Here on Fabulous False Memory Foam Island©, we celebrate the Perineum - that period between Christmas and the New Year - by screening a favorite movie down at the beach. This year the insects gathered in the beam of the projector as original nitrate reels of Dead Of Night spooled through the gate, the ghostly image flickering on a nun's outsize scapular stretched between giant Lucite™ statues of Dick Manitoba and Joey Heatherton.
As a cinéaste, you'll be familiar with this Ealing Studios "portmanteau" production from 1945, applauding its bold chiaroscuro and gothic ambience, speculating on a codified gestalt of English post-war malaise, and acknowledging its lasting influence on the horror genre in both cinema and television. But enough of that shit. It's a varied collection of short stories from different teams that's both entertaining and disturbing, in an entirely effects-free way that contemporary movies can't achieve. The stories are connected by a core narrative of ominous déja-vu [oh, shut up - Ed.] experienced by a visitor at a country house.
No bats were harmed in the making of this picture, nor indeed appear in it.
While the loadup loadups, you may wish to share your horrorest movies. Apart from this here, I'd say The Shining, in spite of its many and obvious faults, and The Exorcist, but you must have more interesting choices.
ReplyDeleteA puzzle for you, Farq - name this flick: "Black and white cat, black and white cake. Black and white cat, black and white cake."
ReplyDeleteCram
Not even YewChewb is helping me with this one - well done!
DeleteKusturica?
DeleteThe Sentinel. Creepy, kind of goofy movie about the guardian of the gates of Hell. Not a true story. Watch for Clark Griswald's wife.
DeleteCram
We went through a phase of watching collections. The Thing. 1951 (James Arness) 1982 (Kurt Russell) and 2011 (a prequel). All good. Then we did three versions of Invasion Of The Body Snatchers. 1956 & 1978 & 2007. The first two were good. I think the third had a happy ending. But movies that made a impact and made their way into our vocabulary was Them, "It didn't break in, it broke out!" There is 'Pod People' and whenever the fog rolls up the canyon, I and the neighbors still call it 'Crawling Eye Weather.'
ReplyDeleteAnd as a child the movie that creeped me out was Invaders From Mars. With the sand pits beyond the split rail fence. (The original, not the Karen Black version).
Here's the deliverables, delivered in a timely fashion according to best industry standards: https://workupload.com/file/XQXcqqXGNdJ
ReplyDeleteAudition (オーディション, Ōdishon) a 1999 Japanese horror film directed by Takashi Miike, a real LOOK AWAY or hide behind the sofa film.
ReplyDeleteOkaayyy .... *gulp* ...
DeleteI'll second that nomination for Odishon. Quite disturbing.
DeleteAnother unsettling personal favorite is Tzameti (13). A different flavor of disturbing.
DON is a fave.
ReplyDeletehorror films are increasingly made quaint by real life. every day someone commits a fresh, heretofore unimaginable, atrocity.
stabbing to death a room full of napping toddlers as happened recently is now something we must guard against!!
DON is in the tradition of chilling supernatural fiction, and very different from gore horror. I can't watch Saw, or anything relying on the shock spilling of blood and physical cruelty. That's just revolting. DON has an atmosphere of threat and menace without ever resorting to violence, and it's a much harder trick than the flash cut to someone getting their eyes drilled out (frinstance). I sometimes wonder - when my busy schedule allows it - why Lovecraft's novels haven't been successfully filmed. There've been some noble failures, but the atmosphere is lacking, and atmosphere it what true horror is all about. The more graphic and less suggestive, the lower the chill factor. It's why CGI never, ever scares, but a simple scene like the reflection in the haunted mirror of DON delivers a real jolt.
Deleteyeah. stuff like Saw and other graphic parades of torture are not my idea of entertainment. cgi horror takes a bow and then does a trick.
DeleteUtterly gross splatter horror, like Saw, is just pathetic, not worth anyone's time...
DeleteIf you can watch gore "dispassionately", at a critical distance, then it's broken something inside you that may never be mended. I treasure my ability to be revolted by it. Give me eldritch horrors from dimensions twisted beyond time any night.
Delete'Dead of Night' was the first horror film I ever saw. I doubt I was even 10 at the time.
ReplyDeleteMe too. I think I learned the power of cinema then.
DeleteDon't Look Now is the one, with its brewing sense of eerie menace and that unforgettable pay-off. And Julie Christie in her prime ain't bad, neither.
ReplyDeleteC in California
Don't Look Now has to be on the list.
DeleteNight Of The Demon, starring Dana Andrews. I saw this on TV around 1970. I must admit that the sight of the demon tearing the baddie to bits made me jump. Later on, my cousin sent me a DVD of the movie and I realised ( yes, Google, I realize that I placed an S in the word, "realise". It's the English way.) that the demon resembled a dog of sorts, having fun.
ReplyDeleteRowan, a dog, no.... but weirdly, the demon looked exactly like our dear departed cat, McMurphy. Agreeing the movie is fantabulous. My first real scare was with the 50's Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, seen on a Sunday afternoon on a local station. Ran into the kitchen to tell my mom to tell me everything was fine, then screeched to a halt, trapped in my first ever experience of irony.
DeleteLike Farq I really really don't care for the splatter/gore arms-race of sensory overload that 'Horror' cinema has been dominated by for so long. Got to admit I enjoyed the remake of 'The Crazies' and '28 Days Later' though. Ben Wheatley's 'Kill List' is an unsettling, occasionally graphic, tale of opaque conspiracies in provincial England from 2011.
ReplyDeleteThe stuff that shook me up as a nipper was 'The Haunting', 'The Devil Rides Out', 'Quatermass and the Pit', all of which still stand my test of time, plus Spielberg's 'Something Evil' which IIRC hasn't.
In addition seeing Sergio Leone's Dollar trilogy at age 10 or so was a disturbing experience, as was a TV concert of Alice Cooper, a hallucinogenic-themed storyline in 'The Tomorrow People', the BBC's Christmas ghost stories, 'Space 1999: End Of Eternity' and various Pertwee/Baker 'Dr Who' episodes.
And 'Threads'...
The Haunting! That got to me too (I think there was a remake, where they lost everything).
DeleteThe remake lost me after just a few minutes. The original has extra force for me now that I appreciate the tragic dimension of the characters' interplay as well as the unnerving spooky stuff.
DeleteBesides John Carpenter's The Thing, his Prince of Darkness is equally unsettling...
ReplyDeleteHaven't seen the latter in far too long. The Thing left me open-mouthed first viewing.
DeleteAlready mentioned, but I'll second them both:
ReplyDeleteThe Thing and Don't look Now.
An honorary mention for The Blair Witch Project, but I don't think that it bears a second viewing very well. Effective the first time - after that, far less so.
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ReplyDeleteI watched Eli Roth's 'Hostel' out of morbid these-are-end-times curiosity. It was certainly horrible but its heart was in the right place in as much as it made you root for the victims and hate the perpetrators.
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