Dark City (1998) | Alex Proyas

To the '90s and Beyond! Film Podcast

Rufus Sewell stars as John Murdoch, who wakes up one day with amnesia in an non-descript hotel room with a butchered woman, immediately having to go on the run as the prime suspect in a series of murders of prostitutes around the city — but he can’t remember if he did it. In addition to the police force, Murdoch is also hotly pursued by a shifty psychologist named Dr. Shreber (Kiefer Sutherland), a tenacious detective, Frank Bumstead (WIlliam Hurt), a woman claiming to be his philandering wife, Emma (Jennifer Connelly), and a spate of pale and creepy-looking, trenchcoated Nosferatus (or so they appear), who are looking for Murdoch because he seems to possess abilities above and beyond what normal men have, which makes him a danger to them. As Murdoch seeks to get to the bottom of who he is and what’s going on, he discovers that there’s an even bigger mystery, which is who everyone else is, what kind of city they all reside in, why is it being controlled by these shady creatures who seem otherworldly, and just why does it always seem to be nighttime?