Club builds a lab to harness Kurt’s powers, once they capture him. At night, Agent Sunspot sends out a team of sharpshooters led by Agent Fitzroy to find and bring in Kurt. They go around, interrogating people who saw Kurt in the day. Kurt is sleeping in bed with Amanda, when he wakes up and sees on the news that the Hellfire Club are in action. He remembers that Margali said something about Kurt finding answers there. He gets dressed, leaves Amanda at their apartment, and goes out into the night. He gets to an alleyway where he sees the Hellfire Club interrogating a man on the street. The man swears he knows nothing about “The Nightcrawler”, but Agent Fitzroy doesn’t believe him, so he uses his mutant powers to suck the soul out of the man, killing him. Kurt is enraged. He also overheard the Hellfire Club talking about how they killed Margali. This pushes Kurt to his limits, so he jumps down with the intent to kill them but they’re already gone. He takes his anger out on a nearby group of drunk teenagers, by slitting their throats.
He is satisfied for a few seconds, but then realizes the horror of what he has done. He knows he can’t go back to Amanda having done this, so he runs as far away from the city as he can. As he’s running, the Hellfire Club spots him, and they get in their truck. Kurt teleports onto a motorcycle, teleports the driver away and uses the motorcycle. An epic car chase ensues. They eventually get to the edge of the city into a pitch-black forest. They are forced to abandon their vehicles. Agent Fitzroy tells the sharpshooting team to chase Kurt through the forest. They do, but can’t see him so Kurt teleports all around them from tree to tree, occasionally going in for the kill. He eventually takes them all out, and gets to the edge of the forest only to be met by police officers. Kurt puts his hands up, prepared to be arrested, but suddenly a flash of red appears in front of Kurt’s eyes, and the police officers lie dead on the ground. Agent Satan is standing in their place. He says “Come with me, Kurt. And I can tell you everything you’ve ever wanted to know about your past”. Kurt agrees, and he is taken to the Hellfire Club headquarters.
Amanda is frantic running around the city, trying to find the missing Kurt. As Kurt arrives back at the Hellfire Club, he expects to have a conversation with Agent Satan about his past, however he is quickly thrown into the testing lab against his will. Agent Satan orders Kurt to teleport, and they will film it in slow motion to find out how he does so. He does so, and they play back the recording. They find that when Kurt teleports, he quickly enters and renters a different dimension to do so. They call this “The Night Dimension”. Amanda has the police search Kurt’s footprints to find where he went, and she eventually arrives at the elevator to the underground bunker. Agent Selene goes in to incapacitate Kurt, but Kurt retaliates and kills her. Agent Satan is impressed. He says “Do you want to keep killing all my agents, or do you want me to give you answers?” Kurt walks out and goes over to Agent Satan, when all of a sudden Amanda runs into the room wearing her Daytripper outfit, getting ready to rescue Kurt from whatever danger he may be in. She is taken aback when she sees Kurt sitting peacefully with Agent Satan.
Kurt tells her he telepathically eavesdropped on her and Margali’s conversation, and that he knows Amanda knows the key to his past. He tells Amanda that she’s just like her mother. She wouldn’t tell him the answers he deserved. He tells her that Agent Satan, however, will. Kurt goes insane and kills Amanda. In her dying moments, she is horrified at what Kurt has become, and apologizes to her mother for failing. She dies, and Agent Satan congratulates Kurt. He says it’s time to tell Kurt what really happened, and his eyes turn yellow. They’re the same eyes Kurt saw in the fortune ball at the circus, and the same eyes he sensed when listening in on the telepathic conversation. We flashback, as Agent Satan tells Kurt what happened.
September 6th 1996
The same scene as the opening scene on the riverside, however we see more this time. The young woman from before is still running, however we now see what from. She’s running from some demonic looking creature. They look almost exactly like Kurt, but with red skin instead of blue. Agent Satan tells Kurt that this man is named Azazel, and he’s Kurt’s father. Azazel says “You can’t run forever!” to Kurt’s mother. After she drops Kurt in the well, she keeps on running and is still chased by Azazel. All of a sudden, Azazel teleports in front of her and stabs her with his tail, killing her. He searches for baby Kurt, but is unsuccessful.
PRESENT DAY
Kurt is horrified at what Agent Satan time him. Kurt suddenly feels bloodlusted, and feels the need to kill Azazel. He asks Agent Satan where he can find Azazel. Agent Satan smirks and says “That’s just it, Kurt. I’m the devil. I’m Azazel. I’m your father”. He shapeshifts back in to his true form, the same as the one we saw in the flashback. Azazel laughs maniacally. Kurt lunges at him, but he teleports away. Kurt is locked in the room alone.
Everyone he ever knew or loved is dead, and had lied to him. Kurt feels more power inside himself now. He now knows that he doesn’t have to see where he’s going to teleport. So Kurt closes his eyes, harnesses the energy of the Night Dimension and teleports to a huge, open snow covered field outside the city. Kurt sits down, ready to accept defeat when Azazel teleports a few feet in front of him. With him, he also teleports agents Sunspot, Fitzroy, and Pierce, and a huge team of sharpshooters. They also have some sort of machine they plan to use to freeze Kurt as he’s mid-teleportation, to harness the power of the Night Dimension. But Kurt won’t allow this. He engages in a fight with the three agents. They use their mutant powers on him, but Kurt eventually gets the best of them and kills them all. Now, it’s just Kurt, Azazel and the team of sharpshooters who all have their guns aimed at Kurt. They begin opening fire but Kurt dodges and takes them all out with impressive speed, teleportation and acrobatics. Once they’re all dead on the ground, Kurt engages in a huge, climactic battle with Azazel. The powers of the Night Dimension and the Fire Dimension collide, creating lots of damage. As the battle nears its close, both Kurt and Azazel go to teleport at the same time, and the energies of the Night and Fire Dimensions join together. It creates a huge energy wave that kills both Kurt and Azazel. It keeps on expanding and growing bigger and just when we think it stopped, it only grows bigger, faster and faster. Then nothing, the night and fire dimensions are no more. Only Earth remains and Nightcrawler and Azazel are gone.
Post Credit Scene: Nightcrawler’s eyes open and we see yellow. The camera pans out to show the night dimension.
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