Solomon Kane (film)

History dates back to 1600. English privateer Solomon Kane , a cruel and greedy butcher, led an English squadron against one of the fortresses in North Africa occupied by the Janissaries . Having suppressed resistance with fire and blood, Solomon and his people break through to the throne room of the fortress, where the treasures of the local pasha are stored. At the entrance to the hall there are many dark mirrors through which demons drag Solomon's fighters into Hell one by one. In the end, Kane alone enters the hall, where gold lies in the center, and not far from it is the mutilated corpse of the Pasha. Later, the whole world fades and a black figure with a fiery sword appears on the throne, calling himself the Reaper of the Devil. The reaper tells Solomon that the Devil claimed to receive the privateer’s soul in payment of a “deal.” Despite the demon's strength, Solomon gives him a worthy rebuff, but, realizing that he will not win, he throws himself into the sea from the tower window. Finally, the Reaper says that Kane’s soul is cursed and he can’t get anywhere, because the Devil does not forgive debts.

A year passes. Solomon lives as a hermit in one of the monasteries in the south of England, where he spends time in prayers, cutting off his body with spells and holy symbols that protect him from the Reaper. Nightmares and visions of the past haunt him. Many years ago, Solomon was a boy from a noble Kane family who ruled Axmus Castle in the lands between Somerset and Devonshire . His father, Josiah, wanted his son to be ordained and became a priest, and Solomon's elder brother, Marcus, inherited the title. Solomon was against exile in the abbey and therefore left home, after which Josiah officially renounced his son. Preparing to become a sailor on one of the ships, Solomon saw how Marcus was trying to rape a village girl, and managed to stop his brother, but he received a scar on his cheek from him. Boasting his position, Marcus dragged Solomon to a precipice, showing that all the earth was now his, and Solomon would die a poor tramp; however, Marcus slipped and fell off a cliff. Thinking that his brother would be suspected of death, Solomon left England, vowing never to return.

The abbot of the monastery where Solomon is hiding directly tells Solomon that he can no longer hide from the world and must return home. Despite the unwillingness to return to a world dominated by Evil, Solomon leaves the monastery and moves through the lands where the plague and gangs of robbers are rampant. The abbot tells one of the monks that the Lord appeared to him in a dream and ordered to send Solomon on the road, because many roads lead to redemption, and not all of them are peaceful.

In his wanderings, several bandits attacked Solomon, who considered the occult texts he had with him for a warlock. At first they want to burn him like a sorcerer, but after that they simply stun him and throw him in the forest. Solomon is selected and cared for by the Crowthorns, a family of Puritans holding their way to the New World . Solomon does not hide his past from them, saying that he was a privateer and served under the leadership of Francis Drake . The head of the family, William, Kane adds that the forces of Hell are hunting him and it’s not safe with him, but this doesn’t scare William, he says that no matter what sin was for the soul of a person, it’s impossible to atone for it. So Solomon continues the journey with the Crowthorns, and the young daughter of William Meredith sewed him new clothes, instead of his tattered pilgrims. Along the way, Solomon and Crowthorne stumble upon a witch's burning site, around which there were only corpses and one frightened girl. At night, she tells that the witch burned her eyes to everyone who wanted to look at her cramps at the stake. Solomon insists on giving the girl a pectoral cross as a talisman if the witch returns, but it soon turns out that the girl is the witch who changed her appearance. Before disappearing, she “marks” Meredith with a strange spot in her hand, and Kane says that the Devil is still waiting for him.

A day or two passes by. The crootors wandered far into the forest and, on the advice of Solomon, did not light big fires. Solomon and Meredith are increasingly worried about the dark spot on the girl’s palm left by the witch. It turns out that besides them, robbers are raging in the forest, whose eyes are black and their skin is covered with ulcers, and they are led by Overlord - a tall knight in a leather mask. They grab the peasants and drive them into trellised carts, taking them away in an unknown direction. Rogues attack the Crowthorns camp and take several of them captive. Solomon tries to negotiate with the knight, but to no avail. Two young men, Edward and Samuel, are killed, William is seriously injured. In the end, Solomon Kane does what he knows best in the world - in cold blood he kills robbers who, after death, take on a human form. Overlord takes Meredith away. Only William and his wife Katerina remained in the destroyed camp. Before his death, William takes an oath from Solomon that he will save Meredith, in return promising the remission of all sins. Katerina remains to bury the men, having given a medallion with a portrait of Meredith, and Solomon, taking a road cloak and tying a Meredith scarf like a sash, sets off on the road.

It takes three days of hunting. Here and there, Solomon fights with the black-eyed robbers and frees the captured peasants, but Meredith is not among them. So he gets to the dilapidated church, where he prays for the path to find the girl, but finds a feral priest, father Michael. He says that Solomon is in the borderlands of Somerset and Devonshire, and the black-eyed robbers are Raiders of Malachi, once a healer who sold his soul to the Devil for the sake of Secret Knowledge and became a warlock. At night, Solomon hears strange sounds, and it turns out that in the catacombs beneath the church, Michael hides ghouls from the light, changed by the witchcraft of the locals, who became corpse-eating monsters. Michael tries to feed him and Solomon, but he breaks out and leaves the catacombs through the hatch leading to the cemetery. There he again meets the robbers he already knew, who beat him, who became Raiders and managed to decapitate Michael. He defeats two of them with swords, and holds the third over the hatch in the catacombs, asking about Meredith. Raider says she is dead, after which Solomon throws his ghouls to eat.

Solomon believes that his mission has failed, and finds solace in the tavern, where he is recognized by one of his former sailors, who now consists in peasant resistance against the Raiders. At dawn, Solomon is seized and crucified in the square of the village. Suddenly he sees Meredith in one of the trellised carts, and this gives him new strength. He pulls himself off the nails and falls to the ground, and members of the resistance carry him to his refuge. There the healer treats him, although he is not happy that “blasphemous magic” treats him. At a meeting of resistance leaders, Solomon learns that Malachi has entrenched in Axmus Castle, the Kane’s family nest. Since Solomon grew up there, he easily leads resistance fighters directly into the courtyard of the castle, where he meets and kills the witch who branded Meredith.

The battle begins. Solomon separates from the rest and opens the dungeon chambers. In one of them he finds a decrepit old man chained to a wall. This old man is Josiah Kane. Solomon is trying to free him, but in chains of black magic no less than iron, and therefore Josiah is forever chained to his castle. Solomon tries to justify his father for the past and says that he is not guilty of the death of his brother. It was then that Josiah told Solomon that Marcus was alive, but not by God's will. Falling off a cliff, Marcus was severely crippled and fell into a coma. For many years, priests and doctors tried to bring him back to life, but to no avail. Desperate Josiah invited Malachi, promising everything that he has in exchange for the life of his son. And so it happened. Marcus Kane returned, but changed, becoming a slave to Malachi. Now he became a peddler of plague and evil, turning people to his slaves with a touch, and his face disfigured during the fall began to hide under the mask, becoming Overlord. Finally, Josiah asks his son to shoot him in order to finally appear before the Lord's court for his sins.

Solomon gets to the throne room of the castle without encountering obstacles in the face of the Raiders. Among the dark mirrors (the same as those in the fortress in North Africa), Malachi sits on the throne. He tells his brother that it was by the grace of their father that the Devil's Reaper appeared then to Solomon. Also in the hall is a cage in which Meredith is kept. She warns that the mark and everything else is a trap for Solomon, and at the end of the hall there is a huge mirror through which a powerful demon tears into the mortal world. Solomon enters into battle with his brother and manages to tear off his mask from him, seeing his distorted face. At the end of his duel, Marcus finds himself engulfed in fire and eventually puts his neck under his brother's sword so that he finally ends his suffering. As it turned out, Meredith is needed by Malachi because of her innocent blood, which can let the demon into this world. The climax is the moment when Malachi hides behind Meredith, putting a dagger to her neck, and Solomon shoots him in the head with a pistol, thereby spilling the blood of the wicked on the mirror. The demon and Malachi are cast through the mirror into Hell, the Raiders lose their strength and scatter, becoming ordinary people again, and Solomon Kane, who fulfilled his oath before William Crowthorn, receives divine forgiveness.

At the end, Solomon stands in front of the graves of his father and brother on the very cliff where his path had once begun, saying that Evil left England, and Meredith and Katerina Crowthorne went to the New World, as William wanted. Finally, Solomon Kane takes a new oath that the Dark Times of the dominance of Evil and Dark Magic are gone forever, and he will use his experience and knowledge in the fight against witches, monsters and the like.

• James Purefoy - Solomon Kane
• Max von Sydow - Josiah Kane, father of Solomon
• Rachel Heard Wood - Meredith Crowthorne
• Mackenzie Crook - father Michael
• Jason Fleming - Malachi
• Alice Krieg - Katerina Crowthorne
• Pete Postletway - William Crowthorne
• Ian White - The Demon
• Samuel Rukin - Marcus Kane / Overlord

Filming began on January 14, 2008 in Prague (Czech Republic) at the Barrandov studio. James Purefoy was injured during the filming, and he had to put five stitches. On his blog, the director of Purefoy said that he “admires his work; he gives soul and heart to her. He is in brilliant physical form and his sword fights are brilliant ” ^[2] . On April 16, the director posted a message stating that the film was finished. He also wrote that everything is ready for future parts of the trilogy, which will be closer to the original plots of Howard ^[3] .

• Solomon Kane at the Internet Movie Database
• Official movie website