In this new video essay, filmmaker Alexandre O. Philippe delves into the dread-inducing mood and tone of Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s modern horror classic Cure, deploying a dizzying range of cinematic references to unravel the film’s eerie magic.

Captain Kirk. T.J. Hooker. Denny Crane. Big Giant Head. Alexander the Great. Henry V. Priceline’s Negotiator. These are but a handful of the innumerable masks worn by William Shatner over seven extraordinary decades onstage and in front of the camera. A peerless maverick thespian, electrifying performer, and international cultural treasure, Bill (as he prefers to be called), now 91 years young, is the living embodiment of his classic line “to boldly go where no man has gone before.” In unprecedented fashion, You Can Call Me Bill strips away all the masks he has worn to embody countless characters, revealing the man behind it all.

Interviews and archival footage weave together to tell the story of the Master of Suspense, one of the most influential and studied filmmakers in the history of cinema.