Returning to the horror genre that spawned his great artistic triumph Rosemary's Baby (1968), writer/producer/director Roman Polanski provides great visual flourish but little depth to the standard "Satan among us" plot line of this occult thriller based on the novel El Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte. Actor Johnny Depp convincingly portrays a greedy rare-book dealer and the director ably captures the film's eclectic European settings; however, The Ninth Gate fails to deliver much in the way of genuine chills, relying instead on atmosphere and implied violence to convey the sense of menace that his script doesn't deliver. The turn of the millennium inspired Hollywood financiers to produce several horror films that shared similar themes -- among them End of Days (1999), Stigmata (1999), and Lost Souls (2000) -- but the anticipated doomsday fever of the public did not materialize; neither these films nor The Ninth Gate sparked much fire at the box office.