Denzel Washington names his most terrifying movie: “I was scared to death a few times”
Across the many great characters he has played, Denzel Washington has found himself in some pretty scary situations. As Malcolm X, he faced racial hate and violence that would eventually result in his character’s assassination. In Flight, his character survives a plane crash fuelled by his own addictions. Then there’s all the stuff he’s faced as ‘The Equalizer’, which is enough for an article all on its own.
When it comes to the most frightening of his films, however, Washington thinks that just one stands above the rest. In 1999’s The Bone Collector, the superstar plays Lincoln Rhyme, an NYPD forensics expert who is left tetraplegic after an accident. With the help of new recruit Amelia Donaghy (Angelina Jolie), Rhyme leads the investigation into a serial killer running amok throughout the city.
“I thought it was a very cerebral thriller and a different challenge as an actor,” Washington told Total Film. “I had made films like Ricochet and The Pelican Brief in the past, but I think The Bone Collector was a lot scarier and more sinister than the other two. When I first saw the film myself, I was scared to death a few times. I think Phillip Noyce [the director] did an incredible job of creating a claustrophobic and haunting atmosphere.”
The film, which is based on a novel with the same name by Jeffrey Deaver, is unnerving in multiple ways. There’s the initial terror of the killer himself, who murders his victims in increasingly intricate and painful ways. He leaves one of them to be scalded by a steampipe, a fate she is narrowly spared from. Another doesn’t get so lucky. He is left chained to a pole with an open wound, left to be eaten alive by rats with no hope of rescue.
As well as the threat of a murderous psychopath on the loose, there is a subtler danger stalking the main character. The stress of working the case has caused Rhyme’s health to decline. Already depressed at the thought of living his life without full control of his body, he makes plans to end his life before he suffers a seizure or some such medical event, which would render him completely vegetative. This angle, combined with Washington’s masterful performance under severely limited circumstances, is what elevates The Bone Collector above the average crime thriller.
Despite the hard work of Washington and Jolie, whom Noyce forked out his own money to hire, the project was a bit of a flop. Not in terms of the box office, as it made over $150 million on a budget one-third of the size, but with the critics. Most reviewers labelled it formulaic, a rip-off of other, more exciting entries in the ‘vulnerable hero’ genre of serial killer flicks. This is a harsh assessment. The relationship between Rhyme and Donaghy is well fleshed out and easy to invest in, almost to the point where the hunt for the murderer is secondary. As Washington says, it’s also genuinely scary, viscerally and on a more existential level.
There have been talks about a sequel as recently as 2023, with a story based on Deaver’s book The Skin Collector. Nothing has been confirmed yet, so we’ll have to wait and see if Noyce, Jolie, and Washington can up the fear factor if they’re given another chance.
