| Author | Message | ||
     Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.244.170 |
From the tracking boards today.... ------------------ 3:49 pm August 5th, 2008 Hearing that CAA is out with a Natalie Portman/David Gordon Green package that is a remake of classic film SUSPIRIA. Story concerns a newcomer to a ballet school who discovers that the teachers are witches intent on destruction. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.160.23.143 |
Can't be any worse than the original. | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 90.208.214.42 |
I'm inclined to agree with Mr Lane, although I'm sure they'll have a pretty good try. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.16.86.75 |
You bomb-throwers, you.... Though SUSPIRIA plays more like anime, and is certainly flawed, it is in sum a superior horror film. Have more faith in Hollywood, you two - they can screw ANYTHING up! | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.242.126 |
I liked Suspiria when I was younger but now find it lmost unwatchable. Far too loud, garish and obvious. The end sequence is pretty good, though, and some of the brief visual flourishes still look great. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.242.126 |
PS - I always preferred Inferno. | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 90.199.0.117 |
Me too, Zed, but then it is indeed the better film - more restrained, a (little) bit more plot, that fabulous underwater Bava bit & Keith Emerson's music which is loads better. I like the end of Suspiria too but on the whole I just find Argento's films a bit too silly and childish to take seriously. Oh, but I quite Phenomena (although no-one else does & probably quite rightly so) | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.232.60 |
I like the end of Suspiria too but on the whole I just find Argento's films a bit too silly and childish to take seriously.... Can this really be Mr. Probert saying this?!? "...to take seriously" - um, how many of these great horror movies you tell us about every week, John, are you setting out to take seriously? And through how many do you actually arrive at Destination Seriously? Hell, John - half the horror of (say) Fulci is that it IS all too silly and childish to take seriously!  | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.253.174.81 |
Craig - I suspect here the problem is the definition of the word 'seriously'. Perhaps I should have said 'to seriously enjoy them'. Having said that, I don't watch Fulci's films to laugh at the silly bits, but to apprciate the bits that are truly horrible, truly nightmarish. I've always felt that here was a man putting his nightmares on screen, whereas I get the impression Argento just wants to think up ways to murder beautiful women and film it with fancy camerawork. And because of that impression I take his stuff less seriously than Fulci because I feel Fulci's films have more to offer. Even New York Ripper feels more like a very very bleak world view than an attempt to be arty for the sake of it. Your turn.... | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
As usual, I'm with JLP. And I liked Phenomenon, too. :-) In the crap-euro-horror stakes, Fulci edges in front by way of his obsessional method of depicting his own nigtmares on screen (specifically re: Cat in the Brain). Behind the cheap gore and prosthetics, there's an integrity in the best of his work that's lacking in Argento's silly psycho-sexual fantasies. | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.253.174.81 |
I tried to get through my whole paragraph without mentioning the 'i' word but Zed is of course absolutely right - in the end it's the integrity of a piece that decided whether or not it works for me. And Craig I've just noticed - are you blowing me a kiss???? | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 212.50.191.46 |
I found NEW YORK RIPPER to be a bit unbalanced plot wise. ( he means he wanted more murders) It seemed to be only half a film. And has there ever been a real character in any of these films? Everyone is a dub voiced cardboard prat. The masturbatory smell of them is all that sticks out. The sense of evil and filthy flared trouser-ness. Oh! I can't explain! Let me think, will you?! | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 212.50.191.46 |
Suspiria did make good use of colour and effects. It did have some Aickmanesque oddness to it, I recall. A simple trick of having odd looking characters that aren't explained. Maybe I'm imagining that. | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47 |
I remember that one of the actors in Suspiria Argento said he found in working in a post office franking the mail with his teeth. So maybe it's not your imagination | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47 |
"And has there ever been a real character in any of these films?" No - but I think that full characterisation is the least of these film-makers' intentions | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 212.50.191.46 |
Oh, Silken Wing, you always have the answers. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.12.141 |
Yes, absolutely, I was blowing you a kiss, John... it's my way of saying, of course, I respect your opinions greatly, and am only "having at you" with this bit of semi/quasi-Devil's Advocacy.... I don't watch Fulci's films to laugh at the silly bits, but to apprciate the bits that are truly horrible, truly nightmarish. Neither do I - but I was just recognizing that often in the most despicable horrors, there is a... what other word can be used but "silliness"? It verges upon the ultimate taboo to even admit silliness, because (terms being so confused in this world, a major source of all our psychological pain, but that's another issue) that usually implies elements themselves confused enough to be stuck in the vast realm of "good" (as opposed to "bad"): innocence, fun, nimbleness, playfulness, etc. But in a nightmarish world, those can all be aspects of evil. They can all be essences of evil, which is what Fulci nicely taps into. Argento doesn't so much; his is the standard (I don't mean that in a bad way) terrors, but with a singular flair. Argento's is human evil, motive-driven evil, Freudian evil (DEEP RED). These are mature terrors. Serial killers, sexual-rage, revenge, power (SUSPIRIA)... all the miasma of adults, and adult sensibilities.... Spiders inexplicably crawling out of a library and attacking you, pulling your eyeballs out slowly... that's just plain old silly. That's something a very young child would conjure up: "Hey, dad. Imagine a spider was here, and it came up my leg, and it grabbed my eye, and it pulled it out! Huh, dad? Could that happen, dad? Could it, dad?..." etc. It smacks of playfullness, innocence, and fun. Zombies are silly. Monsters eating you are silly. Fulci often uses children to great horrific effect (THE BEYOND, THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY, MANHATTAN BABY). Monsters chasing you is a childish fear. Inexplicability, randomness, craziness... silliness. The essece of horror unfathomable, too. It's hardly the sum of Fulci, I'm not distilling him to "silliness"... but The Silliness comes to mind, whenever I think of Fucli. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
Good post, Craig. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.8.153 |
Thanks Zed. In addendum: "childishness" or the presence of children or that playful sort of childhood innocence... when it's utilized or manipulated or simply presented, in/as horror in film... I note now, sitting here, how much this still has the capability of disturbing me greatly, unlike whole clutches of other horror films. Films containing something like "child"-ness, either explicitly or symbolically - THE BROOD, SALO, VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (down in the basement), PET SEMETARY (silly as it is), DON'T LOOK NOW, THE ORPHANAGE... and you could list many stories, the ultimate one being maybe "The Small Assassin" by Bradbury - they remain disturbing horrors all, or are newly disturbing, as other formerly-disturbing horrors (like, when I was a kid, zombies) fade away into actual silliness.... | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 90.208.48.69 |
"Spiders inexplicably crawling out of a library and attacking you, pulling your eyeballs out slowly... that's just plain old silly." I thought I had responded to this but I must have forgotten to press the 'Post' button. Craig - I have to say I think most of what you've said on that post is absolutely spot on (and I've always been quite surprised at how good Fulci was at directing children). What I completely missed of course, was that just because I might consider some aspects of Argento's work to be silly, or spiteful, or mean, they are still looking at possible terrible ways in which adults can behave (the ones with 'Broken Minds' - did you ever read Maitland McDonagh's book on him? Very good I thought). And of course there is often a quite perverse sexual subtext in his pictures that I don't find with Fulci. The best of Fulci is nightmarish and profoundly black, the best of Argento is human nastiness and profoundly red. Or something. | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 90.203.130.78 |
By the way, I see Crispin Glover is in a remake of THE WIZARD OF GORE! Now THAT'S a silly film! | ||
| Richard_gavin (Richard_gavin) Username: Richard_gavin Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 65.110.174.71 |
I like some Argento, some Fulci. I agree with the comments about Dario's derivative (and repetetive!) Freudian themes. It's a safe bet that if there's a black-gloved killer on the prowl in a Dario film, chances are mama is somehow to blame. DEEP RED was the first and, I think, the best of this kind of film in the Argento canon. Fulci can be silly. And cheap. And exploitive as all get out. But he can also be disturbing. ////SPOILER//// For example, the scene where the child, Bob, is trapped in the cellar by Dr. Freudstein in my all-time favourite Fulci flick, THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY. Seeing this merciless thing, however hokey-looking, shambling up the stairs and pressing the boy's head against the door while his panicked parents attampt to hack through the opposite side is quite unsettling. zed: You mention Fulci's CAT IN THE BRAIN. I have never seen that one. Is it any good? For the record, I have zero interest in a SUSPIRIA remake. It was Argento's baroque, blood-drenched flair that elevated the original above its ludicrous script. Best, Richard | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 83.98.9.4 |
Without Argento of course there would have been no Dawn Of The Dead. I believe he was one of the main backers of the project. | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 87.62.5.130 |
'For the record, I have zero interest in a SUSPIRIA remake. It was Argento's baroque, blood-drenched flair that elevated the original above its ludicrous script.' Here, here. | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 90.203.130.153 |
I watched SUSPIRIA for the second time last night (first time was about 10 years ago) as it was on as part of Film 4's FrightFest season. This time I turned the volume right up as apparently this is the best way to watch the film. I'm afraid I still don't like it. And after all the discussion above & the fact that I even got a kick out of DAWN OF THE MUMMY this week I am at a loss as to explain why. Perhaps it's because Argento is regarded with such reverence in certain circles, and probably because all the small press mags I used to read growing up like John Gullidge's Samhain used to go on and on about how brilliant he was (these articles were usually written by Alan Jones) that I expect too much. In fact I'm sure that's it. I loved the opening murder, the razor wire, the death of the hideous Elena Markos (I have a phobia about old ladies for a number of quite disgusting childhood experiences I would be delighted to relate over a pint), and the dialogue bit with Udo Kier and that professor guy who talks about magic & evil being all around us. But so much of it is pointless and senseless that it starts to get annoying. And Elena Markos has a stupid voice and shit dialogue which considerably diminishes the effect of her appearance. I suspect I'm being completely unreasonable about this film & over the years I've tried hard to like Argento, but I only ever come away from his pictures liking moments, eg: The bit where Anthony Franciosa bends over in TENEBRAE (Joel Lane is barred from commenting on this bit) The bullet through the eye sequence in OPERA The revelation at the end of DEEP RED The pit of maggots in PHENOMENA The underwater room in INFERNO And I KNOW people are going to come back with "but that's why he's great" but I would argue that's why he's not - he can't make these elements work in a film overall. I don't mind my euro-horrors being daft, but there's something about movies like TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD or LIVING DEAD AT THE MANCHESTER MORGUE that Argento's films lack (don't anyone say zombies). There's a coldness, a lack of emotional involvement to them that distances me, so that I can appreciate the technical expertise without ever having felt part of the story Argento is trying (badly) to tell. I came away from SUSPIRIA feeling it was a lot of bells and whistles about nothing, when in fact there's a fun story lurking in there that deserved better. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
"I only ever come away from his pictures liking moments" I'm the same. The man's incapable of creating a wholly satisfying film, and they get worse with every new effort. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.160.23.143 |
Yes, yes, yes. I don't need to comment when John has summed up the problem with Suspiria so clearly. Those who praise his compositional set-pieces don't explain why he chose to be a film director rather than a photographer or a stage designer. The answer is the money and the adulation poured over any horror director who possesses a modicum of technical skill, no matter how lacking he may be in taste, ethics, integrity and intellect. However, from John's notes it's clear I need to see TENEBRAE. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.8.16 |
It's wearying, trying to come up with reasons to defend Argento (who can't be, nowadays: he has become a mindbogglingly terrible filmmaker of late). It's sometimes wearying defending any film, or critiquing it... so much is taste-dependent.... We're all squirming bags of closed-up mind-firings agnostically attempting to communicate to shambling robotic forms as it is in our lives, let alone the strings of text in our computer-screen non-lives. Who can justify personal tastes? It all seems so futile. Maybe a handful of great images is enough, a few moments of tension, some nice fantasy... a pretty face, a chill or two... a boob here, a boob there... "wholly satisfying" films might be too much to ask for, ALL the time... | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.157.91.38 |
I still think of SUSPIRIA as being a good film, simply because I saw it on its release, at the cinema, and it was like nothing I'd seen to that point. However, it tells a tale that although I bought it on DVD many years back, I've not watched it, and in fact I've never seen it since that first time in a theatre... | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.199.155 |
It still works for me, along with a half dozen other early Argentos. He hasn't made a good film since OPERA, unfortunately. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
How do we feel about Mario Bava, a (if not the)crucial precursor of Argento? | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.186.103 |
I don't understand the prissy attitude toward Argento's use of style and violence. He does what he does, and does it well (or, at least, he used to). His films are no more violent or misogynistic or erratic in quality then any other European horror director, in my opinion. As for Mario Bava, he was a true master. Again, this is just my opinion - I'm sure others will find his continuing themes of brutally murdering women morally reprehensible. The truth (as I see it) is that both Argento and Bava before him were great technical masters, as well as possessing a keen imagination and eye for the nightmarish and the macabre. I enjoy SUSPIRIA because it feels to me like a nightmarish fairytale. For me, the gore in his best films are almost incidental - you could take most of it out, and you'd still be left with a twisted, almost surreal horror film that works despite its flaws. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.186.103 |
Sorry, that should be "is" almost incidental. Looks like the medicine is affecting my spelling again... | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
I are with you, Huw. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.186.103 |
I's glad to hear it.  | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
I love Bava'a stuff. There's more of a sense of artistic flair and (dare I say it) fun to his films. For me, Argento has no idea how to tell a story using his visual set-pieces, whereas Bava gels them together better as part of a coherent storyline. This failing on Argento's part can actually be a strength in films like Suspira and Inferno (the latter is a wonderfully surreal horror experience) but lets him down in other efforts. Argento's latest, Mother of Tears, is a case in point. He's abandoned the beautiful visuals and what's left is possibly the worst film I've ever seen. Having said all that, I think Profundo Rosso demonstrates that Argento was at least once capable of telling a coherent story... | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.186.230 |
I disagree that Argento is just about the set-pieces and has no idea of how to tell a story. I think his better, earlier work is every bit as coherent as any of the other Euro-horror directors of the time, such as Lamberto Bava, Soavi, and Fulci (or, at least, as 'coherent' as any of them ever were, which wasn't much, a lot of the time). | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.7.185 |
Is it even fathomable, that MOTHER OF TEARS could be worse than THE CARD PLAYER and DO YOU LIKE HITCHCOCK?... It just doesn't seem possible. You'd have to try really, really, really hard. It's almost worth seeing just for that reason. Argento very nearly redeemed himself with the Masters of Horror "Jenifer," and I had hoped he'd found his mojo. Guess not.... And Bava = genius, far as I'm concerned. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.193.191 |
MOTHER OF TEARS is easily the worst Argento film ever. It edges out his other recent misfires partly because of all the high expectations of a return to form. I actually found watching it a painful experience. It has nothing in common with the films made back when he actually seemed inspired (roughly 1970-1988, give or take a couple of years). I still consider at least half a dozen of his films essential viewing. I think it's a shame that Michele Soavi, who seemed to be Argento's natural successor, stopped making films after DELLAMORTE DELLAMORE. There are rumours of a new film on the horizon, so we'll see... | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 90.203.130.226 |
I think the best of Bava is better than the best of Argento, simply because Bava is a better storyteller (or perhaps he had to be, given the period when most of his films were made). I don't object to Argento's style or use of violence at all. Oddly enough I rewatched PHENOMENA the other night, and I now find that a truly ambitious films - the concept of someone having a telepathic link with insects, and especially with coffin flies thus leading to the discovery of corpses, being able to tell how long ago they died, etc is quite inspired, actually. Sadly it all falls to bits when we actually see the killer, and the ending defuses a lot of the very good work that has gone before. I certainly prefer it to SUSPIRIA & would go so far as to say that this might be his (flawed - there are still some bits that grate horribly) masterpiece. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.240.84 |
SUSPIRIA is more sustained than DEEP RED, certainly... especially the un-edited DEEP RED.... It's a toss-up between these two. And like you, John, PHENOMENA I found deeply disappointing, a fascinating set-up that frustratingly didn't pay off (kind of like Fulci's THE BLACK CAT). The violence of TENEBRAE hearkens back to Bava's TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE. The violence in TENEBRAE is still difficult to watch, even as unintentionally humorous as it can be (for the fx, and the melodrama). "UNSANE" (the VHS trans. of the title of this film, back in ye old VHS days) indeed.... | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 79.187.206.46 |
A bit late with this one, but with regards to Argento. I've seen very little of his work, and so can't form an honest opinion. I do remember watching 'Demons' as a teenager, and even back then thinking maybe I just didn't get it. I know 'Demons' is hardly the movie by which to illustrate my feelings, that's like watching John Huston's 'Escape to Glory' and trying to form a coherent opinion of his skills, but I must admit to feeling somebody had let out all the air from the front tyre of my favourite bike. An anti-climax. |