| Author | Message | ||
     Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
I had such a good time with this idea on Saturday night that I've decided to make it a regular thing, when I know I'm stuck in for the night and don't have to get up early the next day (yep, I'm still dosed to the eyeballs). This was my first horror marathon: 'King Of The Zombies' (1941) directed by Jean Yarbrough for Monogram studios, was an ultra low grade, but hard to dislike, horror comedy cash-in on Bob Hope's similar, and much more entertaining, 'The Ghost Breakers' (1940). Much of the "laughs" come from the goggle-eyed scaredy-cat routine of black manservant Mantan Moreland; "I'm feeling a little off colour", “Things are lookin’ pretty black, ain’t they, boss”, etc...  Actually the black actors are the only ones in the cast to show any sign of personality, as it's often difficult to tell the lantern jawed white heroes from the zombies! Although Henry Victor does ham it up nicely as sinister Dr Sangre, a black magic practicing Nazi spy who raises the dead, and goes in for a bit of hypnotism and soul transference on the side. 'The House By The Cemetery' (1981) has the most coherent plot structure of Lucio Fulci's gothic trilogy, with Catriona MacColl, but I'd still love somebody to explain to me why Anne the babysitter bothered to clean up the gore after one of Dr Freudstein's more artery squirting murders?! I can only assume she was possessed by the evil of the house... I still think this is a brilliant hallucinatory horror classic, with elements of 'The Shining', mad scientist, zombie and slasher horror all thrown into the mix - while the relentlessly long drawn out finale, and climactic revealing of the mouldering undead Doctor and his underground charnel lair, is arguably the scariest, and most sickening sequence Fulci ever directed. I swear I could actually smell the putrefaction as that hideous stick-figure shambled into view. Brilliant stuff!! Then I have to say I was very impressed with the recent British horror flick, 'The Children' (2008). A brilliantly paced and beautifully shot twist on the "virus infected maniacs" horror of 'The Crazies' or '28 Days Later' - turned into a memorable entry in the evil kids sub-genre by the fact that the virus only infects pre-adolescents. The slow-building tension and insidiously creepy atmosphere is marvellously well maintained and I'd actually rank this as superior to the somewhat similar, and more vaunted French horror, 'Them' (2006). The emotional impact on the parents, and their disbelieving bewilderment at having to come to terms with their little darlings gradually metamorphosing into ravening homicidal maniacs is what makes this little gem really stand out. Tom Shankland is a genre director worth keeping an eye on imo. As for tonight, I've decided on: 'Attack Of The Crab Monsters' (1957) by Roger Corman. 'Last Cannibal World' (1977) by Ruggero Deodato. 'The Heirloom' (2005) by Leste Chen, from Taiwan. Watching these all for the first time... now to order the chinese in.  | ||
| John Forth (John) Username: John Registered: 05-2008 Posted From: 82.24.1.217 |
I like The House by the Cemetery but, dear god, the voice they've dubbed onto the kid is awful. He sounds like something out of Sesame Street. There are some fantastic surreal moments, though. The dummies dressed like the little girl and the babysitter (Ania Peironi - the original Mother of Tears), the house Bob emerges into at the very conclusion of the film. Great Fulci moments. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
I don't let the weirdness of the kid's voice bother me, John, and just put it down to another surreal element in the whole nightmarish shebang. Just watched 'Attack Of The Crab Monsters' and it was completely wonderful! Bracing myself now for some full-on, stomach-churning gore and sadism from Deodato... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
Finally getting a chance to write up the other night's horror marathon: Firstly, anyone who doubts the pure unalloyed entertainment value of Roger Corman's sci-fi/horror quickies needs to watch 'Attack Of The Crab Monsters' (1957). It is jaw-droppingly wonderful, right from the opening doomladen voiceover quoting Scripture against a stormy sky to the final exciting climax with a lone, grenade-chucking hero clambering desperately up a sinking transmitter mast to escape the giant pincers below (an obvious influence on Spielberg's finale to 'Jaws'). The rickety papier mache (I'm assuming) crabs are an absurd but strangely disturbing creation, as they clatter along, with everyone involved treating things so straight-faced, and Corman refusing to allow a single scene to end without a scare or threat or ominous proclamation of some kind - tis a joy to behold. I also found the film surprisingly gruesome, for its time, with severed limbs and headless corpses spicing up the action nicely. But what really makes the film unforgettable is the bizarre element of making the giant crabs intelligent, able to speak, and plan world domination, while luring innocent victims to a snippy doom by putting on the voices of their fallen comrades!! "Hey, mack, come 'ere a minute", "Yeah, what is it, Joe?", "I'm not Joe you fool, ha ha ha", SNAP... another head rolls. Guy N. Smith missed a trick with that one! What in the name of Christ were they on!?!? In all seriousness, though, the underwater photography is really well done and, if you're a fan of those type of films with a large cast of unknowns, who all get bumped off one-by-one, and it's never sure who, if any, will survive to the end, then this more than fits the bill. Hats off to everyone involved, we shall never see their like again... Then came Ruggero Deodato's 'Last Cannibal World' (1977), and the film started almost identically to Corman's epic, with a team of scientists arriving on a remote island to find out what became of a previous expedition - though this time there were only four as opposed to Corman's ten. After that all similarities ended! This turned out to be a genuinely thrilling and unpredictable jungle adventure, beautifully shot on location and just about as in-your-face brutal as I've ever experienced on screen - but not gratuitously so imo. In fact long passages of the film were gripping solely because of the uncompromisingly naturalistic power of the performances (Massimo Foschi is staggeringly good!), the stunning jungle scenery and constant threat from the wildlife - with crocodiles, cobras and other assorted beasties proving as much of a danger as the cannibals. Speaking of which there are only two brief scenes of, admittedly stomach-churning, cannibalism in the film and the rest of it is as pure and tense a survival in the wilderness yarn as 'Deliverance' or any of those great old Tarzan movies. It may pale beside the meatier horror of 'Cannibal Holocaust' but this still stands up as a great movie, and a thrilling adventure, in its own right. Taiwanese horror 'The Heirloom' (2005) by young first-time director Leste Chen is a classically structured and nicely understated, for most of its length, haunted house story that makes fascinating use of the "ghost child" idea from Chinese myth - that a family can create their own protective spirit by keeping an aborted foetus in a jar and regularly feeding it on the blood of family members! Naturally, this particular family raised a bad un, and came to a horrible end, apart from one distant relative who inherits the house and what lies hidden in the attic. I'd call this a promising debut, with many a memorable image and several chilling set-pieces, rather than an out-and-out success as the director often lets things drag on too long in uninteresting scenes, to beef up the running time, and the finale, which should have been short and sharp, gets lost in tediously overblown melodrama. 30 mins or so could be shorn of this movie to produce a really cracking little Jamesian ghost story along the lines of Nigel Kneale's 'Baby' imo. A decent first effort though. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
I've decided on a trio of macabre horror/thrillers next: 'The Bat' (1959) by Crane Wilbur - with Vincent Price & Agnes Moorehead it's gotta be good! 'Profondo Rosso' (1975) by Dario Argento - the full uncut version for the first time! 'WDZ' (2006) by Tom Shankland - to see how it compares with 'The Children'. From old dark house to giallo to serial killer mystery - a potted history of horror right there. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Have this triple bill lined up for tonight, way through to the wee small hours - can't wait... | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
Let me know what you think of 'WAZ'... | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 85.222.86.21 |
I've got a weekend of films lined up: Knowing (yes, I'm sure it's rubbish, but I feel like some daft fun),The Road (at last), Legion (more daftness), Vault of Horror (finally), and several episodes of Fringe. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 61.216.50.190 |
Stevie, you're the only other person I know who has seen The Heirloom! I pretty much agree with what you said about it. Have you seen Double Vision and Silk? They are also Taiwanese productions, and both are better (IMO) than The Heirloom. By the way, the 'foetus spirit' thing is a well-known phenomenon over here. There's even a book about it - The Haunting Foetus: Abortion, Sexuality and the Spirit World in Taiwan. Just light, bedtime reading, you know... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Haven't seen either, Huw, but will keep an eye out. I've long been a fan of the best of Asian horror and have loads of DVDs, quite a few still to watch. That idea of keeping an aborted foetus in a jar, like a guilty secret, and feeding it on blood to avoid some kind of supernatural retribution is a particularly chilling one - especially as it seems to be so enshrined in the Chinese consciousness. I assume there really are holy men like the one they took the jar to, who seemed to be some kind of Buddhist equivalent of an exorcist? I found that whole cultural aspect of the film fascinating. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.237.21 |
Saw KAIRO for the first time yesterday evening and I have to say I'm very impressed indeed. I felt the ol' shivers running up and down my arms and spine whenever someone picked up a phone and that insidious "Help me" with the mechanical click was heard. Unsettling stuff, even if I can't say what actually happens near the end, with the plane going down in flames and all that. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
*** KAIRO SPOILER *** It's an incredible movie, a stunning and completely original marriage of classic oriental ghost story and Wyndhamesque apocalyptic sci-fi. I have the DVD as 'Pulse' and would rank it in the very top tier of modern Asian horrors. The ending should be as venerated as that of 'Planet Of The Apes' imo. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.237.21 |
I'd call KAIRO existential horror: the film is suffused with ruminations about real friendship and loneliness before and after(!) death. On the other hand the passage in the subway (and what comes after) is so reminiscent of The Influence I half expected a horrible train conductor to appear between the aisles. It's not outward plagiarism, but the film retains the same atmosphere until the end. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I just loved the gradual shift from intensely creepy personal ghost story to one of the most successfully ambitious apocalyptic sci-fi visions of recent times. It is an unqualified masterpiece imo. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
Finally got round to seeing the three films after probs with my DVD player scuppered last Friday's plans: 'The Bat' (1959) directed by Crane Wilbur was a hokily enjoyable throwback to the old dark house horror thrillers of the 1930s/40s, enlivened no end by the battle of ham between Vincent Price and Agnes Moorehead - it's all in who can raise their eyebrows the highest. This was based on a famous stageplay with one of those "never reveal the secret" pay-offs, though I was able to guess the identity of the killer without too much difficulty. All good fun, involving the hunt for a hidden fortune in one of those old mansions riddled with revolving doors and secret passages, while a homicidal maniac, dubbed The Bat by the Press, is tearing the throats out of innocent victims in the area - and appears to have inflitrated the party of treasure seekers. Red herrings and twists abound and there are some good spooky moments but the action does tend to drag when the two stars are off screen and the direction is as flat as week old cola. Worth watching but hardly memorable. Then came the film that rubber stamped Dario Argento's reputation as a worthy successor to Mario Bava & Alfred Hitchcock, and my first viewing of the original Italian full-length version of 'Profondo Rosso' (1975). I've seen the shorter (by 23 mins!) dubbed version several times before and never questioned its status as one of the great man's crowning achievements, but now I'd rank it as definitely his finest, most tightly controlled and beautifully accomplished picture. Before the film appeared flawed by baffling plot holes and lapses of logic, but seen in full the story makes perfect sense, and the killer not quite so psychic, while they also cut some gloriously atmospheric sequences, particularly in Hemming's exploration of the derelict villa, which becomes a memorably brooding presence here. I always enjoyed the chemistry between David Hemmings and Daria Nicolodi in this film, but seen in full, their characters are even more fleshed out, bringing a warmth and sweet humour to the film that is lacking in any other of Argento's works - Nicolodi, in particular, is delightful. The famous set pieces gain even more power for being part of a properly cohesive plot, while the director's mastery of composition and camera movement has never been more fully realised. Truly this is one of the most beautiful works of art in the history of horror cinema, with the more subtle than usual Goblin soundtrack complimenting the stunning imagery to perfection. What I wouldn't give to see this - the complete film - on the big screen... And to finish, what an unexpected triumph 'WDZ' turned out to be! For a directorial debut this confirms my opinion of Tom Shankland as a very promising new genre director indeed - the man may even go on to rival Neil Marshall or Christopher Smith, on this evidence. I sat down expecting a routine imitation of 'Saw' and what I got was a blisteringly tough and intelligent modern noir crime thriller, with a killer script of remarkable originality by Clive Bradley - I would suggest he's another name to watch. Another pleasant surprise, and in no way affecting my judgement, was the discovery that this film was made in good old Belfast, standing in for the mean streets of New York! The first ten minutes set the viewer up for the expected tired retread of 'Seven' or 'Saw' - someone is torturing to death criminal scumbags and carving elements of a complex mathematical equation into their flesh, it is up to tough guy cop Stellan Skarsgard, and his eager young rookie partner Melissa George, to find out who, ho hum... but then things start getting interesting. I can't say any more about the plot to avoid spoilers - and the various genre-bending twists and shocker of a final pay-off are brilliant - but try and imagine an unrelentingly brutal, and emotionally harrowing, horror thriller that plays like a feature length episode of 'Millennium', while cleverly combining elements of; 'Ms 45', 'Seven' & 'Insomnia' to create something completely new - and genuinely shocking on an intellectual level, rather than the yawn-inducing pyrotechnics of the 'Saw' franchise - and you'll have some idea of the quality of this fine, and inexplicably overlooked, gem of a thriller! | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 85.222.86.21 |
Steve - you've made my day about the latter. I was hoping to hear something good about this movie. Can't wait to see it. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
Having another triple bill tonight, as it's that time of the month when funds are low: 'The Giant Leeches' (1959) by Bernard Kowalski - a notorious Roger Corman production by the man who went on to direct 'Sssssss'. 'Ghosthouse' (1988) by Umberto Lenzi - allegedly one of the most OTT Italian gorefeasts of the 80s, featuring a ghostly killer clown! 'Zombie Honeymoon' (2004) by Dave Gebroe - heard good reports about this low-key zombie spoof that pre-empted 'Shaun Of The Dead', here's hoping. Watching all of these for the first time. | ||
| Jamie Rosen (Jamie) Username: Jamie Registered: 11-2008 Posted From: 99.240.203.201 |
"gorefeasts" Freudian slip? | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
Two down, one to go... 'The Giant Leeches' & 'Ghosthouse' were cheesily enjoyable, now for 'Zombie Honeymoon'. You never heard the term "gorefeast" before? | ||
| Jamie Rosen (Jamie) Username: Jamie Registered: 11-2008 Posted From: 99.240.203.201 |
Only as a band name. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
A gorefeast or bloodfeast is a movie made to be as excessively gruesome as possible for the tittilation of gorehounds. The deaths in 'Ghosthouse' weren't actually that bad, although the slicing in half by falling window pane was a highlight!  | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
None of last night's films could be called classic horror, by any stretch of the imagination, but I enjoyed all of them for what they were... 'The Giant Leeches' (1959) was a solid and entertaining, shoestring budget creature feature, from the Corman productions conveyor belt. The first five minutes had me groaning at the wooden acting, leaden script and perfunctory direction by Bernard Kowalski but then the simple earnestness of the production and cosy predictability of the storyline started to win me over, and I found myself becoming quite gripped. A small Florida town nestled in the everglades is beset by a number of mysterious disappearances that seem to be linked to the vanishing of all large animal life in the area. Gradually the locals come to suspect it may have something to do with atomic radiation from nearby Cape Canaveral, amid reports of strange nocturnal critters glimpsed by shocked poachers, etc. The leech monsters themselves are a lot more effective than the film's ridiculed reputation would suggest, as they are wisely never shown clearly or in full shot, but rather as indistinct flopping, jelloid masses, dotted with livid white suckers. The middle section of the film, in which we discover that their victims have been stored alive in an underwater cavern - straight out of 'The Creature From The Black Lagoon' - where they are slowly and helplessly drained of their blood over a period of several days, until their bleached white, horribly pock-marked bodies are sent floating to the surface, was genuinely horrific. I know this would have scared the bejesus out of me, had I seen it as a child, and must admit to a shiver of instinctive revulsion even now, as a face or a throat was engulfed and that horrible sucking sound began... It's not great art, or even competent filmmaking, but in it's own humble way this isn't a bad wee effort at all. As with 'The Blob', this would benefit from a properly resourced remake methinks. Then came a case of unintentional hilarity with Umberto Lenzi's stark raving mad 'Ghosthouse' (1988). Hardly one of the great Italian horror directors, Lenzi outdoes himself here by showing no aptitude for generating chills or suspense at all. Instead he throws all the standard elements of a creepy old haunted house yarn at the audience - previous owners horribly murdered 20 years before, grizzled old groundskeeper warning trespassing kids of impending doom, bats hanging from the eaves, gothic graveyard next door, ghostly little girl in white dress, eerie nursery rhyme playing just before something horrible happens, oversized toy clown come to giggling life, demonic doberman pinscher that wandered in from 'Zoltan : Hound Of Dracula', disembodied arms bursting through walls, knife wielding spectre of death - and hopes that some of them will work. Sadly all of them are horribly misjudged, with even the ridiculous looking clown raising more belly laughs than scares - whatever next! Fortunately Lenzi decided to beef up the "scream quotient" by alternating the ghostly moments with a series of elaborately staged and gory deaths. As the outrageously coiffured cast of 80s unknowns make the actors in 'The Giant Leeches' look like Laurence Olivier wannabes, and are every bit as irritating as that suggests, I found these deaths supremely entertaining. These bits of the film are well mounted and, in no particular order, include; throat slitting, hanging, boiling alive, decapitation, bludgeoning, slicing in half, head cleaving in two, entombing alive, and being run over by a bus - just for good measure. This is an awful film but great fun with it! 'Zombie Homeymoon' (2004) by Dave Gebroe is one of those admirably ambitious and prepared to be different low budget horror efforts by a first time director that one sincerely wishes had been just that little bit better. The plot involves a newly married couple, Danny & Denise, arriving at a luxury beach house for their honeymoon and having their joy disrupted by the emergence from the waves of a rotting zombie that proceeds to attack them before perishing in an explosion of fetid slime, some of which is swallowed by poor Danny. From there we watch his unrealising gradual metamorphosis into one of the green-hued, flaky-skinned undead while his distraught but adoring wife stands by him and his increasingly cannibalistic urges, "in sickness and in health, till death us do part" and beyond... There is much to admire here, from the committed and touching lead performances of Tracy Coogan & Graham Sibley, to the convincing restraint shown in the script and the wonderfully effective, yet understated, zombie make-up and gore effects, as Danny, aided by Denise, proceeds to make chow of various unfortunate visitors. But Gebroe is no director and the tone throughout is distractingly uneven, never making its mind up whether to go for gross-out laughs, gut-churning horror or outright tragedy. I enjoyed it but was ultimately left frustrated by what might have been. The tribute to John Landis at the end makes me think the idea was got from Robert Loggia's memorable predicament in 'Innocent Blood' (1992) - an unfairly neglected classic and Landis's most underrated movie imo. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.18.174.156 |
Time for another horror triple bill to celebrate finally getting all my DVDs sorted back into order and in their rightful place in the new house. I'm in the mood for shameless schlock and have decided on a revenge of nature theme: 'The Killer Shrews' (1959) by Ray Kellogg - I've long wanted to see this notorious piece of Grade-Z fifties sci-fi/horror and the time is now right. Surely it can't be as bad as its reputation suggests... 'Snowbeast' (1977) by Herb Wallerstein - and more of the same, though, with at least a few recognisable names in the cast list to raise expectations, perhaps? 'Rogue' (2007) by Greg McLean - promising to be the highlight of the night this was the director's much anticipated follow-up to his classic debut, 'Wolf Creek' (2005). I have high hopes for this movie given McLean's undoubted talent at generating heart-stopping suspense. Fingers crossed... | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.158.153.34 |
Today we have seen: NIGHT OF THE EAGLE - which I'd never seen before! THEM! - Giant ants! You can't go wrong. THE BEAST WITHIN - You can go wrong, but at least if you do there are Lovecraft references, some great character actors and a transformation scene with a MASSIVE balloon head! Stevie - we saw ROGUE a while back and thought it was pretty good | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.183.124.205 |
Can't believe you've never seen NIGHT OF THE EAGLE before, Lord P.! What did you both think of it? | ||
| Barbara Roden (Nebuly) Username: Nebuly Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 216.232.188.106 |
I remember seeing Snowbeast when it originally aired (it was a made-for-TV film) in 1977, when I was 13; I thought it was very creepy, with a couple of jump-out-of-my-chair moments. At the time, I didn't realise that the fact you don't get a good look at the beast itself until almost the end was probably due to a) lack of a decent budget and b) lack of a convincing-looking monster; I just thought that the odd glimpse of a distant figure on the hillside here, a hairy arm there, made it scary. There's something to be said for the 'less is more' philosophy, in horror films. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.35.236.200 |
I used to love Night of the Eagle. You know you only see Wyngarde in either long shot or close up? Apparently he wore such tight pants it was all they could to stop showing his bulge. Must watch it again soon. Rogue was so-so, I thought. It didn't have a 'spark' to it, I thought. Beast Within - what's that about again? We watched Fear in the Night at the caravan last week - it was ok, and nice to see Judy Geeson. Then last night we watched - Alan Bates and Joan Collins again - Monster, or 'I don't Want to Be Born'. So poor we turned it off. Awful, awful. Another caravan watch was Blood From the Mummy's Tomb, again a bit dull (Hammer's do tend to suffer for me these days, rewatching them) - we could have done with more hints of ancient Egypt blending in with the modern world, I thought. It could be remade with some success, I think. Have to say, though, Valerie Leon was bloody gorgeous, and with the lads, too - 'Why don't women look like that anymore?' my youngest said, plaintively. Them starts well but ends up a bit nattery and montagey. If Tarantula is on the shelf next to it it's the one to go for. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.253.77 |
I love Rogue - it's a masterclass in sustained tension. One of those films I rewatch if I'm not sure what I'm in the mood for. | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 81.100.122.90 |
Night of the Eagle is brilliant. | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.158.153.34 |
It's because of Stu that I determined to get hold of Night of the Eagle. I thought it was rather good, in fact it felt quite a lot like Night of the Demon to me - b&w British, classic story as a base, some interesting day for night photography, &c. Also interesting to see an example of what THE AVENGERS team (Wintle, Fennell, Hayers) did before that show. Definitely a keeper and I think it could be updated very well today. Tony - that's made me crack up! Also, is it possible to watch Peter Wyngarde in anything without wanting to impersonate him? | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 213.81.112.204 |
John, just in case you didn't notice, the latest film I mentioned on FB is Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. Obviously you'll now want to rush out and watch that as well. | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.158.153.34 |
Stu - it's another one I've never seen! | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 213.81.112.204 |
And you call yourself a connoisseur? Shame on you. Actually, I have to admit I don't remember if it was actually any good. Loooong time since I watched it. | ||
| Mbfg (Mbfg) Username: Mbfg Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 62.255.207.128 |
John, I loved "Night of the Eagle", based on Leiber's "Conjure wife" I believe. It has a filmic atmosphere that is not possible to recapture these days, can't describe what it is. Good to see Wyngarde without his Jason King "Department S" tache and flowing late 1960s locks (which I myself adopted in my younger days when I wore flares and listened to Led Zeppelin with almost religious reverence, ah a far off golden era)! Still got the hair though... And the LZ albums. Cheers Terry | ||
| Barbara Roden (Nebuly) Username: Nebuly Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 216.232.188.106 |
I just saw the first episode of the series The 70s, and had my first real look at Wyngarde as Jason King (I don't think it ever aired over here, and I somehow managed to live five years in England without running across it). Dear God, it was terrifying. I asked Christopher if anyone really took the character seriously as a style icon/someone to emulate, back in the early 1970s, and he couldn't remember. I really hoped that he'd say Wyngarde was just taking the piss, but since the narrator informed us that many of King's outfits came from Wyngarde's own wardrobe, I expect he was deadly serious. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.183.124.205 |
The character's worth catching in "Department S" too, before he got his own show. | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 213.81.124.137 |
Although I've never watched Department S or Jason King I've seen photos of Wyngarde with his flares and 'tache so I spent the first five minutes of Night of the Eagle thinking, "Is that REALLY Peter Wyngarde?"} | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 213.81.124.137 |
Barbara, various writers have thought Jason King was worth emulating. Chris Claremont and John Byrne revealed that old X-Men villain Mastermind was really called Jason Wyngarde and had him dress like Jason King. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Classicx31.png And Grant Morrison had a character in The Invisibles called Mister Six who dressed and acted like King. http://www.comicvine.com/mr-six/29-51076/ And my mate Alec Worley writes a series for 2000AD about Spartacus Dandridge who is a Victorian version of King. http://www.sidekickcomicsuk.com/blogs/blog4.php/2010/11/10/dandridge-returns-to- 2000ad-today | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I remember being vaguely disturbed by Jason King as a very young child. I think my parents disapproved of him for some reason and this communicated itself to my infant mind. 'Night Of The Eagle' is a marvellous horror movie. One of the most original of its era and a worthy adaptation of Leiber's novel, imo. Hard to believe that both Richard Matheson & Charles Beaumont worked on the script. I caught it without any fanfare, or previous knowledge, late one Friday night on Channel 4 many years ago and was amazed at its quality and the fact I hadn't heard of it before. A brilliant example of subtle intelligent horror, wonderfully underplayed. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Saturday night's triple bill was a pure joy that kept me entertained way into the early hours. Haven't the time to do the films justice now (the sods have given me work to do - I ask you!!) but all three movies were superbly formulaic and admirably straight-faced examples of the old "mother nature getting her own back on us pesky humans" thriller format - as perfected in the Holy Trinity of such films; 'King Kong' (1933), 'The Birds' (1963) & 'Jaws' (1975). 'Rogue', in particular, was an exceptionally fine piece of work and completely verified my opinion of Greg McLean's talents! Wonder what he's been up to since? | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
'The Killer Shrews' (1959) by Ray Kellogg - This was the big surprise of the night and has now become one of my absolute favourites of the golden age of 50s sci-fi. Made on a shoestring budget with a notable lack of talent in every department (particularly the special effects) the film succeeds on the eternal strength of its set-up and the fact that all the characters react to the situation in as guilelessly naturalistic a fashion as one would imagine happening in real life if faced with a similar scenario. There are no false heroics here but instead a gradually escalating sense of blind panic as the natural order breaks down and people's base survival instincts come to the fore. The film, for all it technical deficiencies, has real heart and integrity at its core and is one of the most thoroughly entertaining and admirably straight-faced "revenge of nature" thrillers I have watched. The unintentional comedic impact of the wonderfully wooden dialogue and the appearance of the giant shrews, as all too obviously greyhounds fitted with shaggy coats, false faces and a mouthful of fake fangs, soon wore off for me as I became immersed in the breakneck pace and claustrophobia of the action. Virtually from the beginning we have seven people barricaded into a scientific compound on a tropical island overrun by giant flesh-eating shrews and fighting a losing battle as the creatures gnaw and burrow their way in through every available crack and cranny. That's it... pure action and suspense as we wonder who will be next to get shredded. Imagine the scene our hapless seaman hero faces on landing his boat on the island and being taken in by the besieged scientific team: "Have you ever seen a shrew, captain?" "What this little fella? He's cute. What's his name, doc?" "It doesn't have a name, captain. What you're holding in your hand is the deadliest predator on Earth!" "Come off it, doc! Woochy-coochy-coo. Aoowww!! He bit me!" "Consider yourself fortunate, captain. It has just been fed. That was merely a warning bite." "Little bastard!" "Now imagine up to three hundred of the things, at last estimate, weighing four to five hundred pounds each, starving, outside those compound gates... and we are the only food source left on this island." As if that wasn’t enough the movie boasts the most inspired example of human resourcefulness in order to combat the menace and escape to the sea I have ever witnessed – “Yes, doc, we’ll duck walk our way to freedom!” (this really has to be seen to be believed) - and the most wonderful closing line in all sci-fi that had me punching the air and breaking into spontaneous applause - I wouldn’t dare spoil it here – and this really is an unfairly lambasted minor masterwork of the genre for which Mr Kellogg and his entire team deserve nothing but our heartfelt respect and congratulations. An absolute belter!! 'Snowbeast' (1977) by Herb Wallerstein – The “revenge of nature” thriller really came into its own in the 1970s following the ‘Jaws’ phenomenon (still the greatest time I ever had in a cinema) and this enjoyably cheesy piece of zero budget nonsense followed the template to a tee. In the opening scene a pretty blonde out skiing on the slopes gets chomped by something hideous emerging from the woods. A grizzly is blamed but our glimpse of a white furred hand and wicked claws looked like no bear. At the same time the bigwigs at the local ski lodge are gearing up for their annual Winter Fair and the last thing anyone wants is stories of a rampaging grizzly eating the tourists to leak out. The lodge matriarch (Sylvia Sidney) sanctions the usual cover up of the facts and more horrible deaths follow with four characters – the guilt-ridden lodge supervisor (Robert Logan), an Olympic skiing champion turned big game hunter (Bo Svenson), his snooping newspaper reporter wife who specialises in bigfoot stories (Yvette Mimieux) & the hard-bitten local sheriff (Clint Walker) – becoming particularly obsessed with the beast. This all culminates in the four of them getting armed to the teeth and setting off into the wilderness after one death too many and this wonderful exchange: “You only saw its footprints. I saw the beast itself.. and it was no animal… and it wasn’t human!” “Thanks, Pete. That narrows the field down. So now we know what we’re dealing with what are we gonna do about it?” “I know what I’m going to do. I’m going up on that mountain after the thing… and only one of us is coming down!” “You mean… we’re going up that mountain!!” “Make that three!!!” “Better make that four!!!!” The usual scenes of camaraderie and sharing secrets round the camp-fire follow until it becomes obvious that they aren’t the ones doing the hunting and a tense battle of wits ensues as the party find themselves being gradually whittled down. All this is carried off with frowning gravel-voiced aplomb by the sterling cast of character actors. I also have to agree with Barbara that the director’s decision never to show the monster in full shot but always as just a claw, a foot, a hulking shadow or a briefly glimpsed blur of white fur disappearing into the distant trees gives the camera’s eye point of view attacks an added eeriness that is heightened by the fright factor of the creature’s amplified roar bursting forth when all is quiet to make us jump. Yes, Barbara, this great little B-movie is a shining example of “less is more” in action. The attack on the packed concert hall and the scene in which they are besieged in the barn as the thing batters its way in are particularly hair-raising! The film may have been made for US television but it is one of those cherishable 70s films – like ‘Duel’, ‘The Night Stalker’, ‘The Norliss Tapes’ or ‘Salem’s Lot’ – that due to unusually high production values and atypical gore effects could pass as a cinema release and the movie has since acquired deserved cult status on the DVD market. Like ‘The Killer Shrews’ it’s not one to be approached with one’s critical faculties honed but rather should be wallowed in for what it is… a fine piece of straight faced and solidly formulaic genre entertainment. 'Rogue' (2007) by Greg McLean – The night ended on a high with this beautifully crafted and brilliantly paced exercise in edge-of-the-seat suspense. The film never wastes a second and is a model of its kind, imo. American travel writer (Michael Vartan) arrives in remote outpost in the Northern Territories of Australia and books himself on a couple of hours river cruise with a motley assortment of tourists and a feisty local beauty (Radha Mitchell) as their guide and boat’s captain. McLean captures the menacing local atmosphere and awesome grandeur of the scenery with the same understated authenticity that marked ‘Wolf Creek’ and the acting is of the same quality of “keep it real” naturalism. Each of the characters is introduced as casually as we would pay attention to any group we expected to share an hour or two with and never see again and they are pleasingly devoid of the usual stereotypes all of which eases us into their situation with minimum fuss and maximum credibility. Just as they have reached the limit of their cruise and are about to head back a distress flare is spotted from further up-river and, against the protests of those needing to get back to catch buses, etc, Mitchell insists it is her duty to investigate as the only other vessel in the area. Big mistake! They end up straying into the territory of a giant rogue saltwater crocodile that has already made mincemeat of those who sent up the flare and after it holes their boat they find themselves beached on a tidal mudflat with the water level rising and the creature picking them off from the water’s edge one-by-one. That’s your set-up and the director plays it straight with deadly earnestness making us feel every ounce of tension and escalating terror of the group as they realise the hopelessness of their situation with the tide coming in, darkness falling and the animal treating them as so many riverside ready meals. It’s a pleasure to see so much unpretentious care and skill go into this kind of old-fashioned and gripping thriller that remains devoid of any further ambition than to petrify its audience and does so brilliantly without any recourse to postmodernist tics or jarring humour. A classic of its kind and, incidentally, it was striking to see the climax match almost exactly the final scenes of ‘Snowbeast’. Some things never change and are all the better for it… A cracking triple bill, all in all! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Triple bill time again tonight on Stevie TV. And I've decided on: 'The Creature From The Haunted Sea' (1961) by Roger Corman 'Cannibal Apocalypse' (1980) by Antonio Margheriti 'Castle Freak' (1995) by Stuart Gordon ...all for the first time. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.18.174.156 |
Roger Corman's 'The Creature From The Haunted Sea' (1961) is beyond a joke. Clearly intended as a zany horror comedy on the back of 'The Little Shop Of Horrors' (1960) the film amounts to nothing more than watching a bunch of idiots dick around in front of the camera in their spare time. Everyone had a ball making the film, as is all too evident, but to call the finished product an incoherent mess totally devoid of any sign of talent is to shower it with undue praise. Not so much a Corman quickie as a Corman con-trick this intensely irritating insult to the intelligence of right thinking people everywhere makes the likes of 'Attack Of The Crab Monsters' or 'The Killer Shrews' look like Kubrickian masterpieces by comparison. Complete and utter balls that I had the misfortune to sit through stone cold sober and without any psychotropic drugs to hand. I shall bear the mental scars to my grave. Fortunately, for my sanity, that was followed by one of the finest Italian horror movies of its era, imo. Antonio Margheriti's marvellous 'Cannibal Apocalypse' (1980) is a straight-faced and unusually thoughtful joy of a video nasty splatterfest with perhaps the finest performance of the great John Saxon's long and distinguished career! The film looks beautiful, is acted with sombre committment and boasts a subtly barbed script of startling intelligence that belies the movie's notorious reputation and put me in mind of the early satirical sc-fi/horror nightmares of David Cronenberg, 'Shivers' (1975) & 'Rabid' (1977), or George A. Romero's 'The Crazies' (1973). Three Vietnam veterans (with Saxon as their strong-willed leader) return to their home city of Atlanta having been unwittingly infected with a virus that gradually transforms them into insatiable human flesh-eaters. After doomed attempts to contain their cannibalistic urges these men go on a rampage of bloody slaughter through the streets, infecting everyone they bite with the same contagion, and resulting in a slew of memorably gruesome set-pieces before the final tragic showdown in the city's sewer system. Bloodily brilliant, I loved every moment of it and would rank this as the second finest cannibal movie I have seen after Ruggero Deodato's 'Cannibal Holocaust' (also 1980). A true classic of the genre! And the night finished on another rather unexpected high with Stuart Gordon's inexplicably unappreciated classic of good old-fashioned gothic horror atmospherics, the quite wonderful, 'Castle Freak' (1995). I've always had mixed feelings about Gordon as a director as, for all his energy and visual style, he never seemed able to resist injecting OTT gross-out humour into the most inappropriate of horror stories. I longed to see him, for once, do it straight - and with this brilliant little gem of a shocker I finally got my wish! Even his perpetual lead man, Jeffrey Combs, plays it dead straight in this one, giving a performance of real depth and tragedy, that I wouldn't have thought him capable of, as a father plagued with guilt, and hated with real venom by his wife (Barbara Crampton), for having killed their young son and blinded their teenage daughter (Jessica Dollarhide - in a great debut performance) in a horrendous car crash while driving home drunk, from which he walked away without a scratch. Two years later they find themselves inheriting a vast gothic castle in the Italian countryside, due to him being the last remaining relative of the old Duchess who lived there alone, and on moving in they gradually come to suspect that someone or something else shares it with them, haunting the labyrinthine rooms and passages and being heard pitifully moaning and wailing in the night. It turns out the Duchess has kept her hated illegitimate son chained in the cellar for over 40 years subjecting him to horrendous torture that have turned the man into a sub-human and grotesquely misshapen creature with a hankering after raw flesh. Of course the thing gets loose and makes nosh of various unfortunate visitors to the castle while the innocent father finds himself suspected of their murder and taking to the drink again and the beast develops an infatuation with their blind daughter, who alone does not react with horror to his nightmare appearance, etc... Stuart Gordon, perhaps inspired by the natural splendour of the on location castle, spares us none of the predictable gothic clichés and the movie rattles along at a thrilling pace with expertly contrived moments of hair-raising suspense and truly sickening gore effects devoid of his trademark "goofiness" and all the more shocking for it. The monster itself is a brilliant creation and the actor, Jonathan Fuller, injects it with a real Frankensteinian pathos that has us helplessly empathising with the thing even when it's ripping the entrails from its latest victim. Make a point of seeking this one out... the gloriously melodramatic finale is something else, capping all the great work off to perfection, and I'd now rank 'Castle Freak' as one of the finest and most underrated horror films of the 90s. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.18.174.156 |
As I'm off work tomorrow and not out tonight I've decided on another one: 'Dementia 13' (1963) by Francis Ford Coppola 'Torso' (1973) by Sergio Martino 'The Burrowers' (2008) by J.T. Petty ...again, all for the first time. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.181.142.209 |
I think I have a copy of Torso... I may watch that myself tonight. there's bugger all on telly | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.145.208.218 |
It appears that the film i have called torso is a 2002 true crime film with brenda fricker | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.145.210.48 |
For some reason i'm watching the remake of the fog. I have to say that, though it's better than i thought, it's not a patch on the original and the cgi fog lacks any atmosphere. The smoke machine fog in the carpenter film was so much more effective. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.167.145.33 |
Followed the Fog up with Galaxy of Terror. That was a mistake. And how dare James Cameron have a go at Piranha 3D for being tacky when he was production designer on this! No one who designed a scene where a giant alien slug rapes a woman to death can call any scene in any other film ever made tacky. (Especially when he also made Piranha 2 which is one of the single worst films I've ever seen.) Cameron is a hypocrite. There's no other word for it. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.167.145.33 |
In an attempt to watch one good film tonight I watched Bubba Ho-tep - Bruce campbell as an aging Elvis living out his last years in an old folks home in redneck Americe who teams up with a black man who believes himself to be JFK to defeat an Egyptian mummy which is eating the souls of the inhabitants of the old folks home and crapping them down the visitors toilets. Every bit as silly as it sounds and so much fun to watch. The Joe Lansdale story this is based on is a particularly fine one and this film truly does it justice - even if the mummy isn't quite as good in the flesh as he was in my head when I read the short story. A superb end to the night. Any film where Elvis tells a mummy to "Come and get it you undead sack of shit" has got to be worth watching. Now it's beddy byes for me. Thank y'all and goodnight. Thank you a | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.31.147 |
"And how dare James Cameron have a go at Piranha 3D for being tacky when he was production designer on this! No one who designed a scene where a giant alien slug rapes a woman to death can call any scene in any other film ever made tacky. (Especially when he also made Piranha 2 which is one of the single worst films I've ever seen.) Cameron is a hypocrite. There's no other word for it." Well, another way of putting it is that he may have changed his mind about a film in which he was involved thirty years ago. He didn't conceive or direct the scene, after all - Roger Corman did both, to placate the backers of the film. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.18.174.156 |
I remember watching 'Galaxy Of Terror' on home video way back in the day and thinking it was abject rubbish even then. But nothing can compare to the flung together ("let's use up some of this leftover film") nature of Corman's 'The Creature From The Haunted Sea'!! Even the monster, swathed in soggy material with its tennis ball eyes and what look like pencils for claws, that might have raised an unintentional chuckle or two, only appears fleetingly in a handful of scenes while the rest of the film merely follows a cast of furiously mugging idiots randomly goofing about, and no doubt high as kites, on a beautiful tropical beach surrounded by palm trees. How he ever got this a cinema release is frankly beyond me! It's kind of admirable in a way but it certainly isn't fun to watch. But last night's Corman production, 'Dementia 13', was another matter altogether, and a timely reminder of the cinematic debt we still owe the old chancer - of which more anon... | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 61.216.48.128 |
Stevie, let us know what you make of The Burrowers. I thought it was pretty good. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.16.150 |
By gum, Dementia 13! When I saw it on its original British release virtually every moment of violence was censored, even Magee and the wax dummy. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
A rather enjoyable quiet night in: 'Dementia 13' (1963) is a brisk and efficient little gothic chiller made historically important as the directorial debut of one Francis Ford Coppola, under the generous tutelage of Roger Corman. Basically, the story goes, Coppola was an ambitious young sound technician working on Corman's sporting melodrama, 'The Young Racers' (1963), which was filmed in Ireland. Having had some previous "directorial experience" making porn movies, Coppola sufficiently impressed the, by then, veteran director/producer into giving him the opportunity of using up some more of that leftover film on a little project of his own, rather than inflicting another 'Creature From The Haunted Sea' on an unsuspecting public! The rest is history. Given the opportunity to use a real Irish castle as his shooting location and Corman’s instructions to make a cheap horror movie, with otherwise full artistic freedom, Coppola came up with this striking mixture of ‘Psycho’-inspired shock tactics and Hammer horror atmospherics. It’s a great little thriller shot in brooding b&w with enough startling imagery, imaginative use of camera angles, effective handling of the suspense sequences and unexpected narrative twists (again aping the plot structure of ‘Psycho’ with a crime story centring on a desperate woman morphing into a psycho horror) to herald a talent of note. The film is also surprisingly gruesome for its time with several well mounted axe murders that shamelessly attempt to outdo Hitchcock’s shower scene in the chocolate sauce department and add to that a memorably sinister early performance by Patrick Magee, in his first of many horror movies, and you’ve got one of the most noteworthy genre B-pictures of its time, as well as one of the finest. The boy done good. Jump forward 10 years and how times have changed! Sergio Martino’s delirious giallo shocker, ‘Torso’ (1973) aka ‘Carnal Violence’ (accurately!!), makes the bloody murders in D13 look quaintly charming by comparison. Like all Italian cinema the film is absolutely beautiful with ravishing location cinematography, gorgeous use of colour, seemingly effortless compositional sense and a grand operatic style that I’m beginning to think Italians are innately born with. Okay, the content is luridly misogynistic to a quite ridiculous degree with a bevy of perfectly formed young women simultaneously falling out of their clothes and being throttled or dismembered by the usual masked and black gloved miscreant, when they’re not becoming enraptured by their own physical forms and giving way to the joys of woman on woman flesh – say what you like about jobbing Italian directors but they certainly give you value for money! But for all that this is still a superlative suspense thriller, imo, with a cast of slimy male weirdos all vying for who gets to be revealed in the final scenes, red herrings aplenty, a macabre back-story revealed in drip fed flashbacks to a traumatised childhood, a dashing macho man all set to run to the rescue (or is he) and a good girl, who gets to keep her clothes on (pah!), in Suzy Kendall, who we all get to root for in the long drawn out climactic cat and mouse sequence as she is stalked remorselessly by the killer as he/she(?) jabbers out the whole story while insisting Suzy isn’t like the others… they had to die.. but I wouldn’t hurt you, you’re special, etc. All gloriously edge-of-the-seat, by-the-numbers and beautifully presented no-holds frigging barred adult horror entertainment that makes the vast majority of US slasher movies that came in its wake look like the cheap amateurish rubbish they mostly were. Fantastic stuff!! And then something I really didn’t expect and have to hail, for all the excellence of what went before, as the big surprise highlight of the night! ‘The Burrowers’ (2008) by up-and-coming new boy, J.T. Petty, is nothing short of bloody marvellous!! A Lovecraftian Horror Western that really works and is as grittily authentic, dirty, sweaty and blood soaked as any of the great spaghettis or revisionist westerns of the 60s/70s!!!! I know, I can’t believe I actually typed that, but this instant genre classic is an almost miraculous success story from nowhere that feels like having a very specific prayer answered at last. Seriously scary, atmospheric, exciting and violent as hell with a dead serious script and straight-faced performances from a cast of convincingly grizzled unknowns this film sucked me in within minutes and never let up, they didn’t fluff a single scene, it just kept getting better and better, right to the breathlessly bleak and unforgettable finale. The team behind this sterling masterwork of economy and pacing and “let’s do it right” sheer craft deserve all the congratulations and support going from anyone who cares about quality genre cinema! We open on an isolated homestead at night somewhere on the vast rolling prairie of the Dakota Territory in the year 1879. The women and children hide in the storm cellar while the menfolk battle what they assume to be Indians outside until something batters its way through the cellar doors. Cut to the aftermath and a scene of gut-wrenching horror with the entire family either butchered or abducted and a hastily composed posse is formed to go after “those murdering redskin bastards” just like ‘The Searchers’. From there it’s pure old-fashioned characterisation as we get to know, and care about and hate these men on the trail while they find themselves facing a foe all their hard pioneering lifestyle hasn’t even begun to prepare them for… The creatures they set out to hunt and end up being hunted by have to be among the best realised and oddly plausible Lovecraftian monstrosities ever committed to film and are made all the more frightening by how little we are shown of them and the ambiguous nature of their life-cycle. All we have are whispered Indian legends of the “Burrower Tribe” that is convincingly tied in with the extermination of the great buffalo herds they had formerly preyed upon. Of course we go through the entertaining whittling down of the posse process but even here admirable restraint and intelligence is shown with characters being despatched in unpredictable order and not always due to the creatures but to the many more prosaic hazards of life in the wild west, thus raising the sense of adventure and danger to whole new levels. As mentioned before the finale, with the monsters revealed in all their hideous glory, is as well judged and exciting as the rest of the film and leads on to a truly haunting coda that underlines the general excellence of the whole project. Not only is this one of the best horror films of the last 20 years or so but it is one of the best westerns as well and should be added to every fan’s DVD collection as a matter of urgency. Nuff said I think… | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.27.239 |
I very much liked The Burrowers, Stevie - reviewed it in Video Watchdog. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.131.34.237 |
Stevie - Cowboys vs Aliens is also an underrated film. I really enjoyed it - good sf/horror, good western. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.131.34.237 |
Frank - Knowing is very good. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Did I not mention the complete lack of CGI effects in 'The Burrowers'? Nothing but good old-fashioned animatronic and make-up effects and even those are used sparingly for maximum effectiveness. The trailer of 'Cowboys Vs Aliens' was enough for me, Tony! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I can't believe they cut all the murder scenes from 'Dementia 13', Ramsey! That must have made it a very insipid experience to sit through in the wake of 'Psycho'. I loved how Coppola managed to fit in a crucial scene quaffing Guinness in what looked like the same Irish pub they used in 'The Quiet Man'. Great stuff! | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.131.34.237 |
Stevie - forget the trailer. It's a great little film. It stays in the mind. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.131.34.237 |
Yes, be open-minded. You liked Tin Tin remember. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 61.216.46.250 |
I thought you'd like The Burrowers, Stevie! It was very refreshing in an age of over-used CGI. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 61.216.46.250 |
On the subject of horror films, has anyone seen The Innkeepers, Ti West's follow-up to The House of the Devil? | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
'The Secret Of The Unicorn' was seriously great! Is there any word of Peter Jackson's follow-up as we've only had half the story so far? The only other horror westerns I can think of that were as effective as 'The Burrowers', at mixing the genres while staying true to the strengths of both, are; 'High Plains Drifter' (1973), 'The Shadow Of Chikara' (1977) & 'Ravenous' (1999). But I believe 'The Burrowers' is probably the best of the lot of them, including the Clint classic! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.18.174.156 |
Just settling down for another evening of horror thrills: 'Indestructible Man' (1956) by Jack Pollexfen, with Lon Chaney Jr 'Aenigma' (1987) by goremaster extraordinaire, Lucio Fulci 'Wendigo' (2001) by Larry Fessenden, of which I have heard great things All for the first time so fingers crossed... | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.185.225.55 |
Don't know the first two, Stevie, but THE WENDIGO is good. | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.131.60.47 |
Huw - I thought The Innkeepers needed its first half an hour cutting. It's ok and worth a watch but it is very slow - although perhaps I just have a very short attention span from all those Final Destination films. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.131.34.237 |
There's slow and slow isn't there? Slowness, for me, is failing to grab my imagination. The other slow is when nothing seemes to be happening but you are entirely absorbed. We watched a Godzilla last night. We made the mistake of watching the US version thinking it might be more snappy for a late night, but then after watched a bit of the Japanese - God, talk about quality; the Japanese had dread and atmosphere, a real feel to it entirely lacking in the US one. Incredible what sound and editing can do. They should show the two to film students. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.27.8 |
I'm forever being accused of slowness on Amazon. On the whole I take it as a compliment, remembering such zippy stuff as "The Willows" and The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 61.216.47.33 |
Thanks, Lord P - I'll probably just rent The Innkeepers when it eventually turns up in my local DVD rental place. Tony, I agree about the Godzilla films. It's been a while since I last watched it, but I thought the Japanese original had a great atmosphere and a serious, almost documentary-like sense that something awful was happening. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 61.216.47.33 |
Ramsey, I've read some of the reviews of your work on amazon, and it's bewildering. It seems that about half the reviewers - people who have a deeper understanding and feeling for the field (people like us, I suspect) - seem to 'get' it, while the other half can't appreciate anything that doesn't have a decapitation or a romantic vampire/werewolf encounter in every chapter! I would definitely take such complaints from these 'reviewers' as compliments. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.18.174.156 |
'Indestructible Man' (1956) by Jack Pollexfen was a watchable but routine mix-up of sci-fi/horror and police procedural film noir entirely typical of its era. I've seen much better and I've seen far worse. Lon Chaney Jnr plays psychopathic criminal Butcher Benton who vows vengeance on his way to the San Quentin gas chamber on the two "no good dirty finks" who ratted him out and the crooked attorney who betrayed him. After execution his body is nefariously sold to a maverick scientist working on a cure for cancer whose bizarre experiments bring the Butcher back to life as a hulking indestructible killing machine, impervious to bullets, bazookas and flamethrowers with the strength of ten men and but one thought driving him... payback time. The film plods along merrily enough with each of the three succumbing to a ghastly fate while a dogged LA homicide detective pieces together the incredible facts, world weary voiceover style. But with acting as flat as the direction, and Chaney having only one line of dialogue at the very beginning of the picture before he gets zombified, this is no more than a time wasting B-picture noteable only for some interesting Los Angeles location work. I've seen virtually the same plot handled to far superior effect in a few episodes of 'The X Files'. 'Aenigma' (1987) by Lucio Fulci was much more like it. Another demented classic from the master of nightmare cinema. The film has much the same surreal atmosphere of supernatural dread as 'City Of The Living Dead' (1980) or 'The Beyond' (1981) with one freakishly weird set piece after another strung along a storyline cobbled together from elements of 'Carrie' (1976), 'Suspiria' (1977) & the great little Australian shocker, 'Patrick' (1978). Set in a posh girl's boarding school in Boston, the story opens with nerdy geek, Kathy, being set up for a cruel practical joke by a group of vicious "schoolmates" and their arrogant hunk of a gym instructor, Fred, who arranges a hot date with her only to humiliate the not particularly attractive or bright poor girl in front of her "chums" who all leap from hiding cackling with laughter. Fleeing the scene in a distraught state Kathy is knocked down and rushed to hospital in a deep coma but, in a nicely done near death experience sequence, her vengeful spirit leaves her body on the life support machine and returns to the school where she proceeds to possess sultry newcomer, Eva. After that it's bumping off one-by-one time for those who were in on the "prank", allowing Fulci free rein to devise the most fiendishly diabolical death scenes imaginable using Kathy's new found demonic powers, while she also sets about seducing her handsome doctor, played by Jared Martin, in the sexy body of Eva. This is all carried off with typically no holds barred aplomb and great visual style by the Italian master who shows his customary disregard for narrative logic and gets away with it due to the nightmarish intensity of his vision. I thoroughly enjoyed it and in the end this was easily the highlight of the night. Which isn't to take anything away from Larry Fessenden's really rather fine slow burning tale of supernatural retribution, 'Wendigo' (2001). This one surprised me being more of a tense psychological thriller in the style of 'Straw Dogs' (1971) for most of its length. A nice little family of three, father, mother and impressionable young son, take off from the city for a relaxing winter weekend in a friend's holiday home in snowbound upstate New York. Due to an unfortunate accident, involving their car hitting a deer, they incur the wrath of a group of gun-toting local rednecks and are followed by their psychotic ringleader, Otis, to the isolated lodge where they are staying. From there Fessenden slowly cranks up the tension as Otis, who just hates "jumped up city folk", subjects the family to a subtle war of nerves through initially irritating but increasingly sinister little acts of intimidation. While this is going on the boy is approached by a mysterious old Indian, whom no one else sees, who gives him a small wooden idol of a human figure with a stag's head that he calls the Wendigo, a powerful spirit the boy can call on in times of need. Things gradually get nastier with Otis, resulting in a shocking act of violence, and the final scenes of the film, as the boy calls on his supernatural protector, are pure and genuinely frightening EC Horror - grimly moralistic as well as being exceptionally bleak. The film isn't perfect as the rather slight story did need a lot of padding out to feature length and would have worked far better as a 50 minute TV play - too many superfluous scenes of family bonding that don't move the story forward - but the acting is admirably naturalistic and the direction nicely understated making the horror scenes all the more effective. I liked it a lot. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 61.216.46.32 |
I quite enjoyed Wendigo, but prefer his later film The Last Winter (another exploration of the wendigo theme - it even has a nod to one of the lead characters in Blackwood's classic tale). | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.131.34.237 |
I wasn't sure about it. It didn't quite feel fully formed. Nice seeing the dad from Medium in something, though. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 61.216.46.32 |
I'd forgotten he was in it, Tony! He was in the Dawn of the Dead remake too. Whoa... just looking at what he's been in on IMDB, and he was born on the exact same day as me. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.18.174.156 |
That not "fully formed" feeling is what I meant by the story being too slight for its running time, Tony. The basic EC Horror template of evil actions being punished by supernatural retribution at the end is better suited to a short film or a TV episode of something like 'The Twilight Zone' than a feature film, imo. 'Wendigo' was a good enough movie but flawed in that respect. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 178.116.61.103 |
Saw Infection yesterday. The blurb promises horror along the lines of The Grudge and The Ring, but this has the looks of a grand guignol cheapie. I couldn't make head nor tail of the ending. After that, The Grudge 3. Amusing, but not particularly scary. Kayako is beginning to look tired. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I was thinking of watching Takashi Shimizu's 'Ju-On : The Grudge II' (2003) as part of this weekend's triple bill, Hubert. Either that or 'Cold Prey' (2006). The American remake of the first 'Grudge' movie was very well done but again entirely redundant - as with 'Let Me In', imo. I haven't bothered with the US 2 & 3... | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.66.23.11 |
The American remake of the Grudge was an entirely different kettle of fish to the original IMHO. The original film is a portmanteau film (as are all 3 Japanese versions) whereas the remake uses a more structured narrative. The original is definitely better - (although that may be due to my enjoyment being spoilt by a pair of girls in the back row talking loudly through the first 10 - 20 minutes of the film. When they told someone near them to "Shut the fuck up we're allowed to talk" I popped out and asked a steward to remove them from the theatre - which he did to a large round of applause.) but the remake is still a very good film in its own right (as is Let Me In). The second and third film in the American series diverge entirely from the Japanese storylines. The second film contains one of the freakiest things I've ever seen in a US horror film. Both American sequels eschew gore and heavy handed CGI and are very good examples of creepy ghost stories (especially when you consider these are US films from Hollywood). The second film in the Japanese sequence contains the single scariest scene of all the films put together. I think they're all well worth watching. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 178.116.61.103 |
The second film in the Japanese sequence contains the single scariest scene of all the films put together. Which scene was that, Weber? The one I like most is when the detective is watching the security film in the policeman's office. Then, there's the instance of the jawless girl who turns around (she does it twice, once in the first remake - I think - and once in the third - or fourth? - Japanese film, halfway a flight of stairs.) I simply love the group of croaking Kayakos in the rainy schoolyard as well. Nightmarish. I generally like the way time is treated in the Japanese films. At first scenes appear to be totally out of sequence; only after further viewings does one begin to grasp the meaning. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 178.116.61.103 |
Stevie: the second Japanese instalment is at least as good as the first one, with many a disconcerting sequence. The distortion of time I hinted at in my previous post is equally present in this one. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.159.21.221 |
The scene I'm thinking of, trying to not give away any spoilers for Stevie, is the answer to the question about what's been causing the thumping noise and knocking over the glass. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 220.138.163.181 |
There are actually four Japanese Juon films, Stevie. The first two, which are shorter, were both released in 2000, I think. The theatrical films came out two or three years later. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.18.174.156 |
I was aware of the Japanese TV originals, Huw. Haven't seen them but weren't the two movies basically expanded remakes for the cinema? The first 'Ju-On : The Grudge' is one of the scariest films I ever saw - a modern horror masterpiece - and I know the sequel, made virtually back-to-back with it by the same team, is supposed to be almost as good. I was fairly impressed with the US remake but again frustrated as it pales beside the Japanese original, imo. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I've decided on the next triple bill: 'At Midnight I Will Take Your Soul' (1963) by José Mojica Marins 'Night Train Murders' (1975) by Aldo Lado 'Ju-On : The Grudge II' (2003) by Takashi Shimizu Now that's quality... | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.66.23.11 |
Well at least one of them is... | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 220.138.165.34 |
Stevie, the first Juon film (aka The Curse) was very creepy, and better in some ways than the first theatrical Juon film (it gets pretty confusing trying to discuss all these different versions!). The second (non-theatrical) film only contained about 40-odd minutes of original footage - the first 20-30 minutes, as I recall, was just a rehash of the end of the first film. Still, it had some weird scenes that are worth watching (multiple Kayakos, for example). It's been ages since I watched these films - I need to have a Shimizu marathon one of these nights. Marebito is one of his most interesting films, I think. I wasn't so keen on Shock Labyrinth, but Reincarnation had some nice touches. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 178.116.61.103 |
Marebito is an absolute masterpiece in my book. I never tire of watching it. That scene where the troubled protagonist ends up in a giant open space deep underground . . . Wow. So cosmic it's entirely fitting that he should mutter "The mountains of madness . . ." | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.18.174.156 |
I have 'Marebito' in my to-be-watched DVD pile as well, Huw/Hubert, and 'Reincarnation'. Haven't heard of 'Shock Labyrinth' before. Watch this space! | ||
| Jamie Rosen (Jamie) Username: Jamie Registered: 11-2008 Posted From: 173.32.63.252 |
Marebito was interesting, and I certainly didn't expect Deros to be making an appearance there of all places... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.18.174.156 |
Yes, that element intrigued me too and the glowing 'Fortean Times' review of the film is what made me seek out the DVD. They carried out a definitive investigation into the Shaver Mystery several years ago. Perhaps the single most intriguing example of pulp genre fiction merging with fact and becoming a kind of reality. Personally, I see Richard Shaver as a demented visionary who created his own Lovecraftian fantasy universe and was ultimately subsumed by it. We each warp reality with our perceptions and assumptions but Shaver went one further than most. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.131.34.237 |
I enjoyed the first two Grudge remakes - more so the first. I like movies set in Japan with Western protagonists. I like the atmosphere. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 178.116.61.103 |
Yes, the fascination goes beyond the horror elements. One is taught something about how the Japanese interact socially, etc. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.131.34.237 |
It was like the westerners became the ghosts. I dunno - maybe the films never quite explored themselves, realised what they had in their hands. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.29.244.47 |
As I'm back in the house and got my DVDs all sorted again I reckon it's time for another triple bill of old, modern & recent. Picked at random: 'The Screaming Skull' (1958) by Alex Nicol 'The Legend Of The Seven Golden Vampires' (1974) by Roy Ward Baker & Chang Cheh [haven't seen it since I was a kid and loved it then] 'Cold Prey' (2006) by Roar Uthaug | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.44.186.70 |
The Screaming Skull is terrifying, but sadly very blurry. We watched it in a caravan and the sight of the ghost bride is unforgettable. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.29.244.47 |
It was a great little B-movie, Tony. Atmospheric and quite creepy with a great shock ending. Liked the way the spectre sort of collapsed in on itself when he threw the chair. Very M.R. Jamesian. Enjoyed that triple bill so much I've decided on another one: 'The Monster Maker' (1944) by Sam Newfield 'Long Weekend' (1978) by Colin Eggleston [another one I haven't seen since I was a kid and it scared the crap out of me back then] 'Cold Prey : Resurrection' (2008) by Mats Stenberg | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 92.232.244.38 |
You back in your house now, Stevie? Great! By the way, I keep getting odd messages from you via Facebook asking me to join something-or-another. I wonder if you're mixing me up with someone else again? | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.29.244.47 |
Yes, thanks, Caroline! All is repaired and I'm back online again. As for Facebook, it must be one of those nuisance apps sending out requests to friends or something. Just ignore them. | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 92.232.244.38 |
Yep. It must be going out to all your FB friends. Do they just send those out without permission then? How can they be allowed to do that? Just rhetorical questions - no need to answer. I'm learning more about FB every day!  | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.29.244.47 |
Nothing to worry about, Caroline. Irritating, yes, but I just ignore them. Time for another triple bill: 'The Brain That Wouldn't Die' (1959) by Joseph Green 'The Toolbox Murders' (1978) by Dennis Donnelly 'Orphan' (2009) by Jaume Collet-Serra The joys of being skint and stuck in the house! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.29.244.47 |
Another horror day and then a quick review of all the recent screenings. 'The Monster Walks' (1932) by Frank R. Strayer 'Demons Of The Mind' (1972) by Peter Sykes 'Marebito' (2004) by Takashi Shimizu Roll on pay day... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.29.244.47 |
Have to say 'Marebito' is one of the very best horror films of recent times. A deeply unsettling Lovecraftian urban nightmare with Lynchian touches that has to be one of the most original vampire movies ever made. Way better even than 'Let The Right One In' on a similar theme and also reminiscent of T.E.D. Klein's classic novella "Children Of The Kingdom" - an investigative journalist uncovers something hideous beneath the streets of Tokyo. It left me so shaken I had to turn on the big light and sit hugging my cats before I felt confident enough of making it upstairs to bed. Takashi Shimizu's masterpiece imo! Two days to go... nearly there and another horror day about to begin: 'The Invisible Ghost' (1941) by Joseph H. Lewis. 'Living Dead Girl' (1982) by Jean Rollin [preceded by his 1965 short 'The Far Country']. 'The Orphanage' (2007) by J.A. Bayona. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.29.244.47 |
One more triple bill before the round up: 'The Brides Of Dracula' (1960) by Terence Fisher. 'Zombie Nosh' (1988) by Bill Hinzman. 'Whispering Corridors' (1998) by Park Ki-hyeong. Vampires, zombies and ghosts... very nice. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.128.209.145 |
Except that Zombie Nosh is the worst zombie film I have ever seen. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.29.244.47 |
It was pretty atrocious, Weber. Basically a zero budget retread of 'Night Of The Living Dead' without any directorial talent in evidence and with some of the most terrible "acting" I have ever witnessed but there were some decent gore effects and it's still way better than Bruno Mattei's 'Zombie Creeping Flesh' (1980)! | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.233.135 |
The trailer for ZOMBIE NOSH is up on Youtube. I've never seen so much stone-washed denim. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.76.60.106 |
I"m in the process of watching THE INNKEEPERS. It's pleasant and likeable so far. But it has the technical flaws for which Canadian films are notorious: terrible high-key lighting (you have to be Kubrick to get away with that in a ghost story!) and technically poor performances. Maybe the ideal Canadian film would be people attacked by a horde of low boom mics? Title suggestion: DEAD MIC. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.130.83.191 |
I loved the Innkeepers. I thought the acting was low-key and naturalistic rather than poor in any way, and the characters were completely believable. I also loved that even at the end it's still holds on to the ambiguity over whether any of the visions were real. Great film. I highly recommend it. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.29.244.47 |
Boring Sunday so time for another horror triple served with a surfeit of ham: 'The Corpse Vanishes' (1942) by Wallace Fox. 'House Of The Long Shadows' (1983) by Pete Walker. 'Lord Of Illusions' (1995) by Clive Barker [hard to believe it's been 17 years since I saw this so serious reappraisal is long overdue]. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.37.158 |
Well, despite the technical problems and listless acting, THE INNKEEPERS is good fun, with some genuinely-earned scares. The final shot was terrific! | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.145.210.55 |
My horror triple bill for the night is Siege of the Dead, Satan's Little Helper and Vanishing on 7th street. None of which i know anything about except the blurbs on the dvd sleeves. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Time to give my thoughts on the numerous horror triple bills that kept me going in the months after the flood: 'At Midnight I Will Take Your Soul' (1963) by José Mojica Marins - Original and fairly imaginative zero budget horror that can't live up to its legendary status and is often embarrassingly naff but remains historically fascinating for the introduction of super-nihilist Coffin Joe. Just don't expect quality entertainment! 'Night Train Murders' (1975) by Aldo Lado - Quality Italian answer to Wes Craven's 'The Last House On The Left' that, despite a near identical plot, shows that film up as amateurish hackwork in every department. Direction, script, cinematography, acting and Ennio Morricone's eerie harmonica soundtrack make this an unmissable highpoint of 70s extreme ordeal horror. 'Ju-On : The Grudge II' (2003) by Takashi Shimizu - Every bit as terrifying as the original, if not more so, this has to be one of the most successful horror sequels of recent years. Much more than a string of perfectly orchestrated shock set pieces the playing with time makes this a fascinating puzzle of a picture that respects the viewer's intelligence and leaves us to work it out for ourselves. Another bona-fide classic from Mr Shimizu! * 'The Screaming Skull' (1958) by Alex Nicol - Surprisingly well done, atmospheric and genuinely scary M.R. Jamesian ghost story that borrows heavily from 'Rebecca' but with a real ghost of the previous wife doing the terrorising. If not quite classic material it's certainly one of the better cheapjack horrors of its era. 'The Legend Of The Seven Golden Vampires' (1974) by Roy Ward Baker - Endearingly entertaining cornball nonsense with its tongue firmly in its cheek that splices Hammer Horror atmospherics with Asian samurai action straight out of 'The Water Margin' and almost gets away with it. One of those dire later Hammers that I can't help being immensely fond of. Poor Peter Cushing does his best... 'Cold Prey' (2006) by Roar Uthaug - Seriously brilliant reinvigoration of the slasher genre that adds nothing new but is done with such verve and commitment and generates such heart-stopping suspense and sympathy for the young characters being stalked that it just might be the best thing of its kind since John Carpenter's 'Halloween'. * 'The Monster Maker' (1944) by Sam Newfield - Dull and plodding mad scientist B-movie nonsense that suffers from a palpable lack of narrative drive and any kind of directorial flair. Just about passes the time if there's nothing better to do. 'Long Weekend' (1978) by Colin Eggleston - I still rank this as one of the most insidiously frightening cult horror movies of the 70s and one of the best genre pictures ever to come out of Australia. It bears favourable comparison to 'Picnic At Hanging Rock' but has a keener sense of supernatural malignancy at the heart of the Australian wilderness. 'Cold Prey : Resurrection' (2008) by Mats Stenberg - Well made, if entirely predictable and less effective, sequel to the above that works basically as a remake of 'Halloween II' and is as just about as successful as that underrated picture. * 'The Brain That Wouldn't Die' (1959) by Joseph Green - Insanely enjoyable unofficial version of H.P. Lovecraft's 'Herbert West : Reanimator' that falls firmly into the so bad it's good category and is surprisingly gruesome for its day. Great craic! 'The Toolbox Murders' (1978) by Dennis Donnelly - Deservedly notorious 70s slasher movie that opens with murder after bloody murder of scantily clad young women by a hulking intruder with a variety of workman's tools being put to grotesquely imaginative use. Once things settle down, however, this morphs into a really rather engrossing police procedural whodunnit with several neat twists and a great performance by an old favourite of mine, Cameron Mitchell (Uncle Buck from 'The High Chaparral' - best TV western series ever made). 'Orphan' (2009) by Jaume Collet-Serra - Thoroughly entertaining addition to the always effective evil child sub-genre that follows all the clichés right up until one of the most outrageous twists I've ever seen - that didn't, however, spoil the movie. For the record I thought the alternative ending, included on the DVD, would have been far more effective but was no doubt deemed too bleak for a modern audience - shame... * 'The Monster Walks' (1932) by Frank R. Strayer - Wonderfully cheesy old dark house thriller that throws every cliché of the day at us to heartwarming effect. The film benefits from having a real ape as the "monster" rather than some guy in a suit but ends on one of the most cringeworthy jokes about Darwinism you are ever likely to hear. Great fun for all the datedness. 'Demons Of The Mind' (1972) by Peter Sykes - This has to be one of the most unusual Hammer Horrors I've seen and, in its own unprepossessing way, one of the finest and most undervalued of their later years. The spirit of Edgar Allan Poe hangs all over this portrait of family madness and decay that was perhaps too subtle and devoid of Hammer's trademark sensationalism to have been fondly remembered. One ripe for reappraisal, imo. 'Marebito' (2004) by Takashi Shimizu - Quite simply the best horror film I've seen this year and without doubt Takashi Shimizu's masterpiece!! This is what I said at the time: A deeply unsettling Lovecraftian urban nightmare with Lynchian touches that has to be one of the most original vampire movies ever made. Way better even than 'Let The Right One In' on a similar theme and also reminiscent of T.E.D. Klein's classic novella "Children Of The Kingdom" - an investigative journalist uncovers something hideous beneath the streets of Tokyo. It left me so shaken I had to turn on the big light and sit hugging my cats before I felt confident enough of making it upstairs to bed. Takashi Shimizu's masterpiece, imo! * 'The Invisible Ghost' (1941) by Joseph H. Lewis – One of the most implausible pieces of Grade Z horror hokum I ever sat through that is livened only by Bela Lugosi in full on ham mode. The plot makes no sense whatsoever but I rather enjoyed it for all that. 'Living Dead Girl' (1982) by Jean Rollin [preceded by his 1965 short 'The Far Country'] – The short was an oddly beguiling b&w piece about a boy and girl finding themselves inexplicably lost in a strange city where no one speaks their language and was quite well done for a student film. The main feature, about a reanimated flesh-eating blonde bombshell, was the best thing I’ve yet seen by Rollin and had a weirdly beautiful fairy-tale quality to it for all the lashings of gore. One to stick in the mind and bear repeated viewings methinks. To my mind Jean Rollin remains something of an enigma but with undeniable talent to burn. 'The Orphanage' (2007) by J.A. Bayona – Impeccably made top quality ghost story of a kind we’re all too familiar with these days. This is one of the best of the crop with fine performances and several neat twists leading to a genuinely chilling ending – that doesn’t appear so until one thinks about it afterward. * 'The Brides Of Dracula' (1960) by Terence Fisher – One of the best and most underrated Hammer Horrors from their classic period that suffers not one whit from the absence of Christopher Lee. Peter Cushing is in career best form as Van Helsing and the story, with its long atmospheric build-up before any vampires appear, is one of their most enthralling. 'Zombie Nosh' (1988) by Bill Hinzman – Hilariously naff retread of ‘Night Of The Living Dead’ that isn’t quite the worst zombie movie I’ve ever seen but certainly comes close. The imaginative gore effects on a zero budget are the best reason to watch it... with copious amounts of alcohol to hand. 'Whispering Corridors' (1998) by Park Ki-hyeong – Well made and good looking but ultimately indecipherable South Korean ghost story set in a girl’s boarding school. Worth watching for some genuinely frightening set pieces but if you have any clue what the hell was going on after watching it please let me know! * ‘The Corpse Vanishes’ (1942) by Wallace Fox – Completely bonkers and hugely entertaining cult classic horror hokum that sees Bela Lugosi in great form as an evil hypnotist backed by an undead wife and hideous crone, cackling dwarf and slobbering hunchback henchmen as they kidnap virginal brides on their wedding days to extract their vital juices, etc. I loved every minute of it! ‘House Of The Long Shadows’ (1983) by Pete Walker – Obvious but entertaining and impossible to dislike parody of ‘The Old Dark House’, ‘The Cat And The Canary’, etc that is worth watching for the cast alone; Vincent Price, Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, John Carradine, Sheila Keith & Richard Todd. Great fun but hardly the classic such a cast deserved. ‘Lord Of Illusions’ (1995) by Clive Barker – Watched for the first time in 17 years this is much more impressive than I remembered – and I thought it was pretty good back then. A beautifully made, visually spectacular and constantly surprising modern noir horror movie. I would rank it as superior to ‘Nightbreed’ and almost as good as ‘Hellraiser’. The climax is unforgettable! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
For my next horror triple bill, planned for this weekend with the woman of my dreams, I've decided on: 'A Bucket Of Blood' (1959) by Roger Corman. 'The Stuff' (1985) by Larry Cohen - to tie in with my reading of Frank Herbert's really wonderful horror novel, 'The Santaroga Barrier' (1968). 'Dog Soldiers' (2002) by Neil Marshall - she hasn't seen it and it's been 10 years since I did! If we've split up after this weekend blame Roger Corman! | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
Uh-oh... my memories of A BUCKET OF BLOOD, Stevie, are that it commits the unforgivable sin of film-making—it's deadly boring. You may want to reconsider... unless, you have an ulterior agenda in getting your lady bored early with what's currently on the TV?... And THE STUFF, again, my memories are that it's pretty shoddily amateur, and revoltingly disgusting—I mean not in cool way, but the kind of way you'd be disgusted seeing, say, a little toddler with a river of green snot running down his face from his nostrils to his chin. Again, only because there's a lady present, be forewarned. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 212.183.128.125 |
'A Bucket Of Blood' (1958) was a good idea given a curiously stilted and plodding treatment by the usually more energetic Roger Corman. A satirical pisstake of the arty farty 50s beatnik movement it follows the briefly meteoric career of a talentless moron who is accidentally hailed as a "genius" when he presents corpses covered in clay as his own creations. Thankfully the film is barely over an hour long and the story compelling enough to pass the time but it's hardly the anarchic classic some would have us believe. 'The Stuff' (1985) was much more entertaining being a typically fast paced Larry Cohen comic horror-satire loosely based on the Frank Herbert novel 'The Santaroga Barrier' (1968). The alien fungus of the novel is replaced by a more visually dynamic oozing white goo masquerading as a delicious new dessert called "The Stuff" and Michael Moriarty is as manically charismatic as ever as the undercover corporate agent hired by a consortium of ice cream and yoghurt moguls whose profits are threatened by the insanely popular new product. Herbert's plot deserved a more serious treatment, imo, but the film is hard to dislike with its madcap humour, disgusting special effects and pure pulp energy. Great fun. 'Dog Soldiers' (2002) remains, imo, Neil Marshall's most successful and thrilling movie and one of the finest werewolf films ever made. There is nothing new here but the simplicity of the set-up (basically a retread of 'Southern Comfort' with lycanthropes replacing hillbillies) and the director's sheer flair for suspense and heart-stopping action set pieces (worthy of the young John Carpenter) makes this a consummate exercise in unashamed genre crowd-pleasing. The broad streak of black humour throughout provides the icing on the cake. A remarkably assured debut and still one of the greatest horror films of the new millennium so far. Sylvia tolerated the first one, enjoyed the second and positively loved the third. Phew! | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.130.85.94 |
Today's trple bill The Strangers Agnosia and either Chain Letter or Death note... | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.147.137.70 |
made it a quadruple bill by watching all 4 films on the list... Death Note(live action version not the anime)was by far the best of the 4. The Strangers - SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!! - had its tense moments but I want a horror film where at least some of the cast survive - I'm getting fed up of all these everyone dies movies. I'm sure this is a remake of a foreign film, which is probably much better. This was 25 minutes of getting to know quite a dull couple, 30 minutes of chasing them round the house very slowly, and the rest of the running time was their death scene. All too predictable. Luckily, it wasn't too long. Agnosia - beautifully shot and gorgeous looking film but I thought it dragged a bit and it didn't hold my interest all that well. Not quite sure what was wrong with it as the acting was fine thoughout and the visuals were - as previously mentioned - stunning. Chain Letter - some imaginative deaths, all involving chains, livened up an otherwise predictable teen slasher. The ending was fucking atrociously bad - and that's as polite as I can be about that one. Death Note - I loved this one.Even the not very convincing CGI god of Death didn't detract from this. I had no idea where the story was going at any point. This is a quirky little story about a teen who finds a notebooke that, when he writes a person's name in it, they die in the manner he specifies in the notebook. I'll be watching the sequel on Tuesday. Tuesday will be a sequels day Death Note 2 the last name Rec 2 (and 3 if I have time) Reeker 2 | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
Someone needs to make a horror film called ONE. Then the sequel could be ONE: TWO. And then that one's sequel, would be the prequel, (MINUS) ONE. And then the reboot, some years later, just 1. I liked THE STRANGERS okay, but I'd never see it again.... and of those kinds of movies—a couple in horror-genre peril—I think there are much better ones (like VACANCY, and years earlier, DEAD CALM). | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.147.137.70 |
Dead calm is a much better film than the Strangers for several reasons - mainly that the villain of the piece isn't just another psycho (or 3) wearing a mask and not talking. Also, the couple manage to survive. Vacancy was quite good as well, although I can't remember if they got away at the end of that. whentehr they did or didn't, the feel of the film always had hope that they'd get away. The Strangers was set up from the word go that they were all doomed. I think Funny games may have wrecked my appreciation of the "They're all doomed" subgenre. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
I think they did get away at the end of VACANCY... er, wait, did they?... weird, how neither of us can remember.... In the original spec, the girl in THE STRANGERS wears a Strawberry Shortcake mask; but they couldn't get the rights. There's a French film, mentioned here on this board, that many claim it's ripped off from, but I'm blanking on the title. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 2.24.18.237 |
Rights my arse: the girl ate the shortcake. In an outtake she even sings: Put down the skillet Pick up the knife Mama's little baby love Short'ning life | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.66.23.11 |
The French film The Strangers is allegedly a remake of is apparently ILS (them) - which I have seen and enjoyed more than the Strangers - although I don't recall the masks in ILS. | ||
| David_lees (David_lees) Username: David_lees Registered: 12-2011 Posted From: 2.96.196.29 |
Yeah, ILS was....SPOILERS...kinda generic dark figures in hoodies who turned out to be bored teenagers from a bad estate at the end, if memory serves. I enjoyed Vacancy quite a bit, it was genuinely tense and Kate Beckinsale's character had a fairly believable journey to becoming the "survivor girl" archetype at the end, rather than just being a badass from the moment things turn nasty. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 2.24.19.6 |
SPOILER... Not teenagers, surely? That was the shock. They were junior school children. | ||
| David_lees (David_lees) Username: David_lees Registered: 12-2011 Posted From: 2.96.196.29 |
Oh yeah, that's right...it's been quite a while since I've seen it. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.66.23.11 |
Reeker 2 - Just about worth the £1 I paid for the DVD at Poundland. A sequel to the better than expected Reeker that managed to lose most of what made the first film better than average. Still it killed just over an hour and didn't outstay its welcome. Deathnote 2 - as unpredictable as the first - I really had no idea if Light would get away with it or not... loads of twists and turns to the story made this a really good follow up to the first film. Rec 2 - this was much scarier than I remember it being first time I watched it. Slight plot hole in that 2 of the teens who appear are never killed or bitten... but other than that, a really good film and I'm looking forward to watching part 3 in a couple of days time. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 86.24.62.55 |
As we're now scarily broke and suffering the after effects of the last two weeks' festivities it's time to put the feet up and veg on the sofa for the first Horror DVD day of 2013: 'The Ghoul' (1933) by T. Hayes Hunter & starring Boris Karloff in one of the iconic horror roles that made his name - long wanted to see this! 'Mausoleum' (1983) by Michael Dugan - have hazy memories of watching this in a mate's house on VHS back in the good old 1980s but can remember next to nothing about it... so a bit of a nostalgia trip in store. 'Dumplings' (2005) by Fruit Chan - extended from Chan's segment of the Asian portmanteau horror 'Three Extremes' (2004)... heard good things so fingers crossed. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 86.24.62.55 |
Yesterday's triple bill went done so well I'm having another one today - with a somewhat light-hearted theme: 'The Little Shop Of Horrors' (1960) by Roger Corman - saw this back in the 80s but didn't really appreciate it so time for a reappraisal. 'Basket Case' (1982) by Frank Henenlotter - again, haven't seen it since the 80s and remember absolutely loving it! 'Coraline' (2009) by Henry Selick - never seen it and long wanted to as I'm a big fan of Selick's animations and have heard this is rather special. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 86.24.62.55 |
'The Ghoul' (1933) by T. Hayes Hunter surpassed my expectations. I'd rank it as one of the finest and most entertaining gothic horrors of its era that easily matches the best of the Universal Horrors. A great and genuinely scary performance by Boris Karloff - as a peeling skinned reanimated zombie seeking the precious Jewel of Anubis from those who would steal it - is matched by a sterling cast, including; Ernest Thesiger, Cedric Hardwicke & Ralph Richardson and marvellously atmospheric gothic sets and chiaroscuro cinematography. Watching it is like seeing a H.P. Lovecraft story come to life. I even found the expected comic relief moments (from endearingly ditzy Kathleen Harrison) to be unusually entertaining. There's also a great twist ending for good measure. Something of a minor masterpiece, imo, and more than worth the wait! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 86.24.62.55 |
'Mausoleum' (1983) by Michael Dugan was an enjoyably OTT tale of demonic possession with highly charged erotic overtones in a domestic setting that starred the indescribably gorgeous former Playboy Bunny, Bobbie Bresee. I thought I had seen this before, back in the day, but not one scene was familiar so I guess it was some other schlock horror video nasty I was thinking of. An above the run of the mill supernatural shocker, for this kind of fare, with the look and feel of a Lucio Fulci film, several memorable death scenes, a half decent plot involving a family curse that dooms the first born woman of the Nomad family to possession by their resident demon and typically gruesome 80s animatronic special effects and make-up. And, yes, there's even the requisite final shock scene that makes no sense whatsoever. Hardly classic material but an entertainingly nostalgic reminder of more innocent times - when video was king. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 86.24.62.55 |
'Dumplings' (2005) by Fruit Chan was a beautifully made and performed insight into perhaps the most disturbing aspect of modern Chinese society - the one child per family policy and how it has affected moral values regarding abortion and the preference for a male child over a female. I found it an utterly engrossing slow burning chiller with a refreshingly anarchic feminist slant that says much for the famed stoicism of Asian women juxtaposed against the corrupting western influence of body image and what is deemed "beautiful". The plot involves a famous film actress who is losing her looks and the love of her husband making a Faustian pact with a deceptively youthful backstreet abortionist called Auntie Mei (a perfectly nuanced villainous performance by Bai Ling) that involves a strict diet of her rather special dumplings. Their secret ingredient is made evident from the off and unsettled this particular westerner with its hints at purportedly traditional Chinese attitudes to cannibalism... A truly shuddersome grand guignol classic like something out of 'The Pan Books Of Horror' series at its most grotesque. Chan's finely choreographed and deliberate pacing, exquisite use of colour and compositional sense makes every scene shine with a Kubrickian light. I loved it! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
'The Little Shop Of Horrors' (1960) by Roger Corman is an inoffensive and fairly entertaining horror comedy with a memorable central premise involving a talking plant, called Audrey Jnr, that eats people. It just falls short of its claimed "classic" status due to the distracting amateurishness of the production (famously shot in two days) but still demands respect and affection for the fact that Corman made it as fun as it is under the circumstances. The film is mainly noteworthy for the introduction of Jack Nicholson in a short dentist's scene that showcased his demented on-screen persona for the first time. Watching workmanlike early Corman efforts like this makes it hard to believe that he would achieve any kind of critical acclaim as a director yet we have his Poe adaptations to prove that sometimes a sow's ear can make a great silk purse. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
True... but it's Corman's most famous film by a long margin, and what may surprise many people is that he didn't go on to make lots of similar films. My favourite Corman film is The Tomb of Ligeia – Price before the madness became parody. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 80.239.243.142 |
I thought Nicholson's first film for Corman was the raven... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
'The Tomb Of Ligeia' is my pick of the bunch too, Joel. It benefits greatly from being the only one shot on location outdoors in the English countryside and, for me, is the most visually striking of the series. It has more the look of a Hammer Horror than any of the other Poes. Nicholson also appeared in the Corman horrors 'The Raven' & 'The Terror' (both 1963), Weber. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Far more deserving of its fame and successful as a horror comedy is Frank Henenlotter's 'Basket Case' (1982). Many's the genre movie that has been hailed as "seminal" only to underwhelm on actually viewing it (as Corman's ABOB & TLSOH amply demonstrate) but this bizarre concoction of gross out bad taste and sicko humour really is the cult masterpiece its reputation implies. First time director, Henenlotter, launched himself into underground legend status overnight with this incendiary bomb of off-the-cuff, anything goes, zero budget filmmaking. Filmed grittily on location in the mean streets of New York at its sleaziest this tale of homicidal siamese twins, Duane & Belial Bradley, bloodily separated against their wishes by a trio of backstreet doctors, whom they seek ghastly revenge on, one-by-one, comes across like Martin Scorsese having a nightmarish bad trip on an overdose of LSD while watching a Tom & Jerry cartoon. It is one of the most sensationally original, gruesomely memorable and relentlessly hilarious blackest of jet black horror comedies ever made - coming from the golden era of such films, the 1980s. Think early Sam Raimi or Peter Jackson and this guy is their spiritual leader. Every second, every ridiculous element of the movie is judged to perfection. The instantly iconic animatronic/stop frame animated physical monstrosity, that is Belial, is perhaps the most memorable new screen monster since Frankenstein's creature and its trademark sequences of face-ripping bloody murder, that invariably follow each asking of "what's in the basket?", are amongst the most genuinely chilling and bizarre horror set pieces of the time. But it is in the remarkably affecting performance of Kevin Van Hentenryck as "the normal looking one", Duane, who leads a tortured existence of telepathically linked blood loyalty to his pitifully deformed sibling and the wish to be rid of him and join the rest of the human race as a truly "normal" individual that the film really rises above its schlock horror ambitions to become something unexpectedly special. The visually spot-on casting of lowlife unknowns in all the supporting roles only adds an extra layer of documentary realism to the magical mix. A one-off miracle of cinematic DIY to be cherished for all time! After loving this all over again I decided to watch the rest of the trilogy for the first time over the next couple of DVD nights; 'Basket Case II' (1990) & 'Basket Case III : The Progeny' (1991) - both directed by Henenlotter with the same creative team and continuing the story of the Bradley twins exactly where this one leaves off... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
And that triple bill was memorably concluded by my first viewing of Henry Selick's stop-motion animated horror/fantasy for children, 'Coraline' (2009), based on the acclaimed book by Neil Gaiman. If ever a film had "timeless classic" written all over it then it is this marvellously unsettling ode to the kind of beguilingly odd childhood nightmares perfected by the likes of Roald Dahl or Dr Seuss. I would put it on a par with Selick's own 'The Nightmare Before Christmas' (1993) or the earlier surreal classics; 'Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory' (1971) or 'The 5,000 Fingers Of Dr T' (1953) - yes, that special and that curiously disturbing in its ominously moralising tone! What impressed and surprised me most is just how closely the film follows the accepted conventions of adult horror cinema. We have the innocent family moving into an outwardly idyllic new home in the country that hides a terrible secret, we have the undermining of the nuclear family ideal by replacement with "just that little bit wrong" duplicates, we have the seduction of an innocent by evil masquerading as something wondrous and good, we have the running to friends for help who turn out to be in on it as well, and, action wise, there is even the climactic battle with the monster revealed followed by the final shock of it jumping up again, just when you thought it was safe to breathe easy, etc... Proof positive that Selick & Gaiman know their onions and would seem determined to bring the joys of the horror genre to a whole new generation of bright-eyed little darlings who need to be taught the meaning of fear. A really wonderful, beautifully animated and visually spectacular kids movie for all ages that breaks every rule in the book and gets away with it. There is cinema magic in every stopped frame! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 86.24.62.55 |
Enjoyed two triple bills last weekend: 'Revolt Of The Zombies' (1936) by Victor Halperin. 'Basket Case II' (1990) by Frank Henenlotter. 'Reincarnation' (2005) by Takashi Shimizu. & 'Shock' (1946) by Alfred L. Werker. 'Basket Case III : The Progeny' (1991) by Frank Henenlotter. 'The Ninth Gate' (1999) by Roman Polanski. And have picked out for this weekend: 'Scared To Death' (1947) by Christy Cabanne. 'Drive In Massacre' (1977) by Stuart Segall. 'The Eye' (2002) by Oxide & Danny Pang. Thank God for DVDs in January!! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
'Revolt Of The Zombies' (1936) by Victor Halperin is one of those influential horror films that has a brilliant premise but is fatally let down by a lacklustre treatment and deadly slow story development. Billed as a sequel to Halperin's marvellous 'White Zombie' (1932) this film is as dull and uninspired as that gem was groundbreaking - apart from the plot. Set during World War I it posits the idea of the Allied Forces having to face legions of drugged zombie soldiers who feel no pain, exhibit inhuman strength and stamina and obey orders without question or regard for their own safety, making this the great granddaddy of all those Nazi zombie stories that followed. A scientific expedition is sent into the jungle to track down the source of the zombifying drug and from there all interest evaporates as the story degenerates into a painfully melodramatic love triangle story that sees one of the boffins tempted to use the potion to win the affection of his unrequited love. It ends badly for him and not a minute too soon. More interesting than good this is just about watchable and would seem to indicate that Halperin's success with his first zombie flick was something of a fluke helped no end by the presence of Bela Lugosi and those sets and the atmospheric cinematography. Even the iconic zombie make-up, so effective in WZ, is non-existent here. Very poor and ripe for a remake to do the premise justice, imo. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
'Basket Case II' (1990) by Frank Henenlotter is another matter altogether. This is a sequel to what was deemed a one-off seminal classic that common sense would indicate should never have been made but that somehow manages to be every bit as inspired and insanely entertaining as the original, imho. Henenlotter ups the gross out comedy quotient by introducing a plethora of other freaks to join Belial in his crusade against the "normals". Having escaped from the hospital, following their fall at the end of 'Basket Case', Duane & Belial are taken in by the disturbingly chirpy Granny Ruth (a brilliant off-the-wall performance by Annie Ross), who runs a private home for "unique individuals", and for a time find peace and acceptance. The make-up and animatronic effects that bring this monstrous family to life are hilariously OTT, really having to be seen to be believed, and come across like a less po-faced and infinitely more entertaining attempt to outdo Clive Barker's 'Nightbreed', released the same year. If broad laughs were all this film was about it would pale beside the director's earlier work but he injects the same level of pathos, with Kevin Van Hentenryck again outstanding as Duane, and shows himself to be a master of horror/suspense in the unforgettably frightening sequences (the bar room scene is a macabre masterpiece) in which the freaks track down and snuff out those dogged investigators who refuse to let the story of the murderous Bradley twins lie and would disrupt their happy home. Obviously intended as a tribute to Tod Browning's 'Freaks' (1932) this brilliantly funny, quirkily disturbing, gruesome and scary horror gem is another bona-fide black comedy classic from the mind of a complete nutcase and deserves to be every bit as venerated as the film that preceded it. Belial was too memorable a screen monster to languish in one motion picture and Henenlotter not only did him proud in this follow-up but created a bestiary of playmates for him that deserve their place in the Horror Hall of Fame. Bonkers and utterly brilliant!! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 86.24.62.55 |
Already onto my second triple bill of the weekend: 'This Night I Will Possess Your Corpse' (1967) by José Mojica Marins - Coffin Joe returns from the dead, apparently, in Marin's second horror opus. 'Cat In The Brain' (1990) by Lucio Fulci - the maestro's last film in which he stars as himself! 'The Eye II' (2004) by Oxide & Danny Pang - decided to watch the complete trilogy for the first time. This is becoming quite addictive... | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.212.230.129 |
The martin film is as good as the first. The Fulci is poor indeed. The opening sequence of cat in the brain turned my stomach rather than disturbing me in any enjoyable way and the rest of the film is just tedious. I don't know about the Eye 2. But the first is very good and creepy. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
'Reincarnation' (2005) by Takashi Shimizu has, in my view, confirmed the man as one of modern cinema's great horror auteurs. This is one of the most intelligent and original ghost stories of recent years that manages to reference Kubrick's 'The Shining', quite shamelessly, while remaining very much its own beast. The plot involves a renowned Japanese horror director deciding to make a film based on a notorious mass killing that occurred 35 years before in a remote luxury hotel and to film it in the self same and long abandoned hotel. The circumstances of the bloodbath, in which 11 people were randomly butchered throughout the building by a killer who filmed his work as he went about it, was never satisfactorily explained and this is to be the director’s own take on the mystery. A nervous young acting student is given her first big break when she is cast as the “virginal final victim”, and focal character of the movie, but the more she studies her part, and the facts of the case, the more she is haunted by strange sensations of not being alone and begins to have eerie visions of what appear to be the original victims. Having relocated to the hotel for the final shoot all hell breaks loose as past and present begin to merge and each of the murders is replayed with the modern counterpoints of the slaughtered taking centre stage, one-by-one, for their big close-up. A fascinating hybrid of traditional ghost story, slasher movie and whodunit that merges ‘The Shining’ with ‘Peeping Tom’ and ‘Ten Little Niggers’ to brilliant effect and plays with viewer expectations of each sub-genre quite masterfully. The film also features the most frightening animated doll I can recall and culminates in one of the scariest sequences I have ever seen. Notch this up as another modern horror masterwork for Mr Shimizu to go alongside both original ‘Grudge’ movies (2002-03) and his greatest film, ‘Marebito’ (2004) - see above. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
'Shock' (1946) by Alfred L. Werker was an excellent little noir thriller entirely typical of the time and boasting a memorably tortured performance by Vincent Price, in, I believe, his first horror role, as a homicidal psychiatrist who runs a private home for the criminally insane in which he holds a young woman, suffering from shock, captive - by convincing everyone, even her loved ones, that she is insane. His motive is that she was the sole witness to his bludgeoning to death of his wife (hence the shock) but, as we all know, most mental patients are convinced their doctor is out to get them, so who's gonna believe her... A modest Hitchcockian psychological horror/thriller with a great premise and suspenseful narrative that stands as a fine example of the kind of movie they just don't make anymore. Well worth seeking out. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I bet you were all thinking 'Basket Case III : The Progeny' (1991) by Frank Henenlotter was bound to be a letdown (I know I did) but, miraculously, it provides a near perfect conclusion to the trilogy. Upping the madcap mayhem, yet again, to memorably ridiculous levels, including a hilarious song and dance routine by Granny Ruth & her family of human monstrosities, this film is just too marvellously OTT to be anything other than an absolute riot, imho. We have Belial getting hitched to his perfect and equally repulsive mate, Eve, and spawning, not one, but TWELVE carnivorous mini-Belials who are so irresistibly cute they really should have released little animatronic dolls of them. This heartwarming love story soon turns to tragedy when the bigoted "normals" brutally slay Eve as an abomination and take the wailing children into captivity... you can guess the rest, and it's a suitably gruesome revenge involving some of the most imaginative death scenes of the entire series. I would rank the 'Basket Case' trilogy as the finest and funniest and most deranged horror/comedy franchise of all time and only wish Henenlotter hadn't hung up his directorial coat having completed it. All three films are as essential an addition to anyone's Horror DVD library as 'The Exorcist', 'Rosemary's Baby', 'The Shining' or any other horror masterpiece ever made. And I'm not taking the piss! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Fourteen years after first seeing it in the cinema, and thinking it was just okay, I decided it was time for a reappraisal of Roman Polanski's much heralded return to the horror genre, 'The Ninth Gate' (1999). I am pleased to say that I was far more impressed this time around and would now rank it as the beginning of his late period resurgence that led to such career highpoints as 'The Pianist' (2002) & 'The Ghost' (2010). More of a knowingly witty slow burning mystery thriller set in the world of devil worship and the supernatural than an out-and-out horror movie the film impresses by its intricate attention to detail and the straight-faced commitment of the excellent cast. Watched more carefully I became aware of beautifully underplayed Lovecraftian layers of subtlety in the plot (typical of Polanski) and was able to work out the exact nature of Lena Olin's "mystery woman" character - no doubt she is Boris Balkan's demonic "cat familiar" in human form which explains her joy at attaining her freedom at the end - while the black comedy elements, once one realises the director's tongue is set firmly in his cheek (after all, the plot is ridiculous), weren't anywhere near as jarring as I had originally thought. Overall I'd rank this as one of the most refreshingly odd and atmospheric adult horror movies of the last 20 years that, I imagine, will continue to grow in stature with time. It's nowhere near the level of 'Rosemary's Baby' or 'The Fearless Vampire Killers' but is at least as impressive as 'The Tenant' and possibly even better. Fair play to him for not taking the easy option when he decided to try his hand at horror again. A very fine and under-appreciated occult conspiracy thriller that rewards repeat viewings. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Meanwhile 'Scared To Death' (1947) by Christy Cabanne (reputedly one of the most prolific directors in Hollywood history) is - I kid you not - the single worst film of any kind I ever had the misfortune to sit through. It lasts barely over an hour but every second felt like having hot peppers, sand and bleach rubbed into my eyeballs [spot the reference]. Starring poor Bela Lugosi, who wanders through the picture looking like he wants someone to shoot him, this pile of steaming shite is completely devoid of any merit. Okay, it has some mild curiosity value for being made in colour but that only serves to make Lugosi's drooping blue eyes look all the more forelorn. The plot (if there is one?) makes no sense whatsoever, the acting is jaw-droppingly atrocious, the direction as flat as month old cola and the "action" drags abominably through sets that look about to collapse at any moment. Think a horror version of 'Acorn Antiques' without the laughs and you'll have some idea why I now rank this picture as the WORST HORROR FILM I HAVE EVER SEEN!! Nothing else comes close... the Unholy Grail of bad cinema has been found, folks. I've seen porn movies made with more professionalism than this crap! It makes Edward D. Wood Jr look like a visionary genius and the works of Bruno Mattei seem Kubrickian masterpieces by comparison! I'd tell you to watch it to see for yourselves but I wouldn't be that cruel. Pure bollocks!! Poor, poor Bela.  | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Hmmm... did I say nothing comes close? 'Drive In Massacre' (1977) by former porn director, Stuart Segall, makes a decent fist of trying to oust 'Scared To Death' from its pit of ignominy, and send me screaming into psychsomatic blindness at the same time, but can't quite hack it. A couple of half decent decapitation scenes rescue this mutant turkey from complete worthlessness, but only just. Night after night some maniac is slicing up wooden teenagers at a drive in cinema park with an oriental sword and no one has the sense to close the bloody place down! Pure drivel with the weakest supposedly shock punchline in horror cinema history. You have been warned... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Thankfully my sanity was rescued at the end of that traumatic night but another slice of quality horror from the Orient. 'The Eye' (2002) by the Pang Brothers (Oxide & Danny) is fully deserving of its reputation as one of the highpoints of the recent Asian Horror boom. Another marvellously scary traditional ghost story that takes the old 'Hands Of Orlac'/'Eyes Of Laura Mars' haunted transplant premise and perfects it into one of the most effective horror films you are ever likely to see. A young woman, blind from infancy, is given eye transplants from an unknown donor and soon after begins to "see dead people" everywhere. Undeniably reminiscent of 'The Sixth Sense' (1999) this paranormal shocker nevertheless beats that overrated Hollywood bunkum into a cocked hat, not only with its "Fuck me!" frightening set pieces, but by having a far superior twist that the filmmakers were brave enough to reveal at two thirds through and which completely alters the meaning of the film and sets the stricken lead character off on a journey of discovery that will lead either to redemption or disaster. A model of pacing the story moves toward its spectacular denouement with a disquieting and ultimately moving sense of implacable doom that only Asian horror directors seem to know how to achieve these days. Every bit the chilling masterpiece it as hailed as and boasting some of the most iconic horror moments of recent years I would challenge any subtitles-shy horror fan not to be impressed! After that reprieve from the doldrums I've decided to watch the rest of the trilogy for the first time; 'The Eye II' (2004) & 'The Eye III : Infinity' (2005) both also directed by the highly talented Pang Brothers. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Selected for my next triple bill: 'The Wolf Man' (1941) by George Waggner - my favourite Universal monster in a film that scared the crap out of me as a kid and I haven't seen it since! 'I Spit On Your Grave' (1978) by Meir Zarchi - one of those infamous video nasties that has always passed me by all these years. Finally gonna see it and make my own mind up. 'The Eye III : Infinity' (2005) by Oxide & Danny Pang - fingers crossed the quality continues in this conclusion to the trilogy. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
'This Night I Will Possess Your Corpse' (1967) by José Mojica Marins is only marginally more assured a directorial effort than Coffin Joe's first outing, 'At Midnight I Will Take Your Soul' (1963) - see above. It has the same weird compulsion to it and visually imaginative sequences, in particular the colour nightmare sequence in which Joe is dragged down to Hell, but the general cheapness and unprofessionalism, one might even say naffness, that is evident throughout the film still hampers the viewer's enjoyment of this reputed "cult classic". There is, however, just enough evidence of Marins increasing confidence as a filmmaker to bode well for his later movies. Here's hoping. The story, what there is of it, involves Coffin Joe kidnapping a number of busty beauties and frightening them out of their wits in an attempt to find a fearless "perfect woman" to be the mother of his child and give him the "immortality" of a blood heir. Those who fail his tests are brutally tortured to death. The character is an oddly memorable one but in these first two films we have yet to see him truly shine. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
And so to one of the most baffling horror films I've ever seen; 'Cat In The Brain' (1990) by Lucio Fulci. Note: I said baffling, not bad. The undisputed maestro of Italian splatter horror (how I love him) chose (whether intentionally or not) to bow out with the most self-referential work of cinema that has possibly ever been made. Casting himself as the star, and himself, Fulci comes across as a likeably befuddled everyman character and not at all the horned demon my imagination had conjured of him. His performance makes the show, as I found it, utterly hilarious. The man portrays himself as an unwilling purveyor of video nasty fodder - "but if I made films about love who would buy a ticket?" - who finds himself losing his mind and suffering all manner of graphically violent hallucinations, culled, as cunningly inserted clips, from his back catalogue. Seeking psychiatric help he has the misfortune to get lumbered with a doctor who just happens to be a misogynistic homicidal psychopath who hypnotises Fulci into believing that he is responsible for the mad doctor's crimes. I swear I'm not making this up. Indescribably bloody mayhem ensues with some of the most sickeningly OTT sequences the great man has ever delivered - but always with a knowing twinkle in his eye. It's a minor Fulci that will really only appeal to those diehard fans (like myself) who followed his demented career with slavish adoration - and who will get all the in-jokes - but as a final film it couldn't have been more unexpectedly charming in its utter self-deprecation. After watching this insane final opus the man has grown into an admirable and unexpectedly loveable human being, in my consciousness, rather than just one of the most talented and original horror auteurs who has ever lived. The final scene as he sails merrily off into the sunset while baiting fishing hooks with human fingers says it all really... Lucio, I salute you! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 86.24.62.55 |
It is my pleasure to report that 'The Eye II' (2004) by Oxide & Danny Pang is every bit as well made and frightening as the first film. If there is anything wrong with the movie it is the title as the events, characters and location share nothing in common with what went before. This film is effective and different enough to have been given an original title all its own. The only similarity is that we have another young woman, this time through a failed suicide attempt while pregnant, who is given the gift/curse of being able to see ghosts, and one hollow-eyed, scary spectre of an older woman in particular, who shadows her every move. The original twist here is that, according to the Buddhist guru figure she approaches for help, rather than turning to psychiatry as in 'The Eye', all pregnant women are followed by a spirit who is waiting to inhabit their child at the moment of birth! There follows a quest through the nine months of her pregnancy, with the ghostly manifestations becoming ever more threatening in nature the closer she gets to her date, to discover the identity of the leering woman who would be her child. Again the pacing is a model of gradually escalating suspense with shock revelations revealed at just the right moments to ratchet up the fear levels, until, when her waters break, the full horror of her situation is revealed. This is the best film to play upon a pregnant woman's horror of the alien being growing within her that I have seen since 'Rosemary's Baby' and, like that film, the feeling of impending doom is laced with a deliciously subtle strand of knowing black humour. Every woman's worst nightmare this is yet another masterful chiller from the Orient that puts western horror cinema of recent years to shame. Here's hoping the Pang's third entry in the series continues at this level of quality... | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.26.73 |
I once met Fulci, Stevie, and thought he was great fun and quite crazy. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 86.24.62.55 |
His sense of fun comes across strongly in the film, Ramsey. I'd say 'Cat In The Brain', with its insights into the man behind the horror, redefines the way his earlier films should be viewed. There is self-deprecating black humour aplenty in all his works. He was the Hitchcock of cheap nasty horror and we shall ne'er see his like again. To think you actually met him! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 86.24.62.55 |
That was an excellent triple bill and got my next one picked out: 'The Reptile' (1966) by John Gilling - haven't seen it since my teens and it has long been one of my favourite Hammer Horrors. 'Cannibal Ferox' (1982) by Umberto Lenzi - another notorious and long banned video nasty I've never seen before. Gotta love those Italians! 'The Addiction' (1995) by Abel Ferrara - a return to the horror genre for Ferrara with Christopher Walken as a vampire. Should be interesting. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 2.30.204.87 |
'The Addiction' is very good, Stevie. Enjoy! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
'The Wolf Man' (1941) by George Waggner was a pure joy to experience again after all these years. A warm glow of nostalgia settled over me as I watched it. There is the essence of fairy-tale about this film that none of the other Universal Horrors really shared. The plot is a mythic tragedy, beautiful in its simplicity, of an innocent man attaining a glimpse of love and a good life for himself only to have it cruelly snatched away, before his very eyes, by the vagaries of fate. It is ironic that Larry Talbot's downfall comes from performing a heroic deed and that nothing in his character shows him as any way deserving of the horrors that descend. In that respect the movie chimes perfectly with the noirish sensibilities of the day. Bad things happen to good people and we'd better get used to it. The strengths of the film lie in the unusually literate quality of the script ("Even a man who is pure at heart, and says his prayers by night, may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms, and the moon is full and bright."), the wonderful support cast (Claude Rains, Evelyn Ankers, Bela Lugosi, Maria Ouspenskaya, Ralph Bellamy, Patric Knowles), the typically atmospheric sets and cinematography, the iconic make-up (clearly inspired by those old photos of dog boys so beloved of us Forteans) and in Lon Chaney Jr's painfully sympathetic portrayal of the doomed hero - bewildered, angry, ashamed and horrified by what has befallen him. It's not quite up to the standard of James Whale's masterpieces due to rather pedestrian direction but if ever there was a movie that is more than the sum of its parts then it's this one. A real gem I could never grow tired of watching and still one of the best werewolf films ever made. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
Nice film, yes. The werewolf theme is underused in horror films because it's harder work in costume and FX terms than vampires or zombies. Yet it's one of the most powerful weird metaphors we have. I think the way to go is to splice real wolf footage into a human story and not show any encounters between people and wolves – just the carnage the wolves leave behind. Has anyone tried that? | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
And am I the only person who finds the cartoon 'It's the Wolf' frightening? | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 212.140.118.61 |
The werewolf was one of my favourite characters. In fact, I know it's common that children love these Universal monsters; there's something that echoes the fears they have of growing up, not fitting in, feeling alone and misunderstood. I remember seeing Frankenstein for the first time and crying all the way through it, and Bride. The moment when Karloff reaches for the mysterious light really affected me in a massive way. One day these monsters will be on Tarot decks, or taken in philosophy as archetypes, as Batman or Superman might be. I know for a fact that Godzilla to us (me?) is the spirit of earth. It's why we all love him, despite his actions. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
It is an ambition of mine to collect all the Universal Horrors, even the later loveably naff ones, and watch them all in order. Then I'd finish with 'Young Frankenstein'! Kind of tying in with this I was overjoyed to acquire the complete DVD collections of the original 'Addams Family' & 'The Munsters' last night - at a ridiculously low price. That's me a happy chappie for the next few months. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 212.140.118.61 |
You can get all the universal in one box, Stevie. It's a great set. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 212.140.118.61 |
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_2_18?url=search-alias%3Ddvd&field-keywo rds=universal+monsters+collection&sprefix=universal+monsters%2Cdvd%2C173 | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Thanks, Tony. I've already bought a load of them individually. Same with the Hammers. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 1.169.131.90 |
I've got that Universal Monsters box set - it's lovely. I wonder if they'll release the Val Lewton set in blu-ray. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
And now we step from the comforting world of Universal monsters into the shocking 70s. I've long wanted to see 'I Spit On Your Grave' (1978) by Meir Zarchi but was rather worried it might turn out to be a load of old rubbish. I was actually really surprised at just how well made it was and enjoyed it as a typically brutal 70s revenge thriller with a starkly immoral moral message of the kind I grew up reading in the Pan Horrors. In that respect it bears direct comparison with the likes of; 'The Last House On The Left' (1972), 'Chato's Land' (1972), 'Death Wish' (1974), 'Night Train Murders' (1975) & 'Ms 45' (1981) and was very much a product of its time. The film is very well crafted, with a fine build-up of suspense in the early scenes of idyllic comfort in a beautiful country retreat that is subtly invaded by ominous intrusions from the outside world. That passing speed-boat becomes as threatening as a shark fin. This is followed by a harrowingly graphic extended gang rape sequence that is in no way tittilating and puts you squarely in the poor girl's position. Her terror is tangible and can't fail to communicate itself to the audience. The sexual violence is played dead straight and made more disturbing by the neanderthal baying and whooping of the three men and their egging on of a mentally retarded idiot to join in the "fun". Anyone who gets a voyeuristic kick out of these scenes should not be walking the streets but the filmmakers were justified in showing them to drive home to the viewer the full horror of what rape victims go through! There then follows an oddly haunting passage, in the weeks that follow the attack, with the girl slowly pulling herself back to "rationality" from a state of profound shock and the four culprits beginning to sweat as the fear of being caught sinks in. What will each of them do? And then we have the expected pay-off as, after a visit to church asking God to forgive her, our heroine sets about luring the four back to her, one-by-one, with the promise of more "sex", as she so enjoyed their last visit, and executes them with ice cold detachment. The murders are well staged and as disturbing as the rape, showing just how fractured her psyche was left by the ordeal. One particularly disturbing sequence is her use of real sex and choking to make one of the men come, when he had been incapable during the rape. It is the last thing his twitching corpse does. But that ultimate humiliation is as nothing compared to what happens the ringleader. The infamous castration in the bath sequence is very well handled and works as a feminist inversion of the shower scene in 'Psycho'. As she locks him in and calmly goes downstairs to listen to loud music while he bangs on the door screaming about not being able to stop the bleeding I felt my skin crawl at the thought of what he was suffering. The one glimpse we get afterward of the bleached white and blood drenched corpse frozen in a contortion of agony is the very essence of horror. Finally the phallic symbol of the rearing speed-boat is turned against the remaining two bastards in a satisfyingly tense and bloody action sequence that closes the film. And we are left to ponder the indomitable strength of womankind and the sickening weakness of so-called men who let their dicks rule their brains and their souls. An unfairly lambasted minor classic of exploitation cinema, imho. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 86.24.62.55 |
Having scared us witless with the first two movies in 'The Eye' series the Pang Brothers decided to pull the rug out completely from under us with this third entry by tickling our funny bones instead! 'The Eye III : Infinity' (2005) may just be one of the most inspired and outrageously entertaining black comedy horror films I have seen. It certainly shows they have a refreshingly madcap and surprisingly lavatorial sense of humour in Hong Kong. For anyone craving more of the creepy atmospherics and terrifying jump moments that graced the first two films they will no doubt be frustrated and disappointed with this final part of the trilogy. Rarely have I seen a franchise film so, it would seem, wilfully designed to divide its hard won audience. For me, that demonstrates artistic bravery and a refusal to rest on their laurels that more than backs up the filmmakers' huge talent. First up, this is a portmanteau horror played strictly for nervous belly laughs. The tone is broadly or, one might say, disturbingly comedic right from the off and put me in mind of nothing more than 'The League Of Gentlemen' with its fractured story told within a sketch show format and the concentration on grotesque characters and absurd visual jokes... that leave an oddly unsettling afertaste. A group of hip and stridently modern young goofball idiots (nice dig at Hollywood horror) from Hong Kong go holidaying in superstitious Thailand and one of them acquires a dusty old book from a backstreet second hand shop - run by a Thai version of Peter Cushing in 'From Beyond The Grave' - entitled, "10 Ways To See A Ghost". Later that night, bored and giggling, they decide to challenge each other to attempt them. The first two methods; [1] Receive the transplanted eyes of a suicide victim, [2] Attempt suicide while pregnant, remind them of recently heard stories from back home - leading to a brief recap of 'The Eye' & 'The Eye II' - and so they proceed to attempt the following eight methods; [3] Call a spirit using a ouija board and trap it in the spirit glass, [4] Take a rice bowl to a crossroads at midnight and tap on it with chopsticks until a hungry ghost appears wanting fed, [5] Play hide-and-seek with the seeker carrying a black cat and a ghost will join the game, [6] Rub graveyard dirt over the eyes and then open them at midnight, [7] Comb your hair while looking in a mirror at midnight to see a ghost in the reflection, [8] Open an umbrella indoors - ghosts hate that, [9] Bend down and look through your legs to see a ghost standing behind you & [10] Go to sleep in your burial clothes (an Asian custom) and you will awaken in the spirit world. You can guess the rest... but perhaps not how insanely funny the results are. Among other Monty Pythonish delights we get to see the sad aftermath of urinating on a grave, a hilarious possessed breakdancing contest, a haunting by basketball, a manic phobia of umbrellas, the discovery that farts "kill" ghosts but what happens when the gas runs out and why never to leave a ghost hungry, etc... One of those films you just have to tune into and go along for the ride. I loved it! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 86.24.62.55 |
That was one of my more successful triple bills. From the warm nostalgia and romantic tragedy of 'The Wolf Man' to the viscerally challenging shocks of 'I Spit On Your Grave' and the jaw-dropping perversity of the Pangs' hilarious demolition of 'The Eye Trilogy'. Great stuff! | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.26.19 |
I'm with you on I Spit on Your Grave, Stevie. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 86.24.62.55 |
I haven't thought about 'It's The Wolf' since I was a kid, Joel, and can only remember the look of that bloody Lambsy. A cartoon character even more insufferable than Roadrunner or that frickin' pigeon! That's decided me on lamb chops for dinner today. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 31.54.13.14 |
Rec 3 does the same thing, changing the tone completely from the previous 2. Excellent film, just not the shit-scary claustrophic nightmare that the previous 2 entries were. Lots of knockabout humour, including taking the piss out of the whole found footage "why are they still filming" problem. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
'The Reptile' (1966) by John Gilling stands up as one of the finest gothic horrors of Hammer's classic period and one of the most entertaining and atmospheric twists on the lycanthropy theme ever made. Everything about the film works perfectly. The brilliantly staged opening death sequence and its aftermath of hushed mutterings about "there's been another one" and "the black death" leads us to the arrival of your typical naive newlyweds from the big city who ill-advisedly plan to set up home in the bleakly forbidding Cornish setting with its surly, unwelcoming locals (ala 'Straw Dogs', 'An American Werewolf In London', etc) and aren't even put off by John Laurie's cries of, "We're all doomed, doomed I tell ye!", as Mad Peter - a wonderful eye-rolling performance I feel sure acquired him the part of Frazer in 'Dad's Army' two years later [watch the hilarious horror episode "Things That Go Bump In The Night" {Series 6, Episode 6, 1973} to see what I mean]. Where was I? More killings follow, each preceded by the sound of weirdly lilting music with an Eastern flavour wafting through the night ("Hush, can ye hear them laddie? Death be in the air!"), the victims found black of face and foaming at the mouth with a look of unutterable terror in their eyes. But our stubborn couple adamantly refuse to be scared out of their dream cottage. Even though their sinister becaped neighbour, Dr Franklyn, who lives in glowering isolation with his stone-faced Indian manservant in a gothic mansion on the moors, would seem to know more about the "black death" than he is letting on. But, then we are introduced to his young, fresh faced and sweetly angelic daughter, Anna, who welcomes the newcomers with flowers and an invite to dinner, and she couldn't possibly have anything to do with all those ghastly murders, could she...? As I said everything about the film is a pure joy with the iconic make-up effects - revealed in one of horror cinema's great shock moments - providing the pièce de résistance. They nicked the plot from Bram Stoker's 'The Lair Of The White Worm' (kind of) but the atmosphere, pacing, sets, the wonderfully earnest performances, spine-tingling suspense, and memorable scares make this unassuming mini-masterpiece, made as an aside from the studio's more famous monster series, one to unashamedly wallow in and watch over and over again with satisfaction guaranteed. In my book this is one of the most beautifully cliched horror narratives ever filmed. Quite wonderful! | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 1.169.136.88 |
I'm very fond of The Reptile too, Stevie. One of my favourite Hammers! | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.182.25.143 |
I like THE REPTILE - always think of it in an imaginary double bill with THE PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES, another Hammer favourite from the 'sixties! | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 31.115.128.23 |
What was the print like? Ours is awful. Filmed in shades of pale grey. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
It looked exactly the way I remember it from TV, Tony, if not better. However, I didn't recall the scene in which Anna sheds her skin, to her father's horror. It was one of the most memorably macabre moments of the film. Maybe it was cut for telly or I was out making tea at the time? | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
'Cannibal Ferox' (1981) by Umberto Lenzi comes across as a shameless rip-off of Deodato's masterful 'Cannibal Holocaust' (1980) and, as with that film, benefits greatly from having been shot on location in the Amazon. I make no bones about finding these jungle adventure horrors wildly entertaining, for all their nihilistic brutality. Watching them is like experiencing a XXX-rated Tarzan movie of the kind I loved as child. Nothing is spared the viewer. Our senses are assailed by graphic scenes of torture and cannibalism, involving; eye-gougings, disembowellings, raw brain scoopings, roasting on spits, genitals being hacked or eaten off, etc, etc... and all that lovely scenery and wildlife, that prove as deadly as the natives. EG: one of the characters here, having escaped the cooking pot, is munched to bits by piranha instead - and with jaguars, snakes, monstrous spiders, swamps, rapids and all those wonderfully ingenious native deathtraps, what's not to like! See; 'Deep River Savages' (1972), 'Last Cannibal World' (1977), 'Mountain Of The Cannibal God' (1978) & 'Eaten Alive' (1980) for more of the same. Interestingly, this one starts in the concrete jungle of New York, as a poliziotteschi crime thriller, with a drug deal gone wrong and a cold blooded Mafia execution. Italian horror veteran, Giovanni Lombardo Radice, gives one of his most fearsome performances as a small-time hoodlum and deranged coke addict who is forced to flee to South America with his partner in crime and there meets up with a party of three young people who are on a research trip aiming to refute the myth of cannibalism, for a thesis, by a trip up-river seeking a fabled lost tribe. When Radice hears local tales of a vast fortune in emeralds lying in the jungle he and his pal con their way along for the ride. As with 'Cannibal Holocaust' the white characters turn out to be more vicious and calculatingly sadistic than the peace-loving natives they encounter, and proceed to rape and torture in their quest for the emerald riches. There is a self-serving morality, of a kind, to the tale with the "civilized" interlopers introducing barbarity to the Amazonian villagers and bringing a ghastly fate upon themselves that is, for the most part, richly deserved. It's hardly great filmmaking but the action never lets up and there is a refreshingly unpredictable pulp energy to the film that is hard to resist. I particularly liked the ironic twist ending with the students' thesis being cynically proved and the rewards accepted while their own corrupting influence had brought the cannibal myth into stark gut-wrenching reality. The film may leave a bad taste in the mouth with some but I really enjoyed it. And, for my next triple bill, I've got 'Cannibal Ferox II' (1985) to savour as well... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
'The Addiction' (1995) by former splatter meister, Abel Ferrara, is a frustratingly odd yet beguiling avant-garde vampire movie that works like a weird melange of David Lynch, Jean Rollin & Woody Allen, without the laughs but with the angst intact!! Set in New York and atmospherically filmed in black and white it features an earnest young student of philosophy, Kathleen (Lili Taylor), embarking on a dark voyage of discovery when she is attacked walking home by a gothically dressed lady of the night and finds herself transformed into a blood craving member of the undead community, who secretly live amongst us, their cattle. The standard "bewildered new vampire learning the ropes" plot (familiar from 'Interview With The Vampire', 'Near Dark', 'Innocent Blood', etc) rolls out predictably enough from there but with the blood lust standing in as a rather obvious allegory for drug addiction and much beetle-browed concentration on the heroine's philosophical musings over the impossibility of defining good and evil (interspersed with footage of the Holocaust, Vietnam, etc), the irresistible cravings of the body versus the illusion of a higher soul, free will negating the concept of temptation, the acceptance of death as the final liberation and the concept of forgiveness and redemption as the ultimate lie religions use to keep us in servile fear and denial of our higher selves (this girl should meet Coffin Joe), etc, etc... The film has an unrelenting sombreness of tone that gets a bit wearing at times but our interest is kept going by the always effective fascination of watching an inherently good character succumb to the insatiable pleasures of the flesh and having to learn the tricks of the trade by a mixture of trial-and-error and seeking out those veteran "addicts" who walked the same path before her. There is a fantastic and deeply disturbing sequence at the heart of the picture in which she attempts to vampirise a black clad Christopher Walken up a dark alley and is taught a frightening lesson in respecting one's elders. The film comes alive during their confrontation and Walken's icy charisma fairly lights up the screen but the brilliance of his cameo only leaves one frustrated that his character never reappears. There are a number of other great horror set pieces in which the callousness of the addict, in doing anything and using anyone to get a fix, is successfully translated into increasingly vicious vampire attacks and the final orgy of bloodletting during Kathleen's graduation party is a nightmarish highpoint. But overall I don't think the film is anywhere near as clever as it thinks it is and could have done with an injection of humour, or even the odd smile, to ease the overwhelming gloom and avoid inevitable accusations of preciousness. It's still a refreshingly intelligent and serious adult horror movie made with style and substance but 'The Hunger' (1983) trod similar ground and was much more fun. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I've booked the rest of the week off to play with my new iPad. I'm in love and think I'll call her Imogen. And for my next triple bill: 'House Of Wax' (1953) by André de Toth - with Vincent Price in the role that made him a horror star & the luscious Morticia Addams (Carolyn Jones) 'Cannibal Ferox II' (1985) by Michele Massimo Tarantini - I fully expect it to be cheesy rubbish of the Bruno Mattei variety but hopefully fun with it... 'Slither' (2006) by James Gunn - saw this in the cinema on first release and thought it was marvellous, now feels about right for a reappraisal | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 86.24.62.55 |
Picked up a ready made triple bill dirt cheap in our soon to be demised HMV yesterday: 'Taste Of Fear' (1961) by Seth Holt - according to Christopher Lee this was the finest Hammer Horror he ever appeared in, and I've never seen it!! 'Opera' (1987) by Dario Argento - according to Stevie Walsh this has claims to be the great Italian maestro's forgotten masterpiece, it is truly awesome, and I've never seen the full Director's Uncut version!! 'The Frighteners' (1996) by Peter Jackson - another unfairly neglected absolute belter of a horror comedy and one of the best and funniest and most original films Jackson has made, before he unfortunately gave up creating his own wondrous fantasies in favour of adapting the work of others. It's also easily Michael J. Fox's finest hour in the cinema and I haven't seen it since it was first released. Please get back to this kind of filmmaking, Peter, after completing 'The Hobbit' & 'Tintin' (fingers crossed) of course!! | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.183.79.10 |
TASTE OF FEAR is certainly a fine film, Stevie, although as ever, best seen on a big screen. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 86.24.62.55 |
Can't wait, Mick. There are loads of other Hammers I've always longed to see but this was always near the top of the pile. When I said "unfortunately" regarding Peter Jackson's last 15 years of filmmaking what I mean is if I'd had the choice of more brilliantly original works like; 'Bad Taste', 'Meet The Feebles', 'Braindead', 'The Frighteners' & even the mockumentary he made, that I can't for the minute recall the name of, instead of his, admittedly brilliant, adaptations of Tolkien and his faffing about with 'King Kong' and 'The Lovely Bones', I would go for the former every time. 'Heavenly Creatures' stands as one of his best films, yes, but, with hindsight, it is easy to see now that that is where the "rot" set in, imho. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 31.54.13.14 |
Being stuck in the house with a lousy cold instead of wiping myself out with suicidal levels of alcohol at Mr Bestwick's birthday bash (happy birthday Simon by the way), I watched a double bill last night of We are What we are and Fermat's Room. We are what we are - a curious film about a family of cannibals struggling to cope after the father of the family dies of poisoning after eating a whore's finger. The director and cinematographer have got got a cracking talent for finding interesting camera setups and angles, and the story's pretty good as well, although the tone is a little uneven. I wasn't sure if this was supposed to be a comedy or not in places. a cautious 6.5/10. Worth watching. Fermat's Room - 4 mathematicians stuck in a crushing room being given logic problems to solve. If they don't solve them in the time limit given, the room shrinks further. It's a good solid little thriller but it has a few major plot holes. One I can't say for spoiler reasons but the biggest one of the lot is that all 4 walls are closing in at once. The character writing on the blackboard first time the room starts shrinking apparently doesn't notice this. I'm also struggling to work out the physics of the situation. I'm not convinced that it would work. The walls would have to be moving sideways as well as forward which means they couldn't be securely fastened to the presses and I think they'd slip. Still a good yarn though. 7.5/10 | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 80.239.243.7 |
Today I think I'll have a bit of a movie marathon. Starting with Child's Play, Chucky's first and one of his best outings. Not sure what to follow it up with but I've got a choice that includes Black Christmas, God of vampires, Drive, Jonah Hex, the Ring sequels and many more | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 86.24.62.55 |
Know the feeling, Weber. Is it the original 'Black Christmas'? One of the best slashers ever made. 'Drive' is a decent crime thriller. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 31.54.13.14 |
The original black christmas, yes. Child's Play, what a great fun little movie. The burnt up Chucky near the end is actually quite nightmarish, and that has t be one of the finest fire walks ever done by a dwarf actor. This really should be a guilty pleasure but I like it too much. For my next film I think I'm going to go with the first Django film with Quentin Tantino in it... I won't name it, I'll leave it for you clever people to guess. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 86.24.62.55 |
I also am quite fond of the original 'Child's Play', Weber, but not the rest of the franchise. It's a minor classic horror comedy typical of its era and, if I remember correctly, had a great vocal (and briefly physical) performance by Brad Dourif - one of my favourite actors. Lovely little film, I agree. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 31.54.13.14 |
Child's play 3 and Bride of Chucky are excellent too imho. Child's Play 2 was actually the first film where I heard anyone scream in a cinema - although, apart from the last 25-30 minutes it's not a great film. The sequence in the doll factory was worth the price of admission though. Seed of Chucky didn't have much to recommend it. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.212.231.26 |
Well that was disappointing. Ah well. Next up is The Burrowers. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 86.24.62.55 |
A Lovecraftian classic, Weber, and a damn fine western to boot. You're in for a real treat! | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.212.231.131 |
That was indeed rather good. Now do i stick with the western theme and watch Jonah Hex or the underground theme with a rewatch of the Descent... Decisions decisions. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 80.239.243.0 |
I thought I'd go for some complete schlock instead - Earth Alien - with Arnold Vosloo, John Rhys Davies and Eric Roberts. In the first 5 minutes there's already been a dozen murders and gratuitous full frontal female nudity... :-) | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.184.107.55 |
That was great fun. Certainly to be filed under guilty pleasures. Atrocious acting and special effects, derivative as hell but just fun to watch. Final film for the night is Headspace. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.184.107.55 |
No one any idea what the Tarantino Django film was called that i watched earlier today? Clue - not Django Unchained... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 86.24.62.55 |
Was there someone called Django in 'Death Proof' by any chance? I consider that one of Tarantino's better recent films. If not, I've no idea. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.212.230.212 |
Nope. This wasn't directed by quentin. And django was part of the title. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 212.183.128.236 |
Some cheap recent Italian thing he had a cameo appearance in, maybe? | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.212.231.12 |
Nope. It's an Asian western in English language with a fully asian cast except for Quentin. It was very disappointing - especially given the back catalogue of the director. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 81.149.182.62 |
Was it a Miike opus? I know there's been much mutual loveying between him and Quentin. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.183.79.10 |
Was it a Miike opus? It was... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 81.149.182.62 |
Miike is the better director and Tarantino the better writer. When are they gonna use their brains and give us what we want! ;-) | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.212.230.212 |
I'd go for tarantino as the better director every time personally speaking. Django unchained is 1000 times better than Sukiaki Western Django. I like some of Miike's films but i've loved pretty much everything Tarantino's done so far. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Have you seen 'Ichi The Killer', Weber? That was the film 'Kill Bill' so desperately wanted to be, imho. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.212.231.110 |
Seen Ichi - thought it was pants to be honest. Cool looking violence but an almost completely incomprehensible storyline. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 212.183.128.229 |
I thought it was genius!! The story has to be pieced together from what fragments we are given and makes perfect sense. Bit like the structure of the 'Ju-On' movies. Miike's masterpiece, however, is the positively Kurosawa-like 'Thirteen Assassins'. Tarantino couldn't make such an epic if he tried - as great a black comedy director as he is. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
'House Of Wax' (1953) by André de Toth is, imo, too often forgotten in its pivotal role in the evolution of horror cinema. If one movie could be pinpointed as representing the crossover, in terms of style and influence, between the Universal era and the Hammer era then it is this bona-fide gothic masterpiece. Made in glorious technicolor, as well as then innovative 3D, the film is still surprisingly gruesome and damn scary even today. The famous story (based on the play by Charles S. Belden) is as much a great tragedy as it is the definitive grand guignol thriller. Vincent Price gives one of his most memorably magisterial performances as the obsessive sculptor, Henry Jarrod, who wants only to create things of beauty in the face of public disinterest, but who, having lost his livelihood and the use of his hands in a malicious fire, is driven insane and plots a ghastly revenge against the world in general by giving them more of the horror they crave than they ever dreamed of... The role, those eyes, that voice, the knowing mannerisms and the still frightening make-up job that turned him into one of the screen's scariest monsters (his horribly burned face is more effectively horrific than Freddie Kreuger's) deservedly turned the great ham into a horror superstar overnight. Hooray for that!! This is another gloriously cliched horror narrative that just feels right in every detail and we can thank the heavens that the director was unable to see the 3D effects and so concentrated on making a straight thriller rather than a gimmick picture. There are a couple of extraneous moments of things being chucked at the screen but these do not serve to overwhelm the action and leave us 2D-philes to enjoy what is one of the finest horror films of its era and one of the most unobtrusively influential of all time. This was the film that inspired Hammer Studios to revive the classic horror genre in the face of all-conquering radioactive monsters and that was memorably spoofed in 'A Bucket Of Blood' & 'Carry On Screaming'. Jarrod was the character who spawned Dr Phibes & Edward Lionheart. The Creeper in 'Scooby Doo, Where Are You?', the clawed joker in the 'Nightmare On Elm Street' movies & Sam Raimi's 'Darkman' (all with that hat) came from the iconic horror imagery here. And this was also one of the first "mad genius serial killer with a plan" films that would give us the likes of 'The Silence Of The Lambs' & 'Seven', etc. Add to that the irresistibly macabre brilliance of the story's central conceit - often copied, never bettered - a first rate cast all treating the material seriously and the introduction of a very young and unfeasibly ugly Charles Bronson, as the hulking deaf-mute manservant, Igor(!), and the eye-poppingly curvaceous (how the hell did she get into that corset?) Morticia Addams (Carolyn Jones) as a dumb blonde being transformed into a creature of raven haired transcendence and you have a near perfect horror entertainment for all ages that has hardly dated a day and still packs a satisfyingly ghoulish punch. I consider it a superior remake of the still fine 'The Mystery Of The Wax Museum' (1933) - proving that they do exist! Either way they certainly don't make 'em like this anymore!! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
And once again we go from the sublime to the ridiculous but, in this case, the sublimely ridiculous! 'Cannibal Ferox II' (1985) by Michele Massimo Tarantini (who said Quentin was an original?!) has to be one of the most hilariously bad Italian horror films I have seen. The great master of naffness, Bruno Mattei, himself, couldn't have come up with a finer load of old cobblers! But what a riotously entertaining ride it is. Basically we are introduced to a motley crew of nine bickering tourist types (a granite-jawed and be-mulletted Indiana Jones wannabe seeking adventure, a kooky old professor, his feisty beautiful daughter with brains, a simpering fashion photographer, his two bimbo models whose clothes keep falling off, the aging alcoholic pilot, a teeth-gnashingly demented Vietnam vet & his bucket-faced nagging wife) whose chartered plane unfortunately crashes, while making an unscheduled detour, in the heart of the Amazon jungle, right smack in cannibal territory. We then have the pleasure of following these badly dubbed imbeciles as they trek through the wilderness being picked off one-by-one by the flesh-rending natives and other assorted perils, such as; piranha (again), snakes, spiders, spiky swinging deathtraps, quicksand, rapids, man-eating pigs and surviving dinosaurs (or did I just make that bit up?). But their troubles really start - those that are left standing - when they stumble into the encampment of a band of white slavers, more vicious than the cannibals, who are forcing the natives to mine for those same bloody emeralds that caused all the trouble in the first film. I swear this film had me in stitches the whole way through and is the most loveably daft and corny of all the Italian cannibal films. It plays like a breezy unintentional spoof, with jarringly inappropriate bongo and steel drum music accompanying the bloody mayhem (great gore effects!), and pant-wettingly macho man acting that only the Italians seem to think is cool while the rest of us are falling about laughing and features more gratuitous flashes of knickers and tits than a Carry On film. Absolutely pricless entertainment! I loved every stupid second of it!! If ever I have a group of mates round getting pissed this will be No. 1 on the DVD list! I ask you... where would we be without Italian cinema? | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
And another fine triple bill was wrapped up with one of the most thoroughly entertaining deliberate horror comedies of recent years; the criminally neglected, 'Slither' (2006) by James Gunn. This film really should have caused as big a stir as those other great black comedy horror debuts of recent years; Neil Marshall's 'Dog Soldiers' (2002) & Edgar Wright's 'Shaun Of The Dead' (2004), imho. It really is that good! This time the theme being spoofed is that of the small town alien invasion by horrible slimy monsters, so beloved in the 1950s and pastiched to death in the 80s. Gunn revived the form here with reckless aplomb and delivered a genuine modern classic in the process. The wonderfully playful opening simultaneously quotes 'The Blob' (1958 & 1988 versions) and 'The Evil Dead' (1981) and the film goes on to encompass everything from 'Invasion Of The Body Snatchers' (1956 & 1978 versions) to 'The Quatermass Experiment' (1955) and the early video nasties of David Cronenberg [particularly 'Shivers' (1975)] to Romero's zombie trilogy (1968-1985), 'Alien' (1979), 'Basket Case' (1982), ‘The Deadly Spawn’ (1983) and ‘Night Of The Creeps’ (1986), among many others, with nods to H.P. Lovecraft for good measure, making this a treasure trove for genre geeks everywhere. But the director has the talent to make this his own delightfully entertaining vision rather than a slavish imitation of the films he grew up watching and clearly loving. “Fanboy done good” is written all over this picture as with the previously mentioned debuts and marks it as firmly a product of its nostalgia loving times, that has the Tarantino-like balls to be its own standard bearer rather than taking the lazy remake route. TV shows like; ‘The X Files’, ‘The League Of Gentlemen’, the ‘Doctor Who’ revival, ‘Fringe’ and recent similarly reverential movies, like ‘The Cabin In The Woods’, are all part of the same phenomenon. When they’re done good by genuine fans, rather than cynical money-makers, with real talent, rather than a formula, the result is a joy to behold for people of my generation. Everything in the movie is judged just right. The laughs are never allowed to overwhelm or dilute the serious intent of the horror elements. For all the gross-out humour the likeably charismatic cast of mostly unknowns play it admirably straight-faced, rather than falling into the trap of believing gurning is funny, and this helps us suspend our disbelief and care for them as real individuals in peril – despite our brains telling us that what is happening is clearly absurd. The one familiar genre face, Michael Rooker, gives one of his finest performances, half comedic/half tragic, as the initial victim whose dumb but loyal redneck consciousness becomes the template for the invading alien intelligence - to hilarious effect. We identify with him as we did with Larry Talbot in 'The Wolf Man' yet the pathos of his position is played relentlessly for laughs. It’s a balancing act that has defeated many greater directors over the years and Gunn proves himself a natural talent here, making this, I state again, one of the most auspicious and sadly unheralded debuts of recent years. The marvellous and incredibly nauseating special effects are wisely kept old school for the most part, in tribute to the glory days of 80s animatronica, with admirably subtle use of CGI being kept to a minimum. The alien life cycle is fascinatingly original, splicing together several distinct monsters from yesteryear into a new horror for a new millennium, that allows the unfeasibly talented young writer/director to play with the horror of parasitic worms, gradual metamorphosis into Lovecraftian tentacled monstrosities, alien impregnation, possession and flesh-eating zombies, while keeping the plot remarkably coherent and the plight of the survivors convincingly suspenseful and scary as well as laugh out loud funny, due to the sheer OTT nature of the visuals and the characters’ bemused yet terrified reactions to them. Mark my words, future generations will hail this unassuming little picture as an imperishable classic of its era. I was so impressed by this second viewing, after 7 years, that I wondered why I had heard no more about this clearly talented genre director and had to check out his filmography. After the stunning debut of 'Slither' he went on to direct 'Super' (2010) - an apparently inspired black comedy spoof of the superhero genre that I will be checking out asap. I wish him well in his future career. Horror cinema needs guys like this... And to follow that, boy have I got a triple bill lined up for this weekend: 'Taste Of Fear' (1961) by Seth Holt. 'Opera' (1987) by Dario Argento. 'The Frighteners' (1996) by Peter Jackson. | ||
| David_lees (David_lees) Username: David_lees Registered: 12-2011 Posted From: 92.17.171.66 |
Super is pretty good. I'd say it's as much a comedy version of Taxi Driver as a superhero spoof. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
'Taste Of Fear' (1961) by Seth Holt is an entertaining little horror/suspense thriller of the "let's scare the delicate heiress to death" format. It is probably the finest and most cleverly plotted of all Hammer's forays into the form and is marked by engagingly sympathetic performances from the two leads, the stunningly beautiful and wheelchairbound Susan Strasberg and her dashing saviour, Ronald Lewis. While visiting the home of her stepmother our highly strung heroine finds herself haunted by apparitions of her missing father's waterlogged corpse (shades of 'Les Diaboliques' (1955) - the best of all these kind of films) and only the handsome chauffeur, Lewis, deigns to believe her, while the rest of them, led by Christopher Lee's cold-eyed and enigmatic psychiatrist, believe she is losing her marbles. Of course if she dies all of her vast inheritance goes to her too-sweet-to-be-wholesome stepmother. From that seemingly obvious set-up Jimmy Sangster's ingenious script goes on to confound the viewer with a series of about-face twists and unexpected character developments that keep one guessing right to the final scene. It would have made one hell of an entertaining stageplay. And therein lies the rub... the studiobound and overly talky nature of the film coupled with rather ponderous direction does rather rob it of cinematic worth, imo. It's a memorable story but far from a great film and I have to disagree with Christopher Lee that it is even close to the best Hammer film he ever appeared in. More like a superior feature length episode of 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents' that wasn't directed by the great man himself. Well worth seeing but don't expect a masterpiece. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Just picked up the DVD of Dario Argento's 'Trauma' (1993) and was flabbergasted to discover the script is by T.E.D. Klein!!!! I've seen it twice before but not in many years. The first time I thought it was an infuriatingly incomprehensible mess but on a second viewing I loved it as a cleverly structured superior giallo. A third assessment is now a must. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Which brings me to what may just be Argento's great forgotten masterpiece... 'Opera' (1987) is nothing short of a stunning piece of cinema. All of the director's powers are concentrated on a first rate giallo/whodunit plot that integrates the grand Italian opera house setting and positively Kubrickian use of music (barnstormingly powerful classical opera, creepy electronica and shock-to-the-system hard rock clash magnificently), with some of the bloodiest and most suspenseful set pieces he ever filmed, to genuinely nerve-shattering effect. The whole film is like a rollercoaster ride of dizzying camera movements, glorious use of opulent colours and sets, blasting music and stunning choreography that had this horror fan in absolute raptures. Argento hasn't been this good since but then neither has anyone else! I would rank this as a serious contender for his greatest and most psychologically unsettling horror masterwork. It's definitely in the top three along with 'Profondo Rosso' (1975) and 'Tenebrae' (1982), imho. The plot involves a new young operatic understudy getting her first big break when offered the part of Lady Macbeth in a controversially modern and horrific updating of Verdi's 'Macbeth' by a famed horror movie director, much to the displeasure of the traditionalist cognoscenti. She is an immediate sensation but soon finds herself stalked by a crazed fan who proceeds to butcher those involved in the production one-by-one while forcing her to watch while bound with her eyelids pinned open. Police protection appears futile as the masked and gloved killer continually finds a way into the presence of our heroine and suffers her to witness yet another elaborately staged murder. These set pieces are the very pinnacle of on-screen horror, imo, proclaiming Argento as an uncontestable genius of shock and suspense cinema. His talent flies in this glorious masterpiece as if the operatic setting had fired his artistry like never before. Ravens wheel through the air (and prove integral to the plot), blood flows in crimson rivers of opulence, pristine blades gleam with deadly allure, visual red herrings abound, mutilation and torture are turned into things of hellish beauty and all the time we are bombarded by that glorious music. In scene after scene the senses reel at the maestro's breathless elan. There is also a wonderful ambiguity to the ending, fed by almost subliminal flashbacks to the heroine's traumatised childhood, that have one wanting to watch the film again almost as soon as it has ended. Who was the real victim in this psychedelic fantasmagoria of terror and who the real monster? I have my own theories after this awestruck second viewing but there'll be no spoilers here. Quite simply this is one of the greatest films ever to grace the horror genre! It is to horror what 'Once Upon A Time In The West' is to the western. Oh, to see it on the big screen with full surround sound pumped to the max... heaven! | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 178.116.60.39 |
The first time I thought it was an infuriatingly incomprehensible mess I actually watched this together with ST Joshi one fine evening in his Manhattan apartment. I believe Perry Grayson and Scott Briggs were also in attendance. We nearly laughed our heads off - so much so that ST decided to give Klein a ring to tell him of our viewing experience. As I recall the mighty T.E.D. Klein was acuteley embarassed by the film. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 135.196.115.78 |
I really don't think it's that bad, Hubert. I did the first time I watched it because I hadn't a clue what the feck was going on. It's the freewheeling bonkers Argento of 'Phenomena' and most definitely not like the work of Klein. I thought I was seeing things when I read the credits! | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.43.247.212 |
It's the SWMB! | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.43.247.212 |
Hubert - you know STJ? | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 178.116.60.39 |
Yep, Tony. We're in touch infrequently, but I still consider him a friend, one of the best I've ever had. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 81.149.182.62 |
What ya mean by that, Tony? Negativity breeds negativity. I'm only having fun on here and repaying the pleasure Ramsey has given me all these years, as his greatest fan (where's me sledgehammer?), in the most genuine way I can think of... by gracing HIS message board, as the greatest living exponent of the greatest form of artistic expression that the horror genre knows, namely, the literary Horror Novel (that rarest and most precious of jewels that everyone on this site should eternally salivate over at the very thought of! [where the fuck was I?]), with my witterings. I warned ya you wouldn't like me when I'm angry, Tony! | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.43.247.212 |
No, sorry Stevie - I just meant you're on here a lot now and others aren't. It seems so quiet here now. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.43.247.212 |
Stevie? I'm so sorry if I offended you. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 86.24.62.55 |
Ah these things go through cycles, Tony. Sure I wasn't on here for months at one stage last year. You worry too much. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 86.24.62.55 |
Got a great triple bill planned for tonight on the theme of the watching camera, filmed voyeurism and the mystery of found footage: 'Peeping Tom' (1960) by Michael Powell - for the first time in donkey's years. 'Videodrome' (1983) by David Cronenberg - ditto. 'REC' (2007) by Jaume Balaguero - for the first time. Rather a disturbing mix, even if I do say so myself. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 86.24.62.55 |
I loved every moment of Peter Jackson's 'The Frighteners' (1996) again, having not seen it in some 17 years, and have to rank it as one of his most thoroughly successful and entertaining films - and also his most criminally underrated. Whoever did the special effects on this did a hell of a job. The CGI is still amongst the most seamless I have seen and complements Rick Baker's old school effects quite magnificently. I normally hate CGI but when it's done well, as here, and suits the tone of the movie, as with the high octane slapstick horror comedy on offer throughout this glorious thrill-ride, then one has to hold one's hands up and give praise where it is due. The Jackson penned plot is an inspired one that creates its own fantasy rules of what happens in the afterlife and sticks to them rigidly, effortlessly drawing the viewer into the director's vision and making us accept blue glowing ghosts that can be sliced and diced and that vomit ectoplasm as entirely plausible. There is more than a touch of Tim Burton style originality and freewheeling imagination in evidence here and enjoying this as much again almost makes me wish Jackson had remained a cult director creating his own worlds rather than joining the Spielbergian big time with his, admittedly visionary, Tolkien adaptations. I still believe the 'King Kong' and 'The Lovely Bones' projects were Jackson giving way to hubris and represent his weakest offerings to date. This is the story of a serial killer who is so determined to top the "most kills" list that he refuses to pass over following his execution and adopts a Grim Reaper disguise on the other side so he can continue to harvest victims by the method of squeezing their hearts in their chests till they burst. The rising tally appearing as a carved number on the forehead of the next victim, that only psychic Michael J. Fox (in career best and extraordinarily likeable form) can see, was a particularly clever plot contrivance that cranks the suspense in the breathless chase sequences to the max, as our hero vainly battles to stop an unstoppable ghostly assassin. The film was the last of Jackson's to display the zany comedic energy and bubbling creativity that marked out his early independent masterpieces and, with its Robert Zemeckis produced big budget and groundbreaking effects, stands as a fascinating one-off in the evolution of modern horror cinema, marking the poignant passing of the old and the rising of the arrogant new guard in what we now call "spectacle cinema". One of the finest genre pictures of its decade that holds up remarkably well today this will always be among my favourite horror comedies. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 86.24.62.55 |
Compare the seamless CGI in this film with some of the supposedly more advanced recent offerings, such as that awful version of 'I Am Legend', as a randomly plucked example, and one can't help wonder where it all went so wrong? Lazy filmmaking is the only explanation I can think of... whereas 'The Frighteners' stands as a painstakingly crafted labour of love in comparison. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 86.24.62.55 |
Horror triple bill time again. Picked at random: 'The Ape Man' (1943) by William Beaudine. 'The House Of Clocks' (1989) by Lucio Fulci. 'REC2' (2009) by Juame Balagueró & Paco Plaza - the third Balagueró film I'll have watched in the past week and if the first two were anything to go by... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 86.24.62.55 |
Not going to risk a St Patrick's Day blocking session this year as I'm still getting over the flu. Gonna sit in with a nice horror triple bill instead: 'The Mystery Of The Wax Museum' (1933) by Michael Curtiz(!) - for the first time since I was a kid to give it fair comparison to the great Vincent Price remake [see above]. 'The House Of Lost Souls' (1989) by Umberto Lenzi - feature length film made for Italian cable TV as part of the 'House Of Doom' series along with Lenzi's 'The House Of Witchcraft' and Lucio Fulci's 'The House Of Clocks' (watched it and it's one of his best!) & 'The Sweet House Of Horrors'. All four were deemed too violent for broadcast and went straight to video as "lost films" of these two Italian horror greats. What a world! 'Donnie Darko' (2001) by Richard Kelly - first time I'll have watched the 20 minutes longer Director's Cut version and first viewing since the original on the big screen 12 years ago when I came out half impressed and half bemused. Some serious reappraisal is long overdue. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 86.24.62.55 |
My latest triple bill was: 'Bride Of The Monster' (1955) by Edward D. Wood Jr. 'The Sweet House Of Horrors' (1989) by Lucio Fulci. 'Ringu' (1998) by Hideo Nakata - with the rest of the Sadako trilogy to follow. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 80.239.243.4 |
I'll be watching a triple bill of Ringu 2, Shadows and Fog and God of Vampires. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Picked up three recent horror classics on DVD for a tenner last night that you can expect to be seeing in forthcoming triple bills as I've been dying to rewatch all of them: 'The Skin I Live In' (2011) by Pedro Almodovar - which I plan to watch back-to-back with his other great horror classic, 'Matador' (1986). 'The Kill List' (2011) by Ben Wheatley - one of those undeniably great but confounding films I'm still undecided about and can't wait to see again. 'Prometheus' (2012) by Ridley Scott - got the whole franchise to watch in chrono order now, with this one first! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Time for a round-up of the triple bills that got me through my recent bout of flu: 'Peeping Tom' (1960) by Michael Powell is, to my mind, the finest, most intelligent and incredibly moving psycho thriller ever made. It is as much a doomed love story as it is an unflinching exploration of madness, voyeurism and the damage caused by child abuse. Carl Boehm's performance gets more emotionally affecting every time I watch this and the full horrific impact of just what was done to him as a child, by his barbarically cold scientist father, never fails to send shivers up my spine. His fledgling love affair with Anna Massey is truly heartbreaking and never less so than the moment when he excitedly bounces up and down punching the arms of his chair as he listens to her plans for a children's book that she wants him to take the photographs for... we see the buried child he could have been come to the surface in that one brief moment of escape, before the nightmare comes crashing in again. Horror cinema simply doesn't get any better than this! I am reminded of the kind of deep characterisation and intelligence that Ramsey always brings to his psychopathic killers and it has me salivating at the thought of an adaptation of 'The Face That Must Die' done with this level of committment and compassion for the human condition - as with Jaume Balagueró's current masterpiece, 'Sleep Tight'. After a fourth viewing 'Peeping Tom' has now moved above 'Psycho' in Stevie's Top 10 horror movies ever made list. I picked it as part of a themed night's viewing on the watching camera in horror cinema, along with... 'Videodrome' (1983) by David Cronenberg is, I now believe, after several increasingly impressed viewings, the great man's masterpiece and the most insidiously disturbing and original film he ever made. It also features one of the defining performances of James Woods' impressive career as the immoral and sleazy anti-hero who wins our sympathy, after initially being just about as repellant as can be imagined, by getting way in over his head - when he thought he'd seen it all. The influence of J.G. Ballard is all over the movie but this was entirely Cronenberg's own creation and, as such, eclipses any of his later more critically lauded adaptations of other's work. Get back to this type of incendiary filmmaking, Dave, please! This is the finest film ever made on the subject of snuff movies and our fascination with watching the unimaginable, from a cosy distance. A perfect allegory of what the YouTube generation now represents in terms of human evolution. "Long live the new flesh!" And that was followed by... 'REC' (2007) by Jaume Balagueró & Paco Plaza is perhaps the finest and scariest found footage horror film of recent years - the best ever made being, of course, Deodato's 'Cannibal Holocaust' (1980). There is nothing new or original here but what we are presented with is a pitch perfect exercise in escalating terror and dislocation, on the part of the protagonist and the viewer, as we follow a chirpy TV documentary crew filming a "typical" night out with the local fire department. They respond to a routine call and find themselves trapped in an apartment block, with no idea what is going on, while all hell breaks loose around them. Inspired by 'The Blair Witch Project' (1999) & '28 Days Later' (2002) the movie finally reveals itself as much indebted to Lamberto Bava's 'Demons II' (1986) and is as great a way to scare the shit out of yourself on a night in alone as I have seen. A modern classic! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
'The Ape Man' (1943) by William Beaudine is another of those cheapjack horrors that kept Bela Lugosi employed in the 1940s while sapping the spirit from the man at the same time. This is one of the better and more entertaining efforts but not for any reason the director or scriptwriter intended. Hilarious hokum from start to finish this has Lugosi as a mad scientist who accidentally morphs himself with a gorilla and ends up looking like Roddy McDowell in 'Planet Of The Apes'. Desperate to reverse the process before his human side is completely eclipsed by simian urges - thus pre-empting the plot of 'The Fly' by over a decade - he is forced to roam the streets by night harvesting human hormones from any hapless victims who cross his path, while helped by his test subject gorilla, Esme, who has fallen hopelessly in love with him and thinks nothing of twisting the heads off anyone he orders her to. Woefully inept in every department but impossible to dislike the film ends on a memorably tragic note as Esme is gunned down in a hail of bullets by police while reaching out for the man she loves, and been callously spurned by, with a final, tearful, "ooo ooo urk... uh". By this stage the tears were rolling down my face - no, seriously! 'The House Of Clocks' (1989) by Lucio Fulci surprised me greatly by being one of the finest and spookiest films of the man's later years. This is a highly original ghost story with more than a touch of 'The Twilight Zone' about it. We are introduced to a sweet elderly couple who live with their creepy maid and gardener in a rambling gothic mansion in the Italian countryside. The doddery old head of the household has a vast collection of clocks and watches decorating every room and passageway that he dotes on as if they were his children, talking to them on his neverending treks through the house winding each of them in turn while his chatterbox wife fusses after him dusting and tutting. But something is not quite right about this chirpy old couple, with their twinkling eyes and merry smiles, for in a room at the top of the house lie two preserved young corpses in their wedding clothes who have been staked through the throats with iron spikes. What goes on here we wonder? The peace of their existence is shattered when three young thugs on a joyride from the city break in planning to rob the place. In the ensuing melee they end up murdering everyone in the house, the first accidentally and the rest to silence the witnesses. At the death of their "master" every clock in the house stops dead and when the gang try to leave they find themselves unable to while, frighteningly, all the clocks begin to run backwards at exactly the same time. What follows is as surreal and damn creepy a tale of long drawn out and typically bloody supernatural revenge as Fulci ever directed and there is a particularly satisfying and bizarre final twist that winds everything up brilliantly. One of his best and most underrated horror films, imho. 'REC2' (2009) by Jaume Balagueró & Paco Plaza is an equally masterful sequel that continues on the action of the same night at exactly the point 'REC' left off. The apartment block has been put under military quarantine and sealed off from the outside world due to the homicidal madness inducing contagion that rampages inside. Into this hell-like mayhem are sent a crack unit of soldiers armed to the teeth and dressed in bio suits with cameras attached to their helmets. From there we have not so much an 'Aliens' (1986) inspired re-run of the first movie rather than a genuinely frightening and engrossing expansion of the mystery while never letting the action or nerve-shredding suspense slip for a second. I loved this every bit as much as the original and, in fact, the two films work so tightly together, the end of this one completing a perfect circle of plot development, that one can't imagine them existing apart. From what I hear the rest of the franchise doesn't live up to the terrifying charge of this two-part nightmare and, as ever, dilutes their impact - so I won't be going anywhere near 'REC3', 'REC4', REC5', etc... With these two films and his current masterpiece of Hitchcockian horror/suspense, 'Sleep Tight', Jaume Balagueró has rubber stamped his reputation as possibly the best horror director working today. I really must catch his adaptation of Ramsey's 'The Nameless' (1999)!! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Next triple has largely picked itself: 'The Witches' (1966) by Cyril Frankel - and written by Nigel Kneale. 'The House Of Witchcraft' (1989) by Umberto Lenzi. 'Ringu II' (1999) by Hideo Nakata. | ||
| David_lees (David_lees) Username: David_lees Registered: 12-2011 Posted From: 92.22.55.247 |
Well, with REC so far the rest of the franchise is only REC 3, which I haven't seen but seems to go for more of an OTT horror comedy feel. REC 4 is due to be a continuation of the Angela Vidal storyline. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.167.146.41 |
Rec 3 is well worth watching. It might not be the concentrated exercise in terror that the first two are but it's a really good film with a few genuine scares, a few laugh out loud moments and some well deserved pot shots at the limitations of the sub-genre the first 2 helped to kick start. It's such a different beast to the first two that it doesn't impact on them. I thought it was a really brave decision to go in the direction they did and, the more I think about it, the more I actually like it. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Picked up in the past week for future triple bills: 'Halloween II' (1981) by Rick Rosenthal - haven't seen it since first release in the cinema when I was all of 16. The only other one of the franchise I have any time for. It's an unfeasibly excellent sequel to the best slasher movie ever made. 'Troll' (1986) by John Carl Buechler - starring the incomparable Michael Moriarty & one of my all time dream women, Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Never seen it. The infamous 'Troll II' (1990) by Drake Floyd. A film that's reputation goes before it as a serious contender for the best "worst horror film" ever made. Here's hoping... I do like a bit of cheese. 'Two Evil Eyes' (1990) by Dario Argento & George A. Romero. A two story portmanteau adaptation of Poe's "The Facts In The Case Of M. Valdemar" (Romero & starring the luscious Adrienne Barbeau) & "The Black Cat" (Argento & starring the one and only Harvey Keitel). Can't wait!! 'Sleepless' (2001) by Dario Argento. Bar his excellent 'Masters Of Horror' episodes I have yet to see any of Argento's films later than 'The Stendahl Syndrome' (1996) - which I loved - so looking forward to this with bated breath and crossed fingers... 'The Card Player' (2004) by Dario Argento. As above. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Found a great new second hand DVD shop in Lisburn at the weekend and went a bit mad buying: 'Zombieland' (2009) by Ruben Fleischer - missed it in the cinema and have it on good authority that it's a quality and very funny horror-comedy. With a cast like that it's got to be half decent and surely worth £3. And, after years of searching, I picked up George A. Romero's great 'Trilogy Of The Dead' box set, released by Anchor, for a paltry fiver in absolutely mint condition!! The definitive versions of; 'Night Of The Living Dead' (1968), 'Dawn Of The Dead' (1978) - the Director's Cut version that I've never seen before!!!! - and 'Day Of The Dead' (1985), which I haven't seen since it was first released in the cinema. After this groundbreaking horror trilogy all other zombie movies, including the director's own misguided recent efforts, are merely academic footnotes in comparison. For the record, only 'Shaun Of The Dead' (2004), as the perfect spoof, and 'The Walking Dead' TV series, as the ultimate expansion of the post-apocalypse premise, are really worth getting excited about, imho. 'Zombieland' has a lot to live up to... And on TV I picked up the Season 3 box set of 'Bewitched', having already got and watched the still sublime first two seasons. In this one Tabitha is a troublesome toddler. £8! Plus, at long last, the complete 'Blackadder' box set for a mere tenner. I haven't seen Series 1 (the funniest, imo) since it was first broadcast and rank the show as one of the greatest and funniest sitcoms ever made. It's in my Top 10. At that point I had to stop myself. Worth every penny! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Added to the DVD list: 'Macabro' (1980) by Lamberto Bava 'Pieces' (1982) by Juan Piquer Simón 'The Stendahl Syndrome' (1996) by Dario Argento That only leaves; 'Four Flies On Grey Velvet' (1972), the horror TV series 'Door Into Darkness' (1973), 'Inferno' (1980), 'The Phantom Of The Opera' (1998), 'Do You Like Hitchcock?' (2005), 'Masters Of Horror : Season 2' (2006-07), 'Mother Of Tears' (2007), 'Giallo' (2009) & 'Dracula' (2012) - phew - until I have the whole Argento collection and can attempt that long awaited chrono watch! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Picked up at lunchtime for £3 each: 'Salem's Lot' (1979) by Tobe Hooper - the best thing he ever did, this is the definitive faithful and scary Stephen King adaptation. No filmmaker has ever got closer to the universal appeal of King's novels than here. 'The People Under The Stairs' (1991) by Wes Craven - possibly the best and most original film he ever made, including ANOES. Craven is the closest thing we have to a modern day Roger Corman figure. When he was good he produced some of the most iconic horror films in cinema history, when he was bad he made some of the shittest films of all time - and both were fatally ruled by the lure of filthy lucre. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Three new additions to the recent horror pile: 'Inland Empire' (2006) by David Lynch - his masterpiece and one of the most nightmarishly unsettling horror films ever made, imo. 'Mother Of Tears' (2007) by Dario Argento - the final part of his Three Mothers trilogy and I am aware it was universally panned at the time... but has since started to garner something of a cult following. Very curious to see it and make my own mind up. 'The Mist' (2007) by Frank Darabont - at long last I'm gonna see it! | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
Boy, I can't wait to hear your review of 'The Mist,' Stevie... 'nuff said on that, though.... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
All this talk of Ray Harryhausen and my love/fear of stop motion animation has inspired me to order 'The Complete Short Films Of Jan Švankmajer 1958-1992' box set. Every short animated nightmare the man ever made, spanning 34 years of uniquely disturbing creativity. No other filmmaker has ever frightened me as much as this guy! Now just need the feature films; 'Alice' (1988), 'Faust' (1994), 'Conspirators Of Pleasure' (1996), 'Little Otik' (2000), 'Lunacy' (2005) & 'Surviving Life' (2010) to have his entire collection. I've seen them all, on TV and the big screen, apart from the last one and been left traumatised after every one. These are the sort of films I don't want to watch but can't drag my eyes away from in horrified fascination... he is one of the great unheralded geniuses of horror cinema, imho. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 212.123.8.20 |
***SPOILER*** Pieces is fun, especially the outcome, when we find out what the killer has been doing with all those body parts. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Picked up another two 70s classics for a couple of quid each: 'Deep River Savages' (1972) by Umberto Lenzi - the notorious film that started the 70s Italian cannibal boom and one I've always wanted to see. Apparently it was inspired by 'A Man Called Horse' (1970) - great movie! 'Rabid' (1977) by David Cronenberg - one of his best films and I'll finally get to see the uncut version. Of his horrors that only leaves; 'The Brood' (1979), 'The Dead Zone' (1983), 'Dead Ringers' (1988), 'The Naked Lunch' (1991), 'eXistenZ' (1999) & 'Spider' (2002) still to get. I still hold out hope of him returning to the genre one of these days. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
And another two for less than £4: 'Shock' (1977) by Mario Bava - his last completed film before his untimely death, erroneously retitled 'Beyond The Door II' in some quarters. This stars one of my favourite scream queens, the adorable Daria Nicolodi, and I believe is an 'Exorcist' inspired tale of demonic possession. Never seen it. 'Slaughter High' (1986) by Mark Ezra, Peter Litten & George Dugdale - a rare British slasher movie, filmed in London but set in the States, that features a rather creepy looking jester as the killer and stars the utterly divine Caroline Munro (God, I love her). | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 178.116.58.242 |
I see that The Murder Clinic (La Llama nel Corpo)(1967) has finally been released on dvd! http://www.trashpalace.com/collectorsmovies/giallo.htm | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Another three essential cheapies: 'The Spiral Staircase' (1946) by Robert Siodmak - for me this is the most influential psycho thriller ever made and still one of the very best and scariest. A classic giallo decades before the concept even existed. 'Severance' (2006) by Christopher Smith - highly entertaining and gruesome horror comedy in the wake of 'Shaun Of The Dead' (2004). Hardly a classic but great fun nonetheless and a solid follow-up to 'Creep' (2005) for this talented British horror auteur. 'Black Death' (2010) by Christopher Smith - which completes his collection and is the only one of his I haven't seen. Heard very good reports and looking forward to it. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Just picked up a notorious Hammer (very much) horror film on DVD that I've long wanted to see and never thought I would. Val Guest's 'The Camp On Blood Island' (1957) was only deemed suitable for home viewing in 2009. Not just because of their trademark groundbreaking X-Certificate concentration on explicit violence but because of the non-PC subject matter, based on Lord Russell of Liverpool's notorious exposé of the unimaginable war crimes (including barbarically sadistic torture, mutilation, experimentation and cannibalism - not to mention eventual execution) inflicted on Allied POWs during the Second World War, 'The Knights Of Bushido' - which I own and have read, along with its equally shocking companion volume, 'The Scourge Of The Swastika'. Not that these atrocities didn't happen and shouldn't have been documented, despite fears of upsetting the Japanese in the aftermath of Hiroshima & Nagasaki. Two monstrously inhuman wrongs don't make a right but neither does one automatically negate the horror of the other. This is the great grandaddy of ordeal horror films and should make for interesting comparison with my current viewing of the BBC's more even-handed 'Colditz'. Both kind of camps existed during that awful time of global madness but the Japanese excelled at treating captured soldiers, whom they deemed devoid of honour for having allowed themselves to be taken alive, every bit as inhumanly as the Nazi SS death camps dealt with the "Jewish problem". If the human race is to advance to any kind of moral stability and across-the-board acceptance of our differences then truths have to be faced up to, not buried, and lessons need to be learned and reparations made. As the advertising poster for 'The Camp On Blood Island' declared; "We may be able to forgive but we should never forget." What price now our remembrance of the victims of crime? Discuss. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 212.183.128.93 |
Really chuffed to have picked up three classic horror DVDs at lunchtime today for a quid each: 'The Phantom Of The Opera' (1925) by Rupert Julian - this is the definitive restored and remastered edition that I've never seen before! Lon Chaney's finest hour and one of the most iconic horror films in cinema history. 'Isle Of The Dead' (1945) by Mark Robson - produced by the great Val Lewton and starring Boris Karloff in, apparently, one of his greatest roles. I've never seen it! 'Bedlam' (1946) by Mark Robson - exactly the same comments apply! | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.27.119 |
You have treats in store, Stevie. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Thanks, Ramsey. I believe they're the only two Val Lewton horrors I haven't seen which makes the find even more fortuitous. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Just checked and they are indeed the only two I haven't seen! Here's how I'd rank the rest: 1. 'I Walked With A Zombie' (1943) by Jacques Tourneur 2. 'Cat People' (1942) by Jacques Tourneur 3. 'Curse Of The Cat People' (1944) by Robert Wise & Gunther von Fritsch 4. 'The Leopard Man' (1943) by Jacques Tourneur 5. 'The Ghost Ship' (1943) by Mark Robson 6. 'The Body Snatcher' (1945) by Robert Wise 7. 'The Seventh Victim' (1943) by Mark Robson But they're all extraordinarily literate horror classics, of course. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 212.183.128.179 |
Horror triple bill time again: 'The Black Dragons' (1942) by William Nigh - starring Bela Lugosi in a wartime sci-fi/horror thriller that sounds astonishingly ahead of its time and features a joint Nazi/Japanese plan to replace important US politicians and businessmen with surgically produced exact duplicates. A forerunner of the paranoid thrillers of the 50s. 'Beyond Evil' (1980) by Herb Freed - I know nothing about this one other than that it stars the ever reliable John Saxon. 'Ringu 0' (2000) by Norio Tsuruta - the final part of the Sadako trilogy and an explanatory prequel to Hideo Nakata's first two classic horror films. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Three recent horror DVD additions to the TBW pile: 'Mum And Dad' (2008) by Steven Sheil - billed as an instant ordeal horror classic of the modern era, to rival 'Wolf Creek' (2005), I'm quite excited about this one and just a tad nervous... 'Snowtown' (2011) by Justin Kurzel - take everything I've heard about 'Mum And Dad' and multiply it by ten, apparently... ulp! 'The Wake Wood' (2011) by David Keating - Hammer's long awaited big comeback movie, of which I have heard encouragingly good reports, after much trepidation. A round-up of all my recent triple bills is being worked on and will follow anon. But, in the meantime, I had a great idea for a themed triple bill at lunchtime: 'Bedazzled' (1967) by Stanley Donnen - one of the best and cleverest laugh out loud horror comedies ever made, imho. Oh Yes it is! Peter Cook has never been more weirdly creepy. Need to get the DVD! 'The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins' (1971) by Graham Stark - an unfairly neglected spoof portmanteau "horror" from Tigon Productions with a staggering wealth of British comedy talent in inspired form as, one-by-one, they succumb to the Devil's temptations. It used to be shown on telly all the time when I was a kid but I haven't seen it since and it remains one of my favourite macabre comedies of the era. Must get the DVD! 'Seven' (1995) by David Fincher - perhaps the most frightening, and certainly the most disturbing, darkest of dark horror comedies (as such it is - get that killer punchline) that has ever been made and an unassailable masterpiece of modern filmmaking that will forever stand as its director's Ace calling card. I haven't seen it since first release in the cinema and have been keeping the rewatch for a very special occasion. I have the DVD. I won't ask anyone to point out the obvious connection. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
A round-up of the last few months triple bills: ‘The Mystery Of The Wax Museum’ (1933) by Michael Curtiz – The classic grand guignol plot, weirdly atmospheric early colour cinematography, still scarily horrific make-up, spirited direction by a true Hollywood great and engaging performances, particularly from Lionel Atwill as the all too human “monster” and Glenda Farrell (who steals the show) as the feisty lady newspaper reporter who proves his nemesis, make this one of the best horror films of its era and every bit as entertaining as the day it was released. Groundbreaking and still effective for a modern audience, as it is, I believe Andre de Toth’s 1953 remake, ‘House Of Wax’ with Vincent Price (see above), is slightly the better film. ‘The House Of Lost Souls’ (1989) by Umberto Lenzi – the second film from the ‘House Of Doom’ series is an enjoyably clichéd cheapjack rip-off of ‘The Shining’ (1980) set in an abandoned hotel in the mountains with a sinister reputation that a group of holidaying young people and a boy take shelter in when the road ahead is blocked by a landslide. There is nothing new in what follows but Lenzi has great fun dreaming up one imaginatively gory death sequence after another while scaring those left alive witless with a procession of ghastly spectres from the hotel’s bloody past. I thoroughly enjoyed this for what it was. ‘Donnie Darko’ (2001) by Richard Kelly – my first viewing of the 20 minutes longer Director’s Cut version and the first time I’ve watched it at all since it came out in the cinema. I remember being undecided about it back then but the rewatch came as something of a revelation. In my opinion the film fully deserves its much vaunted cult status and is something of a one-off leftfield masterpiece. Whether that is down to some happy chance alchemical reaction given the time and the creative team responsible [see ‘The Wicker Man’ (1973) as the perfect example of this] or is genuine evidence of filmmaking genius is still open to debate but the quality of the direction, script, acting, cinematography and Kubrickian use of music as well as the successfully Lynchian weirdness of tone, the laugh out loud black humour (and this film is much funnier than I gave it credit for) and the powerhouse emotional impact of the ingenious pay-off are undeniable. I stand converted! ‘Bride Of The Monster’ (1955) by Edward D. Wood Jnr – the infamous purveyor of schlock’s first horror film this nonsensical load of rubbish features Bela Lugosi as a mad scientist in control of a giant rubber octopus that he sends into the swamps around his lab in search of victims while ably assisted by Tor Johnson’s hulking mute manservant. There’s something about him requiring a bride, hence the kidnapping of a pretty female reporter, Loretta King, and a plan to create an army of atomic super-soldiers with which he will take over the world but the plot is merely an excuse for one diabolically misconceived horror set piece after another that had me rolling about in stitches. Impossible to dislike and every bit as godawful bad as its reputation suggests! ‘The Sweet House Of Horrors’ (1989) by Lucio Fulci – third of the ‘House Of Doom’ series and a shocking letdown after the unexpected excellence of ‘The House Of Clocks’ and gruesome fun of ‘The House Of Lost Souls’ (see above). It would appear that all Fulci’s efforts went into his first film in the quartet – one of his best – for this load of unmitigated crap has flung together “contractual obligation” written all over it. The film starts with a typically bravura double murder sequence that promises good things but from there the director’s heart clearly wasn’t in the project judging by the half-baked script, perfunctory direction, woeful acting (even by Italian B-picture standards) and shockingly poor special effects. With a bit of effort this tale of two children haunted by the overly-protective ghosts of their murdered parents could have been half decent but the intensely irritating over-acting of the child actors and piss poor ghost effects make this an ordeal to sit through and easily the worst Lucio Fulci film I have seen. A dreadful aberration for the great man. ‘Ringu’ (1998) by Hideo Nakata – only my second viewing of this famous shocker that kick-started the Asian Horror boom of the last 15 years (now all but fizzled out). What impresses is the engrossing subtlety of the script coupled with Nakata’s deliberately languid pacing that builds to several of the horror genre’s most effective shock sequences. It is this careful filmmaking craft and the admirably understated commitment of the cast, who convince us utterly of the supernatural threat they believe hangs over them, that makes the film still stand out from the slew of more lurid horrors that poured from the region in its wake. With the idea of the cursed video tape that condemns anyone viewing it to death one week later and the briefly glimpsed vision of that jerky, stick thin, long-haired spectre, Sadako, the filmmakers gave to the world a new nightmare for the 21st Century that Hollywood couldn’t possibly compete with. ‘The Witches’ (1966) by Cyril Frankel – this has long been one of my favourite Hammer Horrors and it was only in recent years that I realised it had been scripted by Nigel Kneale. It is one of his and the studio’s best films and has been criminally neglected, imo. Following the classic template of the new schoolteacher arriving in an outwardly welcoming English village that hides a dark secret – as Rosemary would put it, “All of them witches!” – the picture is an understated and subtly menacing exercise in slow build paranoia and suspense at its most gripping. Joan Fontaine is riveting and wonderfully sympathetic as the heroine who has just returned to teaching after a nervous breakdown and who is approached by one of her pupils in a state of terror at some upcoming summer festival. Her well meaning investigations and what she uncovers influenced everything from ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ to ‘The Wicker Man’ and ‘A Place To Die’ to ‘Harvest Home’, ‘Children Of The Corn’ and beyond... A 1960s horror classic to cherish! ‘The House Of Witchcraft’ (1989) by Umberto Lenzi – the ‘House Of Doom’ series thankfully concluded with a return to decent quality, well mounted, traditional Italian horror. This is another loveably clichéd and predictable but thoroughly entertaining shocker from Lenzi. The plot is that old stand-by of the hero being haunted from youth by a recurring nightmare involving his own grisly demise at the hands of a hideous crone in some creepy gothic mansion in the country. Why are we not surprised when, one summer, he and his wife hire a holiday villa in the Italian countryside and upon arriving our hero recognises the house from his dreams. Of course – this being a horror film – they stay anyway! You can guess the rest... and, yes, it involves various guests being introduced for the sole purpose of being gorily offed by the be-warted old witch who haunts the place, etc. I really enjoyed it! ‘Ringu II’ (1999) by Hideo Nakata – one of those rare sequels that works as an engrossing expansion and semi-explanation of the supernatural mystery at the heart of the original, while introducing enough new elements and tantalising questions to make it more than just a tired rehash. The plot follows on exactly where the last film left off with a new set of protagonists seeking an answer to the inexplicable deaths and disappearances surrounding the urban myth of the cursed video tape and the vengeful ghost of Sadako. These now central characters appeared in support roles in the original and the film has the same perfectly judged pacing, quality writing and understated acting that make the shock moments, when they come, all the more effective. The original players from ‘Ringu’ also crop up either as themselves, in flashbacks or as warning ghosts – all of which makes for a pleasing sense of continuity and attention to detail throughout the project. In the end this one can’t ever have as iconic a resonance as the first film and the pay-off, while hauntingly weird, lacks the same killer punch but as sequels go this really is some achievement that more than rewards concentration from the viewer and really improved, for me, on a second viewing. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Here's how I'd rank the 'House Of Doom' series: 1. 'The House Of Clocks' (1989) by Lucio Fulci 2. 'The House Of Lost Souls' (1989) by Umbert Lenzi 3. 'The House Of Witchcraft' (1989) by Umberto Lenzi 4. 'The Sweet House Of Horrors' (1989) by Lucio Fulci | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
And my most recent horror triple bill: 'The Black Dragons' (1942) by William Nigh - this is one of the better more entertaining pulp horror thrillers starring Bela Lugosi from the 1940s. The plot is strikingly original and imaginative for its time and involves a Nazi/Japanese plot to surgically alter a group of fanatical Jap agents, known as the Black Dragons, and switch them with various influential US politicians and business moguls to critically destabilise the Allied War effort from within. Lugosi is in fine form as the plastic surgeon who performs the operations and is then betrayed and sentenced to death so that he can never divulge what he knows. Escaping under an assumed identity and with a new face of his own (Lugosi's face) this black garbed avenging angel sets about killing one-by-one each of the Black Dragon agents in their new identities back in the States while avoiding the authorities who unwittingly protect them. An excellent fast paced and still effective chiller this unassuming little paranoid propaganda piece pre-empted the Communist sci-fi allegories of the 1950s and was virtually remade in 'The Outer Limits' episode "The Hundred Days Of The Dragon" (1963). An unfairly neglected gem of the era, imho. 'Beyond Evil' (1980) by Herb Freed - another entertainly clichéd schlock horror cheapie buoyed by all round excellent straight-faced performances by John Saxon, Lynda Day George, Michael Dante & David Opatoshu (every one a reliable familiar face). The plot has been done to death but still holds the attention and provides plenty of adequately mounted supernatural horror set pieces and gruesome deaths. Your typical newlywed American couple decide to purchase an old colonial villa on some unnamed Caribbean island despite the local villagers warnings that is haunted by the evil spirit of a witch who was murdered there centuries ago after having sold her soul to the Devil. Before very long the pretty blonde wife (Day George) is having strange nightmares, experiencing blackouts and exhibiting bizarre out-of-character behaviour and her husband (Saxon), in desperation, first turns to the doctors, who are no help, before grudgingly seeking the aid of a local wise man and healer (Opatoshu) who claims she is the victim of possession, etc... you can guess the rest. Hardly classic material but a fine and eminently watchable horror B-picture typical of its era. 'Ringu 0' (2000) by Norio Tsuruta - the last of the trilogy and an explanatory prequel to Hideo Nakata's first two films. I had steeled myself for an unnecessary cash-in so what was my joyous surprise when the prequel turned out to be even more memorable and scary than the excellent sequel (see above). Set 30 years before the events of 'Ringu' (1998) the story concentrates on the teenage Sadako as an initially sympathetic Carrie-like misfit being bullied at school and misunderstood, or even feared, by her elders - who whisper strange rumours about the circumstances of her birth and who her real father may be... How this tale of painful coming of age ties in with the fateful psychic experiment that kick-started the video-tape curse and led to Sadako's ultimate demonic fate makes for truly riveting horror entertainment, knowing what we know and fearing what we fear. An unexpectedly excellent and thoroughly satisfying conclusion and start to the trilogy with some of the scariest set pieces in the series and a great central performance by Yukie Nakama as the ill-fated heroine/monster. Here's how I'd rank the three films: 1. 'Ringu' (1998) by Hideo Nakata 2. 'Ringu 0' (2000) by Norio Tsuruta 3. 'Ringu II' (1999) by Hideo Nakata One of the greatest horror trilogies ever made, imho. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Now comes the fun part... planning tonight's triple bill, having so many new DVDs to pick from. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Decided on three classics I've never seen before: 'The Camp On Blood Island' (1958) by Val Guest - the notorious and long banned ordeal Hammer horror POW movie that ties in neatly with my reading of 'Empire Of The Sun' and watching of 'Colditz'. 'Deep River Savages' (1972) by Umberto Lenzi - more extreme ordeal jungle based horror with the notorious classic that spawned the Italian cannibal boom of the 1970s. 'Black Death' (2010) by Christopher Smith - and more people doing unspeakable things to each other in a dark forest. I've heard great things about this grimy and gruesome mediaeval ordeal horror starring Sean Bean and look forward to it. | ||
| David_lees (David_lees) Username: David_lees Registered: 12-2011 Posted From: 92.28.164.7 |
I watched Black Death fairly recently. It's impressively grim and unpleasant in tone. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.151.5.205 |
I thought BLACK DEATH was pretty good. Finally caught up with it a few weeks ago. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.25.120 |
Ah, Bride of the Monster! I wish I could claim it influenced my Incarnate, but I hadn't seen it then. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 212.183.128.195 |
I love 'Incarnate', Ramsey! I keep coming back to it when I try to decide on my favourite of your novels. I'd rank it as one of the scariest and most disturbingly nightmarish things I've ever read or that you ever wrote. There is real visionary madness at work in those pages, imho. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 178.116.59.128 |
Same here. While I haven't read all of the later novels, this is a masterwork. For the very first time in my life (and I consider myself well-read) I had the sense of experiencing what some of the characters were experiencing. No mean feat. Some of the imagery will stay with me forever. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 93.97.250.111 |
The reason Ramsey Campbell is my favourite living writer is specifically because of his longevity, prolificism and humbling consistency of quality throughout his career. Robert A. Heinlein, Patricia Highsmith & Graham Greene had that same rare quality, for me. That's why they're my four favourite popular literary authors. William Golding, J.G. Ballard & Dostoevsky may have had greater genius but they didn't provide the sheer volume of pleasure that those four did and, in Ramsey's case, still do. Long may he reign. My next novel, after 'Empire Of The Sun', will be the long awaited 'The Grin Of The Dark'. Can't wait!! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Just ordered these DVDs by two of my favourite, though very different, oddball directors: 'Alice' (1988) by Jan Švankmajer - his feature debut and the greatest adaptation of Lewis Carroll's fantasy masterpiece ever filmed. I've seen it twice before, on Channel 4 and on the big screen at the QFT during a season of his works, and want to watch it again as part of my current chrono watch of all his films (currently up to his 1988 shorts). 'Bad Biology' (2008) by the one and only Frank Henenlotter - I only recently found out about this return to filmmaking by my favourite extreme horror comedy director. His first since the early 90s and reports I've heard sound like business as usual. Here's hoping... because he'd yet to make a bad or any less than riotously entertaining film up to this, imho. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
And couldn't resist ordering these three of the greatest "lost classic" British comedy horror films (from the absolute golden era of British comedy) ever made: 'Bedazzled' (1967) by Stanley Donen - Peter Cook & Dudley Moore's finest hour. In truth, if they had never appeared in anything else they would still be remembered as cult heroes for this uniquely hilarious and insidiously creepy ultimate retelling of the Legend of Faust. Satan has never been more charming nor more deliciously wicked than here... 'The Bed Sitting Room' (1969) by Richard Lester - by far and away the great doyen of the 60s best and most ludicrously underrated, and largely forgotten, masterpiece starring basically everyone who was anyone in British comedy at that time. It is the single best post-apocalypse sci-fi/horror movie ever made, coming from a time when the concept actually meant something terrifyingly real! 'The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins' (1971) by Graham Stark - the ultimate spoof portmanteau horror movie that beat 'The League Of Gentlemen' at their own game while Tigon Productions (and Amicus) were still at the height of their powers. This outrageously neglected masterpiece is one of the most deliriously rich comedic outpourings of its golden era (see above) and subtly disturbs as much as it hilariates... growing ever more disquieting afterward, the more one thinks about it. The above three films represent British cinema and comedy at its absolute pinnacle of creative originality, imho. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 93.97.250.111 |
At long last I picked up a copy of Roman Polanski's notorious gothic horror version of 'Macbeth' (1971) - I've longed to see this for as long as I can remember. Up there with 'Straw Dogs', 'A Clockwork Orange' & 'The Exorcist' as one of the great 70s big budget, big director shockers I grew up hearing awed whispers about without being able to see them. 'Macbeth' is going straight into the next triple bill along with something suitable to make a literary theme. Hmmm... | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.19.249 |
Oh, thanks for your thoughts on Incarnate, Stevie! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 86.24.62.55 |
And thank you for writing it, Ramsey. I've just started 'The Grin Of The Dark' and that chapter with the clowns, even though nothing tangibly threatening happens, has already freaked me out. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
Stevie, Polanski's Macbeth is marvelous!!! Second-best Shakespeare-on-film to only Olivier's Hamlet, imho. With maybe Zefferelli's Romeo & Juliet a third (or maybe another one of Olivier's in third, too). | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I can't wait to see it, Craig, and believe I've come up with the perfect accompaniment: 'The Phantom Of The Opera' (1925) by Rupert Julian - the digitally restored silent masterpiece, that I've never seen in its entirety, featuring Lon Chaney in one of horror's most iconic roles. I've read the Gaston Leroux novel and it's bloody marvellous - up there with 'Dracula' and 'Frankenstein', imo. I am a huge fan of silent cinema, particularly the comedies and expressionistic horror films. I could never grow tired of watching them. That's just one of the reasons I'm finding the plot of 'The Grin Of The Dark' so hugely enjoyable (if that's the right word for being scared witless). 'Macbeth' (1971) by Roman Polanski - the great man's notoriously gore drenched gothic horror version of my favourite Shakespeare play (imo, this was the true originator of the classic gothic melodrama, long before Walpole came on the scene). Seeing this at last will be the fulfillment of a long held personal ambition. 'Faust' (1994) by Jan Švankmajer - which I've just ordered and saw once before when it creeped the living hell out of me. Based on Goethe it is the most nightmarishly demonic film Švankmajer ever made. I'm shuddering now at the thought of seeing it again... much of the imagery floats in the back of my mind like some hideous half-remembered fever dream. Now that's a triple bill I'm salivating at the prospect of watching! But first I have to watch this: 'The Magician' (1958) by Ingmar Bergman - never seen it before and just ordered it!! 'Alice' (1988) by Jan Švankmajer - the most nightmarish visualisation of Lewis Carroll's insane universe ever put on film! 'Mulholland Drive' (2001) by David Lynch - for the first time!! Just ordered it too. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
'Faust'... I'm shuddering now at the thought... much of the imagery floats in the back of my mind like some hideous half-remembered fever dream.... You've just described my memory of Faust, too. But not the film—the 1971 album by the German band of the same name. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
My latest triple bill: 'The Camp On Blood Island' (1958) by Val Guest – one of the most controversial films Hammer Studios ever made this exposé of the war crimes inflicted on Allied POWs by their Japanese captors during the Second World War still has the power to shock, infuriate and move a modern audience. Filmed in pristine black and white and with grim-faced commitment by a cast of familiar British character actors – who look convincingly half starved - it pulls no punches in its sadly accurate portrayal of the Japanese military’s callous disregard for human life and dignity during that time of global madness [read J.G. Ballard’s ‘Empire Of The Sun’ (1984) or Lord Russell Of Liverpool’s ‘The Knights Of Bushido’ (1958) for irrefutable corroboration]. Thankfully this isn’t just a catalogue of atrocities but works also as a genuinely gripping and suspenseful thriller, apparently based on a real incident, in which the inmates of a POW camp led by the notorious sadist, Commander Yamamitsu, learn, via a concealed radio, that the atomic bomb has dropped and Japan has surrendered... to their horror – because Yamamitsu has already vowed to slaughter every one of them if Japan loses the war! Amid the petty cruelties, physical, mental and emotional torture (they force prisoners to burn unopened letters from home) and trumped up executions being carried out on a daily basis good old André Morell (in a fantastic performance), as a wonderfully stoic British Colonel of the old school, hatches a plan to destroy the Japanese radio room – a suicide mission for the randomly selected hostages held for decapitation after any acts of sabotage or escape attempts – and to keep the news from their captors for as long as possible while they concoct an emergency last ditch plan for a mass uprising to save as many lives as they can. This is not only one of the best Hammer Horrors I have seen but also one of the most brutally authentic war movies of its era, when memories were all too fresh. Excellent filmmaking all round that everyone involved should have been commended for rather than have had to face the storm of outrage from the press and subsequent banning – to avoid upsetting Japanese sensibilities – that the film was greeted with. These things happened. They in no way condone the use of the atomic option against civilian targets but, like the Nazi Holocaust, they should not be forgotten, denied or ever allowed to happen again. End of story. 'Deep River Savages' (1972) by Umberto Lenzi – this really rather good Italian exploitation rip-off of ‘A Man Called Horse’ (1970) was a stroll in the park compared to the horrors of Blood Island, for all its scenes of rape, torture, mutilation and bloody cannibalism. An intrepid British wildlife photographer, played winningly by Ivan Rassimov, hires a boat and a local guide and goes on a cruise up-river into the emerald wilds of the Thai rainforest. Of course, this being a horror film, he pays extra to be taken deeper into the jungle than the guide is comfortable with and, while diving for underwater shots of exotic fish, ends up caught in the net ofa tribe of primitive “savages” – who have butchered the poor guide – and is taken back to their village for display as some kind of flippered fish-man. From there the plot follows that of ‘A Man Called Horse’ quite closely with initial horror at the natives brutal customs, and their degrading of him as less than human, gradually giving way to mutual respect and acceptance on both sides – after a suitably gruesome initiation rite for our hero – followed by romance blossoming with the village beauty (the luscious Me Me Lai), fighting off of rivals, much explicit lovemaking in the bushes, the resultant pregnancy and trial of giving birth without medical aid, etc. But this idyllic if somewhat unhygienic existence, complete with a little son, is doomed to be short lived when talk of the dreaded Kuru venturing into their territory is heard! The Kuru are a marauding rabble of stone age cannibals whose bloody raids introduce the explicit gore element that made the film notorious and spawned the Italian cannibal boom of the next ten years. There is only one scene of savagely naturalistic rape, murder, dismemberment and eating of human flesh but it sears the senses and is all the more effective for its isolation... in the same way that scene in ‘Deliverance’ (1972) affected the viewer. Overall this is a great old-fashioned adventure movie of survival in the wilderness and fascinating culture clash (I liked how no subtitles were used so we are left as much in the dark as the protagonist as to what is being said about him) and benefits immensely from having been filmed entirely on location. We are kept guessing right up until the final scene as to the hero’s ultimate loyalty and whether he will ever return to civilisation which provides rich emotional suspense and a powerful denouement. One of the best films of its kind that would only be bettered by Deodato’s apocalyptic ‘Cannibal Holocaust’ (1980). 'Black Death' (2010) by Christopher Smith – the latest horror offering from this talented British auteur is easily his best and most accomplished film to date, as well as his most harrowing and thought provoking. I absolutely loved ‘Creep’ (2004), thoroughly enjoyed ‘Severance’ (2006) and, after initial reticence, found that ‘Triangle’ (2009) really grew on me as a clever and rather surreal reinvention of the slasher genre... but ‘Black Death’ is something else altogether and may even have a touch of genuine profundity about it. This unrelentingly grim and gore splattered wallow in mediaeval barbarism and superstition is a fantastically convincing and gripping horror adventure with immaculately filthy period detail and a dark greyness of moral tone that perfectly captures the godless essence of the times, when the black plague ruled supreme and terror and religious persecution stalked the land. Sean Bean gives his best performance in years as the fanatical “Soldier of God” sent on a “Holy Mission” with his band of zealous cut-throats, protected by the blessing of the Church, in search of a fabled village of witches whose sorcery has kept them free from the Black Death at the price of their souls. They enlist the aid of a naive young monk, intensely played by Eddie Redmayne, as their guide through the dark forest and mist-swathed marshes, in which he grew up, that are said to hide the infernal village. Various obstacles are overcome along the way, including much satisfyingly bloody swashbuckling, before they reach their goal... a seeming Paradise nestled in a world of cruelty and pain. The film then turns into one of those great “outwardly welcoming small community that hides a dark secret and from which there is no escape” horror yarns, that I love so much, but, more than that, the overriding theme develops into a genuinely riveting examination of what truly defines Good and Evil, with all the surviving members of the expedition, most notably sad-eyed John Lynch (in another great performance), having to face soul-shattering moral dilemmas that challenge all their previously held conceptions of God and the Devil, salvation and damnation. This is brilliant filmmaking of real passion and guts in its remorseless tackling of the big philosophical questions concerning morality - rather than just being happy to entertain as another B-movie potboiler. It also contains one of the single hardest to watch torture sequences I have ever seen - on a par with Laurence Olivier’s drilling of Dustin Hoffman’s teeth in ‘Marathon Man’ (1976) but involving the whole body – and has one of the bleakest and most shattering endings of recent years. An unusually intelligent modern horror classic that is ripe for rewatching and heated debate, imo! And next up: 'The Magician' (1958) by Ingmar Bergman. 'Alice' (1988) by Jan Švankmajer. 'Mulholland Drive' (2001) by David Lynch. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 178.116.59.128 |
Omg, you've never seen Mulholland Drive!? Another experience I envy you. I don't think I spoil your pleasure by saying you shouldn't try to figure out what's going on from the word go. At least one complete website has been dedicated to the puzzle that this film really is. Lynch's masterpiece, without any doubt. There's one scene I cannot bear to watch. Guess which one. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I missed it in the cinema at the time, Hubert, and fate decreed that I never got round to seeing it until buying the DVD this week. Really looking forward to it! | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
Your mind will be blown with Mulholland Drive, Stevie. I believe I've worked out the major puzzle of the film... but the little puzzles, well, that might take some time. And yeah, Huw, there are scenes that make you jump, and a few disturbing moments have burned indelibly into my consciousness. Naomi Watts may never have been better. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.66.23.11 |
I've never seen Mulholland drive either. mainly because it was directed by david Lynch. I just don't get the adulation given to him. The only one of his films I've seen and liked was Blue velvet. The only thing I took away from Eraserhead was confusion. It was a silly, unintelligable mess of a film. My first words on leaving the cinema after watching it were "is that it?". I hated it. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
Don't let that deter you, Weber—I'm actually in semi-agreement with you on Eraserhead, I didn't care for it. ***sorta spoilers, I suppose*** No director has gotten closer to capturing on film what dreams are like, than David Lynch. Mulholland Drive to me is 2/3's a dream; Inland Empire (get it? "inland empire"?) is 100% dream. Like our dreams, they are chaotic, jumbled, non-sequiter, terrifying, fuzzy, romantic, surreal, disturbing, aching, semi-logical, interpretive. Give him another shot, with something else—maybe something less outré, like The Elephant Man or The Straight Story. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I seriously don't understand how anyone could fail to be impressed by 'Eraserhead'. In my opinion it is one of the most stunningly assured and original directorial debuts ever made. A film that was made on a shoestring budget by an amateur director with a cast of non-professional actors and that changed cinema forever. We can trace the influences that led up to it but David Lynch's first masterpiece was something no one had even imagined possible before... the filming of a nightmare that takes the viewer deeper inside the mind of the dreamer than has ever been accomplished by any other director - Dreyer, Bergman & Svankmajer included. I'll never forget the mind altering effect it had on me when I first saw it as a teenager late one Friday night on telly in the early 80s. All I heard the next week in school was... "Did you see it?!" No one could make head nor tail of it but the universal consensus was that those lucky enough to have caught it had witnessed genius at work. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I agree with you on 'Inland Empire', Craig. In my opinion it is one of the most important surreal horror films ever made and Lynch's crowning achievement as a director. It even tops 'Eraserhead' in the fucked up weirdness stakes and is an utterly hypnotic experience to sit through. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 212.183.128.88 |
Fuck!! Yes, yes, yes!! Bugger, I almost came there! Just picked up one of my all time favourite films that I love unconditionally after only one viewing about ten or fifteen years ago one night on Film 4. It is one of the great towering cinematic masterpieces, by one of my all time favourite mad genius directors, of the 20th Century and I love it, love it, love it!!!! Imagine a weird and funny and surreal as fuck combination of the genius of Charlie Chaplin & David Lynch at their most inspired and hypnotically fascinating and you may have some idea of the film I refer to. It was made in the 1960s... name that insane career ending masterpiece. Anyone? Except Weber or Tony or Sean as I already texted them after wiping the jissm off my jeans. A film as great as '2001 : A Space Odyssey' or 'Once Upon A Time In The West' from the same era - and that's my only clue. Okay, another clue... this director would have loved 'The Grin Of The Dark' and he's ridiculously hard to see these days. Bit of a forgotten auteur... but not by me!!!! | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 80.239.243.86 |
Currently watching Michael, a remarkably good film made all the more disturbing for its naturalistic and subdued treatment of some sensationalist subject matter. The way it implies events is nothing short of masterly. Was it made before or after the Fritzl case broke? I'm going to follow it up with Haneke's The Castle - the only one of his early films i've not seen, and for some much needed light relief, i think i'll watch Coraline. If there's still time before bed, i night throw in Watchmen. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 93.97.250.111 |
Thanks for not spoiling the surprise, Weber! Now I'm off to see 'Monty Python's The Meaning Of Life' with the woman. It's their best film, IMO, and I haven't seen it in 20 odd years. It's been a great day! | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.134.105.222 |
I can't remember the last time a film left me that shell shocked. Possibly Snowtown. If you haven't seen Michael, find a copy. (The German film not the Hollywood piece of shit with the same title) | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 80.239.243.29 |
And i now officially have a new favourite animated film. Coraline is an amazing achievement. Creepy, funny, looks fabulous and a great story. Now for the last film of the night, haneke directing a film version of a kafka novel. Sounds like a dream combination. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.13.94.61 |
Stevie - are we thinking of another kind of castle? | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 178.116.59.128 |
Saw "I comme Icare" for the first time, with a chilly (as always) but exceptionally good Yves Montand. Partially based on the JFK assassination, it's in the line of "Z", "État de Siège", "Three Days of the Condor" and other political films of the day. Fabulous music by Ennio morricone. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 86.24.62.55 |
Not a castle, Ramsey. A complete city... | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.13.48.212 |
Ah - not Shanks, then! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 212.183.140.62 |
Never heard of 'Shanks', Ramsey, but thanks for the recommendation. Think silent comedy... almost. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 212.183.140.62 |
Hang on, Ramsey. I have seen 'Shanks' and it was made in 1974. That was the weird Marcel Marceau thing I remember seeing once when I was young and really didn't appreciate at the time. The film I mean was made in the 60s and bankrupted its mad genius director. It is a masterpiece like everything he made over a 30 year career. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.134.105.222 |
If it wasn't for his name on the front of the packaging, I wouldn't have thought The Castle was a Haneke film. Where's there stunning photography and composition? Where's the keeping the audience guessing? The voiceover tells us what the characters are doing as they do it, and why... I'm glad I picked up the copy for £5 in Fopp and not the £20 copy (same edition) in HMV round the corner... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I've been off work and that busy enjoying the sun this past two weeks that I haven't had a chance for a triple bill. Still in the pipeline: 'The Magician' (1958) by Ingmar Bergman 'Alice' (1988) by Jan Švankmajer 'Mulholland Drive' (2001) by David Lynch Followed by: 'The Phantom Of The Opera' (1925) by Rupert Julian 'Macbeth' (1971) by Roman Polanski 'Faust' (1994) by Jan Švankmajer | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
And the 1960s film I was raving about above is not, strictly speaking, a horror film but rather a weird, surreal, Kafkaesque, absurdist comedy nightmare of epic dimensions. The finest and most visionary ever made, imho. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
No one worked it out yet? | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 212.183.128.185 |
Ok... if no one can name the film in the next 24 hours then I'll have no option but to tell you. 1. It was made in the 1960s. 2. It was the director's fourth of five films. 3. It bankrupted him. 4. It is an unqualified masterpiece. 5. It was a surreal pseudo-silent comedy based on the works of Chaplin & Keaton. 6. It has all the genius of Kubrick in his prime. 7. I've only seen it once and fell instantly in love even though I hadn't a clue what it was "about". 8. The mad genius director was born out of his time but achieved artistic emortality. 9. He was a lovely human being and that comes across in every frame of every film he ever made. If that isn't enough clues then Ibgive up ffs!!!! | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 80.239.243.20 |
Transformers? | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
Hang on, that's not a fair list of clues, Stevie! How the hell would *I* know what you saw once and fell in love with but didn't have a clue about?! And "unqualified masterpiece," meaning...? But could it be... The Fearless Vampire Killers? | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Nope... As I said above, I'd rank the film alongside '2001 : A Space Odyssey' and 'Once Upon A Time In The West' as one of the indisputably great cinema masterpieces of the 1960s. My only having seen it once and been blown away by it - despite the complete lack of any discernible plot - is a clue given the sort of films I tend to admire, as waffled about at length on here. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
And the film is... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
'Playtime' (1967) by Jacques Tati. One of the most remarkable works of cinema ever made, imho. I've decided to collect all five of his films and watch them in chrono order. Sheer genius! | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.25.57 |
Forgive me, Stevie - I somehow misread your original post as saying that the film had only just been released on home video. Yes, it's wonderful - inexhaustible, I'd say. Comedy refined to the level of abstraction, almost. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 86.24.62.55 |
It's one of those perfect films that's been floating about in my consciousness, Ramsey, since my one and only chance viewing of it on telly many years ago. I hadn't come across the DVD until picking it up for £4 the other day. I'd never seen anything like it before or since. Weird, hypnotic, beguiling, poignant, surreal and very, very funny with loads of heart and the chilly formal brilliance of Kubrick at his best. You eye literally doesn't know where to look the compositions are so stunningly detailed. I'd hold it up as a perfect example of Cinema as High Art. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.13.56.21 |
I'd agree with all that, Stevie. We have the BFI Blu-ray, which is splendid. I was lucky enough to see the original Cinerama release. That version is said to be lost, but I wish I could recall the differences or at least read an account of the missing footage. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I've yet to see his fifth film, 'Trafic' (1971), and have just discovered there was a sixth that I'd never heard of... 'Parade' (1974)!! Also his only surviving unfilmed script, 'The Illusionist', was turned into an animated feature homage by Sylvain Chomet in 2010. Apparently "Tati" appears in it in animated form and the movie was highly praised by the critics as a suitable swan song to his extraordinary career. As for 'Jour De Fete' (1949), 'Monsieur Hulot's Holiday' (1953) & 'Mon Oncle' (1958)... need I say more? | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.29.140 |
The Illusionist is good - unusually melancholy, though. Trafic has some fine stuff. Parade - well, don't expect too much, but I'm glad I saw it. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I've read 'Parade' (I'm assuming this refers to a parade of fools) was made for television as a record of a circus performance with Tati as a clown. As such I can't imagine it bearing comparison to his cinema films. But anything with the great man in it has to be essential viewing! Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd & Tati... the four gods of silent comedy, imho. I was never that fussed on Mr Bean. Too mannered and obvious for my liking. What are your thoughts, Ramsey? | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Sweet Jesus!! I've just discovered the complete short films of Buster Keaton box set is available on Amazon for a paltry £25!!!! Roll on pay day!! Most of these I've never seen before! It's like lifting a rock and finding the Hope Diamond under it!!!! Thanks for reigniting my love of silent comedy, Ramsey! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Anyway, back to the horror triple bills. Tonight (as my pay won't be in until tomorrow) on Stevie TV Ingmar Bergman, Jan Švankmajer & David Lynch go head-to-head in a battle of the giants! I haven't seen 'The Magician' (1958) or 'Mulholland Drive' (2001) before but this will be my third viewing of 'Alice' (1988) - arguably Jan's masterpiece and a cabinet of wonders as inexhaustible (love that word) as Ramsey correctly stated 'Playtime' to be. You can take your join-the-dots textbook Hollywood blockbusters and stick them where the sun don't shine, imo. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.13.90.58 |
By gum, that's a great bill! I'm very fond of your quartet of silent comedy, Stevie, but I always return to the genius of Laurel and Hardy. I've also seen quite a few splendid rediscovered films of the period by Leo McCarey - with Charley Chase (Mighty Like a Moose), Martha Sleeper and Gene Morgan (Pass the Gravy), Anita Garvin and Marion Byron (A Pair of Tights) - all hilarious. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 212.183.128.2 |
No one is a bigger Laurel & Hardy fan than me, Ramsey, and I love their silent shorts but, I'm sure you'll agree, they didn't truly come into their own as the greatest comedy duo of all time until the advent of sound. Their films of the 1930s are the finest and funniest cinema comedies ever made, imo. But the timeless surreal visual comedy of the silent era reached its peak with Chaplin, Keaton & Lloyd and the tradition was turned into something truly unique in cinema by Tati. You know the story about his visiting of Stan Laurel, Mack Sennett & Buster Keaton in their twilight years as a goggle-eyed stammering fan? To have been a fly on the wall, eh, Ramsey. Must check out those other silent comedies you mentioned. Thanks! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Their voices perfectly suited their on-screen personas and completed them as performers. Add to that the inspired dialogue and verbal jokes that were added to their mastery of visual slapstick and the end result was the most perfect practitioners of cinematic comedy who have ever lived. Few things make me cry with laughter but Laurel & Hardy never fail to, Ramsey. What did you think of The Marx Brothers? For me, along with the films of Woody Allen and Monty Python, they complete the list of cinematic comedy genius. The most rarified list of them all. Other people have been funny on film but genius? Not in my experience. I bet I've forgotten someone! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Oops... apologies to Preston Sturges!! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 86.24.62.55 |
Bloody hell! What a night! One of the most memorable cinema experiences I've ever had in the comfort of my own living room. My mind is dancing here with wild thoughts and allusions. Every one of those films was a bona-fide masterpiece of weird cinema. From the sublime Hammeresque gothic horror of Bergman, that surely must have been some inspiration on Bava's 'Mask Of The Demon' (1960), to the nightmarish visual trickery of Svankmajer's terrifying adaptation of Carroll's innocent whimsy, and the stunning inversion of LA crime/mystery noir into something utterly bewitching and scary as feck by Lynch (I'm still trying to get my head round it but was somewhat reminded of Bradbury's 'Death Is A Lonely Business'). These are films to completely rejuvenate one's faith in moving pictures as one of the human race's greatest art forms. An incredible experience!! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 86.24.62.55 |
That's 'Pacific Rim' well and truly flushed out of my system. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I've just ordered a load of the great Universal horror movies cheap off Amazon and was wondering if anyone here knows if 'The Invisible Man Returns' (1940), directed by Joe May, is available anywhere on DVD? It was Vincent Price's horror film debut and was made as a direct sequel to James Whale's 1933 classic. I'm very keen to see it. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Also ordered the definitive releases of several silent horror classics that I've never seen before and know only by reputation: 'Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde' (1920) by John S. Robertson - with the famous John Barrymore performance requiring no make-up. 'The Golem' (1920) by Paul Wegener & Carl Boese - with the clay man brought to life that was such a major influence on Whale's 'Frankenstein' (1931). 'The Phantom Carriage' (1921) by Victor Sjöström - a ghost story, featuring Death as the antagonist, that, apparently, was a major influence on Ingmar Bergman. The director, Sjöström, was unforgettable as the old professor in 'Wild Strawberries' (1957) - my favourite Bergman film that I have seen. 'Häxan' (1922) by Benjamin Christensen - which I'm actually a bit nervous about viewing, going by everything I've heard... a satanic horror masterwork that was banned until the late 60s when it was rediscovered, by William S. Burroughs, and released in heavily cut form. The director, Christensen, a right scary looking bloke, was a student of the occult and one time associate of Aleister Crowley. The no-holds barred scenes of diabolism, torture and sexual depravity - all filmed at night by firelight - are said to be shockingly explicit even by today's standards. I can't fecking wait!! I'm going through a bit of a silent movie renaissance at the moment. Thanks to 'The Grin Of The Dark'. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.21.247 |
Stevie: http://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Man-Collection-Returns-Revenge/dp/B0002NRRRO/ref =sr_1_3?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1375439472&sr=1-3&keywords=invisible+man | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Thanks, Ramsey. I can't really justify buying that set as I already have 'The Invisible Man' (1933) - marvellous movie!! - and I'm only really keen on seeing the one official sequel with Vincent Price. Those others were in no way connected to the H.G. Wells novel and only used the "invisibility" as a gimmick. As an aside... I can't resist asking your opinion of those old Abbott & Costello meet the Universal monster movies? I was never a massive fan of the duo but have an irresistible Scooby Doo-like fondness for those five films. Watching anyone gurning and running around looking comedy scared when pursued by "real" monsters has always been a guilty pleasure of mine - as perfected by Stan & Ollie in 'The Laurel And Hardy Murder Case' (1931). Stan closing the fleeing Ollie in the understair cupboard with the ghost is possibly my favourite moment in comedy cinema. I fell in love with them after watching that one as a very young child and being scared and laughing myself sick (literally) at the same time. I think, if I'm honest, that well done comedy horror is my favourite of all the genres. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
The only other time I can ever recall laughing myself sick - I laughed that hard cornflakes actually came out of my nose - was at the chimpanzee episode of Bilko sometime in the early 80s. But I digress... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
'The Magician' (1958) by Ingmar Bergman has to be one of the pivotal films in the evolution of gothic horror cinema. That's not to say the film is merely a horror movie (as if!) but that it belongs to the genre, plays with it quite outrageously and gave us many of the key scenes and themes done to perfection - as only a mega-genius of Bergman's stature could possibly have achieved. The film opens with a weird troupe of performers travelling by carriage through an eerie mist-shrouded forest (in gloriously shot B&W) and, after encountering a lost soul and taking him along, they arrive at a small Hammeresque town complete with suspicious locals and an old Inn at which they stay for the night. What follows is a classic tale of public humiliation followed by supernatural revenge that is as frightening as it is cleverly subversive and really quite funny and charming. An almost unrecognisable Max Von Sydow plays the eerily silent and spooky looking Magician of the title, and leader of the troupe, Dr Vogler, in an echo of the black caped villains of silent cinema, and his enigmatic staring presence dominates the film. He communicates only through his oddball assortment of fellow performers and is met with barely concealed scepticism and sniggering hostility by the elders of the town, who demand a private performance of the "miracles" that his fame has spread far and wide before him. The ultimate of these scoffed at "miracles" is said to be his ability to raise the dead! There follows a carefully staged performance in which all the tricks are ruthlessly revealed as obvious fakes and the Magician and his assistants find themselves publically humiliated... until the impossible happens. And I wouldn't dare spoil one moment of what follows. It is one of the most brilliantly staged and truly frightening supernatural sequences of unholy revenge in all cinema - and so much more than just that. This is a shining jewel of atmospheric adult weird cinema at its most utterly beguiling and unpredictable. An almost perfect mixing of dream logic surrealism and painfully acute character study that stands as one of the crowning achievements of its director's career and this great genre we call Horror. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I suspect that Dr Vogler and his merry band may have had some influence on a certain black faced clown of The League Of Gentleman's invention. You all know the one... | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.18.49 |
Not an Abbott or Costello fan, Stevie. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 86.24.62.55 |
I figured that, Ramsey. Their humour was too obvious and actually quite cruel for my liking. If only the monsters had caught them.  | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 80.239.243.192 |
Although they are responsible for the Hoo's on first base sketch which is one of the greatest of all time. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
But Abbot & Costello made at least three fine and still eminently watchable comedies: Who Done It? (1942), the justly famous Abbot & Costello Meets Frankenstein (1948), and Abbot & Costello Meet The Killer, Boris Karloff (1949). | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.159.61.246 |
I can't stand Abbott & Costello. When folk find out how much I love Laurel & Hardy they always seem to think I must also love A&C. I bloody don't. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.134.105.15 |
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbJwwJ33TEI If you don't think this is genius dialogue... and of course it led to stuff like this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zykLGUqr2CE | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Abbott & Costello were moderately talented comedians who were fortunate enough to come along at the right time and, because of their physical looks, fill the gap left in the public consciousness by the waning of Laurel & Hardy and the golden era of comedy cinema - that really ended with 'A Chump At Oxford' in 1940. Likewise the cartoon violence of The Three Stooges "replaced" the anarchic genius of The Marx Brothers at the same time and on-screen comedy was never as inspired or damn hilarious again. Having said that I do remain fond of the Abbott & Costello meet the Universal monsters series because of the quality production values and thrill of seeing all those famous bogeymen escaping into the world of comedy. If only it had been Laurel & Hardy but we can't have everything and 'Habeus Corpus', 'Do Detectives Think?', 'The Laurel And Hardy Murder Case' (both versions), 'Oliver The Eighth' & 'The Live Ghost' as well as the haunted maze sequence in 'A Chump At Oxford' show us a perfect realisation of true comedy genius having spine-chilling fun with the horror genre. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.13.54.251 |
"Who's On First" is apparently based on earlier routines by other comedians, though A & C did elaborate on those, supposedly. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.159.61.246 |
Yes, and there are many variations of the routine, including the Will Hay/Charles Hawtrey "How Hi is a Chinaman" one, from the early 'thirties. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
As I said... moderately talented comedians who happened to come along at the right time in history to capitalise on the greats who had already perfected cinema and comedy as a match made in heaven. Think about it. Who replaced Abbott & Costello in the public consciousness in the 1950s? Martin & Lewis. Need I say more? | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 178.116.57.131 |
The genius of Laurel & Hardy stuff is that even infants will laugh when they see it. The Marx Brothers are fine, too, but depend more on snappy lines and intricate situations imho. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.159.61.246 |
I think so far as Laurel & Hardy go that I always feel a warmth towards them which I never felt towards any other double act (apart, maybe and to a lesser extent, from Morecambe and Wise). | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
The genius of Laurel & Hardy is that they didn't have to try to be funny - they were naturally two very funny men. Their instantly appealing comedic appearance, superb character acting ability (which is a lot more subtle than they are generally given credit for), consummate skill as performers, both of visual and verbal comedy, and the endearing warmth of their personalities and abiding friendship with each other (on and off screen), coupled with the hard times of global depression that their antics provided a much needed antidote for, while reflecting all the darkness but also all the fortitude of the times, is what makes them stand head and shoulders above any other comedy duo or performer you could care to mention. The gods smiled on us when they put those two men together. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Hubert, The Marx Brothers cracked me up as a nipper every bit as much as L&H. I grew up loving Harpo as the ultimate silent clown - just thinking about his dopey face now makes me grin - but as I got older I came to appreciate the inspired wisecracks and verbal routines of Groucho & Chico every bit as much. They covered all the comedy bases and their films still stand as split-your-sides funny comedy masterpieces imho. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
How do I even begin to describe the nightmarish joys of 'Alice' (1988) by Jan Svankmajer? I'm only glad I re-read the Alice books before watching it as they acted as some kind of whimsical antidote in my subconscious to Jan's utter trashing of the laugh-out-loud cosiness of Lewis Carroll's most famous tales. Watch this film and you won't be laughing... squirming in spellbound fascination and horror more like! The film begins with a bored little girl idly tossing pebbles into a stream in an idyllic conutryside setting. Then she dozes off - and all bets are off. When she "reawakens" she finds herself in a dusty old room full of cobwebbed antiques and stuffed animals, one of which, a white rabbit, proceeds to rip the nails from its mountings and come to terrifying life. From there she follows the sawdust leaking monstrosity through a bleak muddy wilderness and into a desk drawer to Get-Me-The-Fuck-Out-Of-Here Land!!!! All the scenes from Carroll's odyssey are present and correct but inhabited by the most monstrous collection of stop motion animated creatures I ever laid eyes upon - or ever want to again. The girl stumbles through it all in a mixture of baffled childhood innocence (it does exist, Joel) and utter terror that communicates itself to the shell-shocked viewer in the most indescribably unsettling terms just about imaginable. Surrealism and nightmare logic are the order of the day in this stunning fantasmagoria of all our worst and earliest fears. As just one example of how the director utterly subverts Carroll's vision; when the Queen of Hearts cries "Off with their heads" in this version the white rabbit himself is only to willing to oblige with a wicked looking pair of rusty scissors that make the final trial sequence one of the most nightmarishly terrifying things I or Alice has ever experienced. No spoilers... but don't show this one to the kids lightly and if you are an adult of a particularly nervous or impressionable disposition the AVOID AT ALL COUNTS!!!! This is Svankmajer's masterpiece and, in my opinion, the greatest part-animated movie that has ever been made. Just wait till you see real life Alice turn into a moving Victorian doll from all our worst nightmares... nuff said! Best watched with the short film 'Jabberwocky' (1971) as the perfectly nightmarish intro - as I did. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Before writing up my thoughts on 'Mulholland Drive' I feel compelled to watch it again tonight. It's very much one of those kind of films. Perhaps the best surreal headfuck mystery horror ever made? | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Making the film seem even more bizarre is that Mulholland Drive and its environs featured heavily in McCammon's monumental 'They Thirst' - just finished. My initial thoughts on the film are that, as McCammon satirically commented upon Hollywood by having it destroyed by movie vampires, Lynch was doing the same by giving us what at first appeared a straightforward Chandleresque neo-noir mystery of attempted murder, amnesia and the search for identity and then morphing it into a hellish horror story of possession and doppelgangers... kind of. Really looking forward to seeing it again already! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
'Mullholland Drive'... hmmmm. It is a work of genius but I don't think as unfathomable as many people make it out to be and certainly not as dense as his masterpiece 'Inland Empire'. The changes all occur after the experience of lesbian sex between the two lead characters. One naive and the other a femme fatale. This is a story of rediscovery of hidden and unsuspected depths to the self when all was thought in order and understood. The second half of the film is all about dislocation and rediscovery of the new self dressed up, brilliantly, as a typically Hollywood neo-noir mystery thriller. The body found rotting in the flat was the femme fatale's last "victim". That's my reading after a second utterly engrossed viewing. The mysterious figures who appear throughout the narrative, as if from another world, are enigmatic messengers of the subconscious desires that the central characters all feel but have failed to acknowledge... until reality comes knocking at the door. Lynch is a genius!! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Fear and excitement at the adventure she has embarked upon, and that feeling of stepping into the unknown, are all part of Naomi Watt's character's journey of self discovery. The fact that Lynch decided to tell his tale as a comment upon a fiction that she is working upon - the film she desperately wants to be cast for - is the final clue to what is really going on. Compare Laura Dern's similar but much more surreal and multi-layered journey in 'Inland Empire', again by way of a Hollywood narrative trying to tell the story of something from the European Arthouse school of filmmaking, and one can see the progression of Lynch's vision from playing with TV soaps to playing with the popular concept of what is called "cinema". Films like this are the true legacy of Griffith's & Chaplin's original vision of the medium as the next evolutionary step in humankind's conception of Art! | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 178.116.57.131 |
The body found rotting in the flat was the femme fatale's last "victim". This is the bit I cannot watch. We all know what is coming the moment the blonde opens the front door, hand firmly pressed against nose. The music is pretty ominous, too. Even so, the Thing on the Bed comes as a complete shock and surprise. Magnificent bit of cinema. I can't explain why, but I've always thought the corpse is the blonde. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I think the corpse was the last blonde flatmate, Hubert. This turns Laura Harring's character, Rita, into a combination of Chandleresque femme fatale and predatory vampire/doppelganger - sucking the life out of those innocents she is attracted to who try to help her and possibly explaining the attempt to destroy her at the start of the film. It's one reading anyway and I'm quite happy with it. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 86.24.62.55 |
Been thinking more about 'Mulholland Drive' and I'm now convinced Rita was meant to symbolise the beguiling vampiric spirit that sucks in countless young pretty Betties every year and spits them out as drained husks the other side. The evil old man behind the dumpster, who "controls everything", is, of course, Satan. I'd don't believe it is mere coincidence that, when Rita reveals her true identity, her name has changed to Camilla. The story is more or less a symbolic updating of Le Fanu's famous sexual vampire story to modern day Hollywood. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 86.24.62.55 |
And everything about it from the perfectly paced direction, to the tricksy neo noir script, the brilliant performances and the haunting use of music and colour is the work of a genius at the very peak of his powers. Second only to 'Inland Empire' for me. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 86.24.62.55 |
Has anyone here seen Dario Argento's brilliant episode of 'Masters Of Horror' called "Jenifer"? That story bears some parallels to 'Mulholland Drive' in my mind albeit on a much cruder shock horror level. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
Yes, I quite liked "Jenifer"! It watches like a well-written horror story: the episode is from a 1964 Creepy written by Bruce Jones, and illustrated by Bernie Wrightson—and reprinted here, complete: http://www.besthorrorcomics.com/pdf/Jenifer.pdf. One of the only gems Argento's done, amidst a long string over many years of disasters.... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
When the cowboy (symbol of old Hollywood) said, "Time to wake up, little girl", that was the moment the truth of the illusion, that is the Hollywood dream, came home to poor innocent Betty and she was subsumed into the nightmare existence of Diane, who had already been destroyed by the vamp/femme fatale's false promises. The whole thing is a richly symbolic deconstruction of what people want to believe about the L.A. Dream Factory and what it actually represents... the loss of the self and of the soul. I believe the demonic elderly couple released from the box by Satan at the end were accusatory guilt-ridden images of Mom & Pop back home and how horrified/betrayed she feared they would have been if they could see what had become of their "little girl". | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I don't believe anyone was dreaming, or even real, in 'Mulholland Drive'. The entire film was a symbolic satire on the lure of the Hollywood Dream populated by archetypes who were making a movie directed by David Lynch. As with Michael Haneke's 'Funny Games' (1997), Lynch is playing with the very concept of the need for a cohesive narrative or rules or templates in Cinema or indeed Art. He gives us a deconstructed modern day myth dressed up as a fairy-tale dressed up as a nightmare with all the stock Hollywood characters/archetypes present and correct. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I thought "Jenifer" was magnificent and seriously scary, Craig. In fact I'm a great fan of the entire 'Masters Of Horror' series (both runs) and believe it will come to be seen as something of a lost classic in decades to come. Even the relatively weaker episodes were always compelling and really well made while at its best the show was as great as any horror cinema or even 'The Walking Dead', imho. I haven't seen any Argento (bar his two excellent MOH eps) later than 'The Stendahl Syndrome' (1996) which I loved and thought was a seriously underrated and deeply disturbing psychological thriller made with all the director's usual flair. I look forward to seeing his later films... dodgy reputations notwithstanding. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
I look forward to seeing his later films... dodgy reputations notwithstanding. Hoo, boy. I don't want to pre-prejudice you, but I think you're going to be very unhappy, Stevie. At least two of them, imho—The Card Player and Do You Like Hitchcock?—are nothing less than awful (though the latter there was a TV movie, so I guess one could forgive it somewhat). I really have to go back and watch the whole MOH series—I've only seen a few, but loved the ones I saw. It's so great that the creator or whoever else was involved, they chose to go to, indeed, masters of horror for material. (Argento, for example, directed another episode [which I've not seen yet] called "Pelts," from a story by F. Paul Wilson.) Thanks for reminding me of this series, Stevie... it had totally dropped off my mental radar! I had lots and lots of theories about Mulholland Drive... but I should see it again before I opine. I did think it a movie that was 2/3s a dream, and then Naomi Watts wakes up for the last surreal 1/3. Beyond that—I must revisit. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Got my next long planned triple bill lined up for this weekend: 'The Phantom Of The Opera' (1925) by Rupert Julian - which I've only ever seen clips of before and this is the fully restored and remastered version. 'Macbeth' (1971) by Roman Polanski - a film I've longed to see ever since my teenage years due its extreme bloody horror reputation and the fact it's the only film from Polanski's glory days that I could never get to see. 'Faust' (1994) by Jan Švankmajer - I saw this once before, late one night on Film 4 back in the 90s, and it disturbed the living hell out of me. A dark satanic part-animated rendering of Goethe's immortal 'Faust' (1808-31) that I'm crapping myself at the thought of watching again. He takes the legend and breathes unholy life into it like never before... | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.13.61.203 |
I'm with Craig on those later Argentos, but I did think Non Ho Sonno rather better. And Dracula is at least fun - well, we thought so. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 86.24.62.55 |
My plan with Argento, Ramsey, is to do a chrono watch once I've got all the DVDs - including the TV stuff. So it'll be a while till I get to the later ones. For me he is the best horror specialist director of them all and I admire him for always sticking with the genre (a bit like your good self). I've only a few left to get so expect lots of Argento in upcoming triple bills. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 86.24.62.55 |
What a bloody marvellous triple bill!! Watched back to back last night I was stunned by how unconsciously apt my choice of three films was. All I had planned was a literary theme, including; Gaston Leroux's great gothic horror novel, 'The Phantom Of The Opera' (1910), my favourite Shakespeare play, 'Macbeth' (1606), and Goethe's existential horror epic, 'Faust' (1806-31), but what I got was a fascinating trilogy of Faustian bargains struck with the Dark Arts for worldly success at the cost of the Soul. Can anyone on here see where I'm coming from? Reviews and analysis to follow... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 212.183.128.102 |
The thematic trilogy I was referring to is this: In 'The Phantom Of The Opera' (1925) the heroine sells her soul to the devil, in the form of Erik the Phantom, a "master of the dark arts", in return for his criminal sabotaging of the career of her rival so that she can sing the female lead in Gounod's 'Faust' (1859). All he asks in return is her love and obedience which she agrees to out of pure artistic ambition and then reneges on when the full horror of what she has tied herself to is revealed and all the sweet, beautiful music he has created is forever corrupted. In 'Macbeth' (1971) the title character is a noble and loyal servant of the King, even unto death, until the powers of darkness, in the form of those hideous witches, reveal a possible future worldly glory he had never before even entertained for himself. They effectively offer him temptation, against his own inner nature, and a bargain, that if he chooses to believe in their prophecy he will fulfill it himself, whereas, if he had continued to scoff and explained away their initial success as coincidence, as was his first rational reaction, none of the horror that followed would have happened and his and Lady Macbeth's souls would have remained their own. Shakespeare externalised the evil in mankind as a dark tempting force from beyond every bit as much as in the legend of Faust. As for Svankmajer's bollock shrivelling nightmare reimagination of Goethe's ultimate telling of that same satanic legend, 'Faust' (1994). Set in contemporary Prague it features a humble everyman character of no great ambition being lured forcibly into a satanic pact that, once accepted as real and embarked upon at face value, as with Macbeth's bowing to the superior power of the witches, leads remorselessly downward in a terrifying spiral of damnation. As each pinnacle of earthly success is scaled the narrative structure and look of the film becomes ever more surreal, fracturing the reality of the protagonist's world as completely as anything Ramsey Campbell or David Lynch ever imagined in their darkest moments of soul dread. The overall message would seem to be that acceptance of the supernatural gives a reason to succumb to temptation as, if there are forces superior to us and in control of our destinies, then who are we to defy them. In their bargains with the mythical Phantom, the three witches and Mephistopheles himself we see as stark a depiction of the self deception at the heart of human existence as Art has ever provided us with. We choose our own destinies and the gods be merely the excuse we use to calm our collective conscience. Get past the illusion of individuality and all that soul torment goes out the window, folks. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 86.24.62.55 |
For my next horror triple bill I've decided on a personal tribute to Hammer Horror with the "recent" film represented by 'The Wake Wood' (2011) by David Keating. Now just need to decide on something from earlier than 1968 and something from their later period... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I've decided to go with some of the more obscure Hammer Horrors and have tried to pick as varied a selection of their output as possible: 'The Gorgon' (1964) by Terence Fisher - which I only have vague hazy memories of seeing as a kid but I remember being scared. 'Fear In The Night' (1972) by Jimmy Sangster - the last of their more subtle psychological thrillers and one that I believe I've never seen before. 'The Wake Wood' (2011) by David Keating - the film that marked Hammer's excruciatingly long awaited revival and I've heard nothing but good reports about it. Fingers crossed. So that's mythological monsters, psycho thriller and rural witchcraft to look forward to... | ||
| David_lees (David_lees) Username: David_lees Registered: 12-2011 Posted From: 92.22.10.67 |
Wake Wood was pretty good but I thought it suffered from being a bit too similar to another movie/novel (which I won't name as it would count as a spoiler). | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Back to last weekend's triple bill: 'The Phantom Of The Opera' (1925) by Rupert Julian was a majestic experience to sit through for an avid horror and classical music fan like myself. I love silent cinema and find it utterly hypnotic [only one of the reasons I reacted so ecstatically to last year’s wonderful homage, ‘The Artist’] but understand that it is a rarefied experience that takes more of a suspension of disbelief and acceptance of a different viewing mindset than most people nowadays are willing to invest. I count myself lucky to have been born at a time when silent cinema was regularly shown on TV as the peerless entertainment it still is. I grew up in love with Chaplin, Keaton & Lloyd [make way for Harold Lloyd!!], awed by Lang’s ‘Metropolis’ (1927) [a film I still insist is as much horror as sci-fi] and haunted in my dreams by Max Schreck levitating erect and nightmarish stills of Lon Chaney, and those eyes. Rupert Julian’s epic melodrama still stands as one of the crowning achievements of that glorious era and has something of everything in its by-in-a-flash entertaining 93 minutes - operatically overplayed horror, including one of cinema’s undeniably great monsters, mystery, romance, humour, excitement and pathos – but, most of all, and what I found most impressive, was the soothing pleasure of letting the grand gothic imagery and magnificently emotional orchestral score just wash over me like some kind of ultimate mood experience in which the heightened unrealism of the storytelling (as with opera and ballet) creates the effect of looking in on another world and other beings that one can't imagine ever having actually existed on earth. It is this overwhelming playing with the primary senses of sight and sound, stripped of distracting dialogue and background noise, that makes watching the best silent movies such a profound experience. To give oneself up to and be swept along by such silent masterpieces as this is to be transported not only back in time but into a weird fantasy world as bewitching and disturbing as the promise of Fairyland itself. Lon Chaney’s iconic make-up and intense performance gave us one of the great grotesques in cinema history, from any era, and still packs a punch today, after the marvellous unmasking scene and the impeccable restraint shown in the mesmerising build-up of mystery and suspense, as to just who or what is the half-glimpsed Phantom said to haunt the Paris Opera House. This is a horribly scarred (externally and internally) poor pitiful wreck of a man who has made himself into a Devil in human form, driven by hatred for the rest of the race who made him a pariah, yet humanised by his fanatical passion for great opera, and who meets his nemesis in the beautiful operatic understudy, Christine Daae, she with the face and the voice of an angel. Hopelessly in thrall he approaches her as a masked admirer and together they embark on a diabolical pact to ensure her immortality as one of the Great Sopranos, singing the part of Margeurite in Gounod’s ‘Faust’ (1859). As one of the great tales of impossible unrequited love this story takes some beating and I can only wish that some 20th Century genius, like Igor Stravinsky, had chosen to turn it into the great musical Work of Art it deserved to be... rather than the cheesy musical we got! It would have worked equally well as one of the great operas or ballets but, as that never happened, the next best thing is to feast your eyes and your ears and let your higher emotions wallow in this perfect integration of unforgettable imagery and music – oh, to see it on the biggest screen possible with live orchestral accompaniment! As a horror film this masterpiece is equally important as it virtually invented all the major tropes of the form and still manages to send shudders down the spine every time the unmasked Chaney is on screen, while his portrayal of a remorseless homicidal maniac with a penchant for elaborate cruelty is in no way played down – the gleeful murder sequences still have the power to unsettle the viewer – but, for me, the most horrific and poignant sequence of the film is the climactic chase and how it ends... in utter brutality, making us wonder who was the real monster all along. Magnificent filmmaking and a magnificent Work of Art!! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Btw, I have read Leroux's novel and it is every bit as magnificent! One of the truly great gothic horror novels and one of the great love stories of all time. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Having watched 'The Phantom Of The Opera' now it has given me an even greater appreciation of what Dario Argento was attempting and what he gloriously achieved with 'Opera' (1987). It is more or less a giallo remake for the rock 'n' roll generation and one of his greatest films, imho. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
My most recent and thoroughly enjoyable triple bill was: 'She Wolf Of London' (1946) by Jean Yarbrough 'The Pit And The Pendulum' (1991) by Stuart Gordon 'The Ruins' (2008) by Carter Smith and lined up next: 'Häxan' (1922) by Benjamin Christensen 'The Devil Rides Out' (1968) by Terence Fisher 'Martyrs' (2008) by Pascal Laugier | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
The Ruins was a great premise, but ultimately for me disappointing, if I'm remembering it correctly. I know I've seen that Pit and the Pendulum, but I remember nothing about it... it was with Lance Henriksen, right? Or maybe I'm thinking of that other Poe one.... I've long wanted to see Häxan, tell me how it is. Too, with Martyrs, which has made me hesitate hearing how graphic it is—yes, sometimes even I am rendered squeamish by potential displays of ugly violence. But I also hear it's quite good, so.... | ||
| David Lees (David_lees) Username: David_lees Registered: 12-2011 Posted From: 176.26.69.174 |
With The Ruins I thought the novel was superior to the film. The carnivorous plant becomes far more frightening in the novel as more of its nature and abilities are revealed. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 86.24.62.55 |
A very brief rundown of instant reactions to my last nine horror films: 'The Gorgon' (1964) by Terence Fisher - another of Hammer/Fisher's stone cold classic gothic horrors with Cushing & Lee in entertainingly atypical roles and a haunting majesty to its tale of doomed love and ancient curses. 'Fear In The Night' (1972) by Jimmy Sangster - decent psychological suspense thriller with a great menacing performance by Cushing but would have worked better as an hour long 'Thriller' type TV episode and Sangster is no director. 'The Wake Wood' (2011) by David Keating - gloriously atmospheric and intelligent low key throwback to the classic folk horrors of the late 60s/early 70s. An extremely well done and satisfying minor classic of the form that builds to a wonderfully nightmarish climax. 'She Wolf Of London' (1946) by Jean Yarbrough - thoroughly engrossing and entertaining mixture of classic Universal horror atmospherics and Agatha Christie-like murder mystery with Mom from 'Lost In Space' playing cinema's first female werewolf... or is she? A cherishable one-off of no little originality. 'The Pit And The Pendulum' (1991) by Stuart Gordon - an unexpected joy from start to finish this marvellously OTT and riotously funny spoof of the Corman Poes has to be one of the most underrated horror comedies of the 90s with a fantastic eye-rolling pantomime villain performance by the great Lance Henriksen. It looks great too and Gordon doesn't shirk on the ridiculous gore effects. A truly wonderful and criminally neglected gem of its kind! 'The Ruins' (2008) by Carter Smith - I am so sorry I missed this on the big screen. It is one of the best made and best looking Lovecraftian horror films of recent years with a wonderfully tense, grim and gritty jungle set-up and a truly frightening and original monster. I'd put it on a par with J.T. Petty's 'The Burrowers' (also 2008) - what a great year for horror that was!! 'Haxan' (1922) by Benjamin Christensen - beautifully made and hypnotically fascinating portmanteau horror epic that takes us through the dark history of witchcraft and devil worship from ancient times to the present via various stunningly realised recreations of infamous cases and frighteningly imaginative scenes of black masses and conjurings of horned devils and hideous demons that still have the power to disturb the viewer. I'm about to watch it again in the 1968 version narrated by William S. Burroughs with a modern jazz score featuring one-time Mother Of Invention, Jean-Luc Ponty, on electric violin. 'The Devil Rides Out' (1968) by Terence Fisher - no introduction necessary... this is hands down Hammer, Fisher and scriptwriter Richard Matheson's great Horror masterpiece!! A film that sucks the viewer in and doesn't let go from first second to last. Ridiculously entertaining, breathlessly fast paced and gloriously straight faced with a pitch perfect cast giving their all and convincing us utterly that the diabolic convolutions of Dennis Wheatley's infamous pulp shocker actually do make sense! A near miraculous achievement by all concerned. I love this film!! 'Martyrs' (2008) by Pascal Laugier - Jesus Christ!!!! This is heavy shit and one of the most gruelling extreme ordeal horror films I have ever watched... as much because of the harrowing intensity of the acting as for the sickening violence and cruelty on display. It is also an unquestionable game changing masterpiece of modern horror at its most uncompromising and intelligent!! Only for those with very strong stomachs, folks. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 86.24.62.55 |
For my next triple bill I've decided on a personal tribute to the late lamented Richard Matheson: 'The Incredible Shrinking Man' (1957) by Jack Arnold - one of my Top 10 films of all time and probably the most sucessful filming of any of Matheson's stories, scripted by the man himself, based on what is, for me, his best novel, 'The Shrinking Man' (1956). Haven't seen it in nearly 20 years and I can't fecking wait!! 'The Legend Of Hell House' (1973) by John Hough - again scripted by the great man himself, from his 1971 novel 'Hell House', and I've never seen it before! 'The Box' (2009) by Richard Kelly - based on Matheson's famous short story "Button, Button" (1970). Surely it can't be that bad... | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.134.106.47 |
I thought the Box was excellent. Flawed by an overexplanatory and not entirely convincing script but really creepy throughout and it looks brilliant. A snippet of conversation overheard from a couple of girls that left the cinema behind me after this film - "I feel really creeped out now but I don't know why" I may have to rewatch Southland Tales. See if it's better second time round. Maybe watch it sober this time. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
'Macbeth' (1971) by Roman Polanski is, without doubt, one of the great unassailable big budget cinema classics of the 1970s. In terms of directorial brilliance, beautiful location camerawork - in Northumberland with its glowering dark grey skies and rugged scenery (a million miles away from the stagebound adaptations we were used to) - and pitch perfect casting of serious yet relatively unknown British thespians who, crucially, all looked the parts they were asked to play and had the talent to go with it, and the inspired script’s reverential approach to Shakespeare's text while refusing to follow the stage directions and giving us cinema buffs all the spectacle, action, gore and horror we expect, Polanski, and Kenneth Tynan as co-writer, at the height of their powers, gave us what is the finest translation of the immortal Bard into the world of Cinema, as an Art unto Itself, that has ever been produced, imho. The films strengths are legion. From the previously mentioned location cinematography, the mud and the blood and grime-caked costumes creating an almost palpable stench of the Middle Ages (think 'Monty Python And The Holy Grail'), the most casually naturalistic delivery of Shakespeare's text ever put on film (one accepts the language utterly as just the way these people talked), the inspired decision to film the soliloquies as interior monologues with the actor's faces subtly reflecting their thoughts, adding yet more to the realism of the production, the casting of great but little known upcoming British actors, rather than grandstanding stars, all of whom throw themselves into the famous parts as if their lives depended on them... Jon Finch (stunningly intense in the performance of a lifetime as Macbeth), the beautiful Francesca Annis (by turns cruel, seductive and fragile as Lady M), Martin Shaw (immensely tragic as Banquo - and making me fully understand why he came to despise being "famous" for the character of Doyle in 'The Professionals'), John Stride (chillingly slimy as a very "Iagoish" Ross), Terence Bayler (a fearsome force of nature as the avenging Macduff), Nicholas Selby (the essence of doomed regality as King Duncan) and with even Keith Chegwin getting a look in as a surprisingly effective youth of the court!!!! There, that’s my gushing gut reaction praise for the film, as adaptation, out of the way... and so to my thoughts on ‘Macbeth’ as, perhaps, the finest horror story ever written, and to Polanski’s being drawn to the tragedy on the back of his own personal horror. Macbeth is a born warrior and survivor who prides himself on his physical and tactical skill in battle and on his passionate loyalty to Scotland and who is loved and admired by all those who serve under him. As introduced, at the start of the story, Macbeth is also a man filled with pride and joy at the successful “man of action” hand that fate has dealt him, as trusted general to King Duncan, and who revels in his fierce friendship with his fellow warrior and loyalist, Banquo. These two friends, in the aftermath of a glorious victory fought for the honour of King and Country, find themselves unexpectedly approached by the predatory powers of darkness in the form of three hideous witches (opening the film with perhaps the most unsettling intro sequence I have ever seen - where the hell did Polanski find the nightmarish crones he cast for these parts?!), who can sniff out a proud soul ripe for corruption without even drawing breath. Their plan is simplicity itself... they will plant the seeds of ambition in the garden of Macbeth’s pride by a series of seemingly impossible predictions leading to his “inevitable” crowning as King of Scotland – a position he never aspired to and laughs at the thought of even being considered for. Yet still the witches push their unholy clarity of vision, while refusing to elaborate upon the details, by a simple yet ultimately fatal initial prediction, regarding the Thane of Cawdor, that the two friends are stymied by having come true almost as soon as they leave the demonic trio. And thereby hangs the tragedy of Macbeth... Who, when beset by superstitious dark thoughts, does a man inevitably turn to but the woman he loves, and how, when faced with the promise of her man attaining glory, does a woman inevitably react but with words of love and encouragement. Considering this was the Middle Ages, when a woman’s fate (apart from those witches) was entirely reliant on the success of her man, then Lady Macbeth’s motive for driving her hubby into an act of bloody murder and unforgiveable treachery is almost understandable. But she completely forgot to take into account the ferocity of Scottish nationalism and the flip-side of a soldier’s Pride when seduced by Envy and turned into unholy Wrath! Are there parallels to be drawn with Roman Polanski’s career and that of Sharon Tate, happily ensconced in their Hollywood castle, and playing with the forces of LA darkness – from La Vey to Manson – until she pays the ultimate price and he is shot down in flames of ignominy at the very height of his glory? That is for the viewer to decide and for Roman to know and for the true story, perhaps, never to come out. Personally, I see this version of ‘Macbeth’ as very much a cathartic exercise for the director. This is a tragedy that was invited in by a psychically damaged (from his trial-by-fire youth) great man losing sight of his place in the world and bowing to the temptations of ambition, power and fame. Polanski was still wrapped in profound grief as he was making the film and this cannot have failed to communicate itself to everyone else involved in the production, thus, I would suggest, giving the work its overpowering intensity. The graphic and brilliantly choreographed scenes of bloody violence, whether in combat or by stealthy murder, are completely convincing because of their unforced naturalism and chilling matter-of-factness while the famous scenes of supernatural horror, involving those awful witches and one of the most terrifying ghosts ever put on film (that sequence is a horror tour-de-force) create an overwhelming feeling of dread in the viewer from first scene to last – made almost unbearable by Polanski’s masterful use of heightened sound effects and ominous silences devoid of distracting music. There are also a number of supremely disturbing nightmare sequences that plague the sweating, tossing and screaming Macbeth and recall the equally surreal dreams of Rosemary from the director’s previous masterpiece. Yes, I would rank this beautiful film as the single best and most authentic Shakespeare adaptation I have seen as well as one of the outstanding cinema masterpieces of its glorious decade. It is also one of the most effective gothic horror films ever produced. In all of that I am in complete accord with Craig's appraisal. This was Roman Polanski at the absolute height of his directorial powers and at the lowest ebb of his life. Watch and wonder... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Jan Svankmajer's 'Faust' (1994) is set in contemporary Prague and follows the insidious induction of an unremarkable everyman character into a Satanic pact by the subtlest of means. While walking home from work one day he is handed a flyer by a pair of weirdly enthusiastic ordinary looking blokes. On getting home he absent-mindedly looks at the leaflet and discovers it is a map with a certain backstreet location highlighted. He then finds an egg (symbol of the soul) hidden inside a loaf he is slicing up for his tea and is disturbed by an errant chicken appearing from nowhere! That night his sleep is plagued by nightmares (or are they?) in which he sees the two strange gentlemen gazing up at him from the street below - their eyes hideously glazed like zombies while they clutch the aforesaid chicken. Next day he is compelled to follow the map to the derelict location it marks and from there all bets are off... Note that this man, like Macbeth, did not ask the Devil into his life but was approached and seduced from outside. What he discovers in that rundown building defies belief. Svankmajer throws all the demonically surreal imagery he has in his arsenal at the viewer as "Mr Everyman" turns into Dr Faustus and pits his wits against Mephistopheles himself in an attempt to learn the secrets of the universe and attain what every human being craves - reassurance and happiness. The two previous films that most pointed the way to this surreal horror masterpiece are Emil Radok's seminal 1958 film, 'Doktor Johannes Faust', for which Jan supplied the nightmarish puppet effects, and the director's own early gothic horror masterpiece, 'Don Juan' (1969), with the return of those hideously clacking life-sized wooden mannequins. Visual highlights include; Faust's first frenzied creation of a horribly animated clay homonculus that grows from embryo to monster before his terrified eyes (thus proving the efficacy of magic before his Soul has been given up), the summoning of a bollock shrivelling horned demon from Hell - that keeps morphing into an image of Faust himself, the mysterious old man with his newspaper wrapped pound of bloody human flesh being chased by a very determined dog, a graphic sex scene with a tittering wooden figure into which a vagina has been drilled, the Devil appearing on the streets of Prague swathed in body-length overcoat, slouched hat and scarf - to all but one unfortunate woman who cathes a glimpse of what lies under the brim, Faust forcibly encased in wood to become a living effigy himself (echoing Alice's transformation into a rosy cheeked Victorian doll) and so many other memorably diabolical scenes that seer their way into the stunned viewer's consciousness that I can't possibly describe or wish to recall them all. This is a graphically explicit surrealist horror masterpiece that beats David Lynch & David Cronenberg hands down at their own game. And if I do ever watch it again it will be in many years time!! For all the stream of consciousness madness, however, the film, like von Trier's 'Antichrist' (2009), is surprisingly faithful to the accepted horror movie template of an innocent individual digging ever deeper into things better left well alone... and the ending is a thing of petrifying perfection!! Not one for the even slightly easily disturbed... or those who demand any kind of making sense. Yes, it was that memorable a triple bill!! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 86.24.62.55 |
For my next triple bill I've decided on a trip to Egypt: 'The Mummy' (1932) by Karl Freund - I haven't seen this since I was very young when it went completely over my head and only subliminal memories remain. So this may as well be a first viewing of one of Boris Karloff's most iconic star-making horror films. I am reliably informed it was based on the Arthur Conan Doyle tale, "The Ring Of Thoth" (1890). 'Blood From The Mummy's Tomb' (1971) by Seth Holt - Hammer's excellent adaptation of Bram Stoker's 'The Jewel Of Seven Stars' (1903) featuring the sexiest woman ever to star in one of their films, the absolutely jaw-droppingly beautiful Valerie Leon. It does not belong to their official Mummy series but is something far more subtle and beats the big budget 1980 adaptation, 'The Awakening', hands down. 'Bubba Ho-Tep' (2002) by Don Coscarelli - I've long wanted to see this being a big fan of Bruce Campbell and having heard that this is the finest performance he ever gave! It looks and sounds wonderful and, rather surprisingly, was based on a 1994 short story by Joe R. Lansdale of the same title. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.212.230.135 |
Not that suprising that it's based on a joe lansdale story. Lansdale also scripted the film. I have a copy of the script somewhere- as well as the film. It's as good as you're hoping it is | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
Bubba Ho-Tep is good, but it's a tad slow-paced. The movie's strange, as if the premise didn't tip you off to that: it's almost exactly equal parts "indie"—all the good and bad that term conjures (for me, at least)—and horror/fantasy. Or horror-fantasy, more accurately (for me again, at least). I enjoyed your essay on Macbeth, Stevie; you've voiced nearly precisely what I think about that film. It's indeed one of Polanski's best, but I reserve the best slot still for Rosemary's Baby. Olivier's three Shakespeare films could almost be considered a connected series all their own, in their own way. Done in (in order) 1944, 1948, and 1955, they each sort of look and feel like what I think of those times: the rousing battle cry surge of the WWII years (Henry V); the dark noir post-War years (Hamlet); and the color-drenched emblematic samples of the inching-along decadence of the 50's—one of those big stagey dinosaurs that would lead to the independent film revolution of the 60's (Richard III). They are each such exquisite masterpieces, that to compare them to another's adaptation/s—like Polanski's, or Zefferelli's—would only prove needlessly damaging to one; pyrrhic, the other. And then there's the actors who play in the Bard's plays that have been put to film: there, Anthony Hopkins's Othello (1981) or Michael Hordern's Prospero (1980) or Ian McKellan's Richard III (1998), and others, would all demand laurels. But yeah, for me, too, when all's said and done... Polanksi's is in the top five or so, most certainly. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Here's how I'd rank just the horror films of Roman Polanski, Craig: 1. Rosemary's Baby (1968) - for me the second greatest horror film ever made, after 'The Exorcist' (1973) 2. Macbeth (1971) 3. Repulsion (1965) 4. The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967) 5. The Ninth Gate (1999) 6. The Tenant (1976) The first four are masterpieces of the genre and the last two are both very fine indeed, imho. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I think the main success of Polanski's 'Macbeth' is that he set out to film the story as naturalistically as possible, using Shakespeare's text, rather than to make a stagey film of the play. In that he succeeded magnificently! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
As it's a quiet day in work and I'm bored I've decided to make a list of all the triple bill horror films I've watched this past three years (fuck me, that long!) ranked in order of my own personal appreciation. I view this as an interesting experiment and have no idea whether the old, modern or recent films will come out on top. I have suspicions that we are currently experiencing, or just out of, a new golden era of horror cinema to rival the 1970s... but who knows? Watch this space! | ||
| David Lees (David_lees) Username: David_lees Registered: 12-2011 Posted From: 176.26.69.174 |
Speaking of mummy movies I'd highly recommend watching Luc Besson's The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec. I saw it recently and loved it - more charm and humour than all three of the Brendan Fraser Mummy movies put together. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
As it's a quiet day in work and I'm bored I've decided to make a list of all the triple bill horror films I've watched this past three years... Really? Wouldn't you rather just stretch your legs and go over and bang Suzie, the redhead HR assistant, in the broom closet?  | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Just worked out I've watched 39 triple bills over the last 3 years. Here are all those films ranked in order of merit: 1. 'Peeping Tom' (1960) by Michael Powell 2. 'Mulholland Drive' (2001) by David Lynch 3. 'Profondo Rosso' (1975) by Dario Argento 4. 'Macbeth' (1971) by Roman Polanski 5. 'Videodrome' (1983) by David Cronenberg 6. 'The Devil Rides Out' (1968) by Terence Fisher 7. 'Alice' (1988) by Jan Švankmajer 8. 'Opera' (1987) by Dario Argento 9. 'The Magician' (1958) by Ingmar Bergman 10. 'Häxan' (1922) by Benjamin Christensen 11. 'Faust' (1994) by Jan Švankmajer 12. 'Marebito' (2004) by Takashi Shimizu 13. 'The Phantom Of The Opera' (1925) by Rupert Julian 14. 'Basket Case' (1982) by Frank Henenlotter 15. 'Martyrs' (2008) by Pascal Laugier 16. 'The Wolf Man' (1941) by George Waggner 17. 'I Spit On Your Grave' (1978) by Meir Zarchi 18. 'Ringu' (1998) by Hideo Nakata 19. 'Donnie Darko' (2001) by Richard Kelly 20. 'The House By The Cemetery' (1981) by Lucio Fulci 21. 'The Burrowers' (2008) by J.T. Petty 22. 'House Of Wax' (1953) by André de Toth 23. 'Long Weekend' (1978) by Colin Eggleston 24. 'Ju-On : The Grudge II' (2003) by Takashi Shimizu 25. 'The Reptile' (1966) by John Gilling 26. 'The Brides Of Dracula' (1960) by Terence Fisher 27. 'The Ghoul' (1933) by T. Hayes Hunter 28. 'Black Death' (2010) by Christopher Smith 29. 'Dog Soldiers' (2002) by Neil Marshall 30. 'The Eye' (2002) by Oxide & Danny Pang 31. 'The Witches' (1966) by Cyril Frankel 32. 'Slither' (2006) by James Gunn 33. 'Coraline' (2009) by Henry Selick 34. 'The Frighteners' (1996) by Peter Jackson 35. 'The Ruins' (2008) by Carter Smith 36. 'REC' (2007) by Jaume Balagueró & Paco Plaza 37. 'The Mystery Of The Wax Museum' (1933) by Michael Curtiz 38. 'The Camp On Blood Island' (1958) by Val Guest 39. 'Lord Of Illusions' (1995) by Clive Barker 40. 'The Gorgon' (1964) by Terence Fisher 41. 'Torso' (1973) by Sergio Martino 42. 'Cannibal Apocalypse' (1980) by Antonio Margheriti 43. 'Dementia 13' (1963) by Francis Ford Coppola 44. 'Night Train Murders' (1975) by Aldo Lado 45. 'Ringu 0' (2000) by Norio Tsuruta 46. 'Cold Prey' (2006) by Roar Uthaug 47. 'The Ninth Gate' (1999) by Roman Polanski 48. 'Deep River Savages' (1972) by Umberto Lenzi 49. 'Reincarnation' (2005) by Takashi Shimizu 50. 'Last Cannibal World' (1977) by Ruggero Deodato 51. 'Dumplings' (2005) by Fruit Chan 52. 'Ringu II' (1999) by Hideo Nakata 53. 'The House Of Clocks' (1989) by Lucio Fulci 54. 'Living Dead Girl' (1982) by Jean Rollin 55. 'Cannibal Ferox' (1982) by Umberto Lenzi 56. 'Basket Case II' (1990) by Frank Henenlotter 57. 'The Eye II' (2004) by Oxide & Danny Pang 58. 'The Wake Wood' (2011) by David Keating 59. 'The Orphanage' (2007) by J.A. Bayona 60. 'REC2' (2009) by Juame Balagueró & Paco Plaza 61. 'The Addiction' (1995) by Abel Ferrara 62. 'House Of The Long Shadows' (1983) by Pete Walker 63. 'Demons Of The Mind' (1972) by Peter Sykes 64. 'The Toolbox Murders' (1978) by Dennis Donnelly 65. 'Castle Freak' (1995) by Stuart Gordon 66. 'The Children' (2008) by Tom Shankland 67. 'The Pit And The Pendulum' (1991) by Stuart Gordon 68. 'Taste Of Fear' (1961) by Seth Holt 69. 'She Wolf Of London' (1946) by Jean Yarbrough 70. 'Cat In The Brain' (1990) by Lucio Fulci 71. 'Basket Case III : The Progeny' (1991) by Frank Henenlotter 72. 'WAZ' (2006) by Tom Shankland 73. 'Wendigo' (2001) by Larry Fessenden 74. 'The Eye III : Infinity' (2005) by Oxide & Danny Pang 75. 'The Little Shop Of Horrors' (1960) by Roger Corman 76. 'Aenigma' (1987) by Lucio Fulci 77. 'Orphan' (2009) by Jaume Collet-Serra 78. 'Rogue' (2007) by Greg McLean 79. 'The Black Dragons' (1942) by William Nigh 80. 'The House Of Lost Souls' (1989) by Umberto Lenzi 81. 'The Corpse Vanishes' (1942) by Wallace Fox 82. 'This Night I Will Possess Your Corpse' (1967) by José Mojica Marins 83. 'The Stuff' (1985) by Larry Cohen 84. 'Cold Prey : Resurrection' (2008) by Mats Stenberg 85. 'Fear In The Night' (1972) by Jimmy Sangster 86. 'The Screaming Skull' (1958) by Alex Nicol 87. 'Shock' (1946) by Alfred L. Werker 88. 'At Midnight I Will Take Your Soul' (1963) by José Mojica Marins 89. 'The House Of Witchcraft' (1989) by Umberto Lenzi 90. 'Mausoleum' (1983) by Michael Dugan 91. 'Whispering Corridors' (1998) by Park Ki-hyeong 92. 'The Killer Shrews' (1959) by Ray Kellogg 93. 'Snowbeast' (1977) by Herb Wallerstein 94. 'Beyond Evil' (1980) by Herb Freed 95. 'Zombie Honeymoon' (2004) by Dave Gebroe 96. 'Revolt Of The Zombies' (1936) by Victor Halperin 97. 'The Legend Of The Seven Golden Vampires' (1974) by Roy Ward Baker 98. 'Attack Of The Crab Monsters' (1957) by Roger Corman 99. 'Attack Of The Giant Leeches' (1959) by Bernard Kowalski 100. 'A Bucket Of Blood' (1959) by Roger Corman 101. 'Cannibal Ferox II' (1985) by Michele Massimo Tarantini 102. 'The Monster Walks' (1932) by Frank R. Strayer 103. 'The Heirloom' (2005) by Leste Chen 104. 'The Brain That Wouldn't Die' (1959) by Joseph Green 105. 'Ghosthouse' (1988) by Umberto Lenzi 106. 'The Bat' (1959) by Crane Wilbur 107. 'The Invisible Ghost' (1941) by Joseph H. Lewis 108. 'King Of The Zombies' (1941) by Jean Yarbrough 109. 'The Ape Man' (1943) by William Beaudine 110. 'Zombie Nosh' (1988) by Bill Hinzman 111. 'Bride Of The Monster' (1955) by Edward D. Wood Jnr 112. 'The Sweet House Of Horrors' (1989) by Lucio Fulci 113. 'The Indestructible Man' (1956) by Jack Pollexfen 114. 'The Monster Maker' (1944) by Sam Newfield 115. 'Drive In Massacre' (1977) by Stuart Segall 116. 'The Creature From The Haunted Sea' (1961) by Roger Corman 117. 'Scared To Death' (1947) by Christy Cabanne That was fun! And now it's home time... | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
Donnie Darko is #19?!?  Actually, I'm surprised #1 is Peeping Tom, Stevie. I liked that film, but not that much.... You're making me think I should need to see it again. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I love 'Peeping Tom', Craig. It would be in my Top 10 horror movies list. It's one of those films that keeps getting better, more chilling and emotionally affecting every time you see it. An absolute masterpiece of the highest order!! As for 'Donnie Darko'... I saw it in the cinema on first release and was half impressed, half bemused by it and sort of filed it away as one of those oddly unquantifiable movies I really didn't know if I liked or not. I watched it for the second time recently, in the 20 minutes longer Director's Cut version, and was quite amazed at how great it was. Brilliantly directed and acted, thoroughly original, disturbing as hell, extremely funny (far more so than I had remembered) and with a hell of an emotional wallop. Yeah, I now consider it one of the great deservedly cult classics! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Right, as an interesting but not very scientific experiment I am going to separate the above movies into Old, Modern & Recent categories then give each category a score based on the films' rankings. The category with the lowest score will thus come out on top... and I have no idea which one it will be. My gut instinct tells me that the modern horror films made from 1968 to 1993 should win. But let's see. Watch this space, yet again. Aye it's quiet again in here. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
What a shock result!! Old Horror Movies = 2745 Modern Horror Movies = 2277 Recent Horror Movies (made over the last 20 years) = 1881 I know that's only based on my own selections but the law of averages would still seem to dictate, much to my surprise, that horror films have been evolving and improving since the dawn of cinema!! This makes me want to do the same experiment for every horror film ever made. But don't hold your breaths! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
As the above experiment was so wildly inaccurate due to my selection of only the best recent horror films and a surfeit of less good old and modern efforts I've decided to completely update my Top 100 Horror Movies list and apply the same rules. Most of the work has already been done so it's just a matter of slotting in those newly watched over the last few years. Watch this space... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Just to explain... the upcoming Top 100 only includes films I have actually seen (for obvious reasons). Therefore horror aficionados will notice the absence of quite a few undoubted masterpieces - most notably among the works of Mario Bava. I also feel myself beset by the old listmakers debate of where to draw the line at the definition of "horror". Many, many great cinematic masterpieces that straddle the lines between Horror/Fantasy, Horror/Sci-Fi and Horror/Macabre Thriller will therefore not be included but when the Horror element - i.e. the filmmaker's intention to scare or creep out the audience - is to the fore then works of Sci-Fi (e.g. 'Alien'), Fantasy (e.g. 'Alice') & Thrillers (e.g. 'Seven') will be included. Here goes... | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.145.221.46 |
In the middle of a triple bill just now. I've watched the Zombie Diaries - got about two through before I realised I'd seen it before and wasn't massively impressed that time either. I followed it up with Stakeland, a fantastic road movie through a vampire apocalypse wasteland of America. This may be one of the best vampire movies of recent years. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.145.221.46 |
Still trying to decide on number 3. More zombies or a human threat? If the human threat, Citadel or Serbian Film? | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.145.221.220 |
Just took me 15 minutes to open the cellophane on Citadel. I nearly gave up and watched Norwegian Ninja itsead because that one&# |