ok lets all shit our pants to something old: pre-2006 horror film thread

There needs to be a proper Corman box set of his horror films. I'm reluctant to get a lot of them because a lot of them are underwhelming but they often have just enough going for them for me to crave more and I think they are better than the similar British films of that era.

THE UNDEAD (not seen it but the trailer has a stunning beauty in it)
FALL OF THE HOUSE IF USHER (okay)
MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH (should offend dwarves)
PIT AND THE PENDULUM (easily the best of the ones I've seen, good visuals and Barbara Steele)
TOMB OF LIGEIA (a bit dull)
THE TERROR (Karloff and Jack Nicholson, okay)
PREMATURE BURIAL (not seen it)
TALES OF TERROR (not seen it)
THE RAVEN (not seen it)
TOWER OF LONDON (really dull, not to be confused with Karloff film of same name)
HAUNTED PALACE (Lovecraft attempt with some nice visuals and gorgeous lady)

Not sure about comedies like A Bucket Of Blood and Little Shop Of Horrors. I always thought Oblong Box was by Corman but it isn't. Horror Hotel feels like one of them and I'm quite fond of that.

I'm amazed that Corman is still regularly producing films with titles just like he did in the 50s-60s. Anyone seen his newer films?

Don't get people who are rooting against Sgt Howie in TWM. He may be a bit of a prude but how can you not feel for him? Even on a basic level of empathy for a guy who's clearly trying to do good while all around plot against him.

I guess I could feel sorry for him but my excuse is that I saw that clip "Oh God!Oh Jesus Christ!" repeatedly (people link to it regularly on forums and blogs for comic effect) on tv horror film documentaries that had obnoxious spoilers. It is very funny in isolation.
I think those shows spoiled a lot of films and I hope future viewers can experience a lot of these films more freshly than I did. Luckily when I watched Spoorloos/Vanishing, I didn't realise I had previously seen the ending on a clip show until the film finished. That would have ruined it.
Those clip show bastards showed the endings to Suspiria, Nosferatu, Exorcist and Don't Look Now.

It is sad that books aren't more widely discussed but the big benefit is you can read most of the classics without knowing what happens in them.

Tears of Kali (2004, Andreas Marschall)
German flick about a fictional cult whose meditation methods unleash demons, sounds pretty great. Not great by any means, but intriguing and promising. Unusual ideas, ambitious storytelling and an omnibus structure that keeps things moving. Undercut by distinctly lacklustre cinema. A trial run for something better?

Naked Blood (1996, Hisayasu Sato)
Repeat viewing. An alienated young man invents a serum that causes people to experience pain as pleasure, tragedy ensuses. This film seems known only to hardcore gore & transgression buffs, but I think it's an amazing work of art. A justly notorious (though relatively brief) midfilm auto-cannibalism setpiece drastically limits its potential audience, but I strongly recommend Naked Blood to anyone who thinks they might be able to stomach the gore. Surreal, quietly anguished and strangely haunting. A longtime personal favorite that holds up remarkably well.

Stacy: Attack of the Schoolgirl Zombies (2001, Naoyuki Tomomatsu)
Repeat viewing. A mysterious disease causes young women between the ages of 15 and 17 to die and then return to life as mindless, bloodthirsty zombies. This cheerfully schlocky, superficially comical splatter movie uses its basic situation to tell a number of related (and in most cases overlapping) stories, with varying tone & emphasis. Beneath the goofy surface, however, lies a cryptic and rather disturbing commentary on Japanese schoolgirl fetishism. Sui generis and strangely heartfelt.

I've seen a fair amount of talk about Naked Blood On this forum. I'm intrigued, I don't think I've even heard the name before.

damn you aren't kidding that tears of kali SOUNDS great! I have to see that despite yr mixed rev.

tears of kali is definitely worth a watch, and yeah, the concept had me sold from the get-go. the director's follow-up, masks, is much more assured & satisfying, if a good deal less original.

re naked blood: i genuinely love the move, but it's very hard to recommend. the worst moments (of which there are few) are REALLY nasty, like "some things you can't unsee" level unpleasantness. my sense is that the yuk factor unbalances and overshadows the rest of the film, to the point where even i have to admit that a threshold has been crossed. with that substantial caveat in mind, an amazing piece of work.

I never go out of my way to seek or avoid violent sickie films; but I've heard a lot of complaints recently about such things and I rarely hear a coherent argument for what is "too far" or what constitutes a unethical way of depicting a reprehensible act.
There are some things I don't like seeing but I can't think of anything that I thought shouldn't have been shown.

i don't mean that naked blood becomes reprehensible as a result of its gore (well it does, but that doesn't bother me in itself). i mean that the nastier moments alter the film's overall tone substantially, perhaps to its artistic detriment. certainly limits the potential audience, which seems a shame.

... I rarely hear a coherent argument for what is "too far" or what constitutes a unethical way of depicting a reprehensible act.

feel you, but i'm not sure that kind of thing should or even can be broken down all logical-like. we all have our limits, and gut-level emotional responses (DO NOT WANT!) are just as valid as more seemingly-coherent intellectual analyses.

I just went to amazon and bought it there. 20pounds, a little bit too expensive but I'm very intrigued. I'll have to watch this when everyone else is asleep.

A few more things I saw in recent times...

SCHOCK/SHOCK
In the music section of this forum I've praised the soundtrack a lot (Libra includes a few Goblin members). When I watched the trailer for this film I decided to not bother with the film because the soundtrack by itself seemed so much more exciting.
But a few years later I got the chance to see it and it was way better than expected. This might even be one of Bava's very best films. A lot of his classic films stand on the strength of their visuals but this is better than most of them as a whole work. This is Bava adjusting to a new era of Italian horror film and he doesn't look remotely out of touch here.
The story is about a dead father who haunts his wife by possessing the body of his son.
Some really strange moments in this film, but really the soundtrack is still my favourite thing about it.

NOROI
Some people rate this as one of the greatest Japanese horror films ever but it barely made much impression on me. It's made in the form of a documentary, with tv show clips and investigative journalism.

MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE
Aside from the appealingly smokey dark visuals and settings, this is yet another incredibly dull Bela Lugosi film with all the willingness and poor comic relief you'd expect.

MASK OF FU MANCHU
Sluggish boredom and the expected racism. The lightning massacre at the end was kind of good but I could never recommend the film.

NAKED BLOOD
It is weirdly sedate for a gore film, reminds me in some places of Death Powder. I can see how you might think the goriest parts spoil the sleepily surreal parts. The violence is important to the story, so the gore doesn't feel entirely misplaced; perhaps after being warned it didn't seem too bad to me. The naïve quality of the film was interesting.
Looking at the director's filmography there is so many films that got renamed (the director had a different intended title for them all) to sound like taboo pushing rape fantasies, I wonder if they are all porn films or anything like Naked Blood?
There was an advert on the dvd for a film called Sexy Soccer, which looks like the laziest sexploitation film I've ever seen.

DEATH POWDER
This film makes little attempt at being coherent but it has some good stuff in there. Steamy cyberpunk locations, hallucinatory scenes, a humorous music video, groups of scarred people. The version I saw was only partially subtitled.

CURSE OF KAZUO UMEZU
This is really stiffly animated but it works well enough, the background art has some nice dreamy darkness about it. The first story is pleasingly monstrous, surprisingly scary with a pretty cool twist.
Umezu got a lot of his comics made into live action tv/film but I've never bothered with them apart from this.

LABYRINTH OF DREAMS
This is from Sogo Ishii's quiet phase after his early punk films. An elegant soft black and white ghost story that is only borderline horror, really nice stuff. Ishii's frequent actor Tadanobu Asano stars.

From the animation thread, but I properly linked this video because this thread isn't in threat of being overloaded with videos...

Nina Shorina's "Room Of Laughter" here. One of the best films I saw last year. A prime example of what animation can do for horror. If you have ten minutes to spare...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgZZY9K-WIc

Looking at the director's filmography there is so many films that got renamed (the director had a different intended title for them all) to sound like taboo pushing rape fantasies, I wonder if they are all porn films or anything like Naked Blood?

― Robert Adam Gilmour, Sunday, April 27, 2014 8:41 AM (Yesterday)

nearly all of hisayasu sato's other films are softcore sex pictures (though he did direct a memorable segment in 2005's rampo noir horror omnibus). i've downloaded a few of his pinku based on the recommendation of others, but have yet to watch any: survey map of a paradise lost, an aria on gazes and love - 0 = infinity. tbh, i don't know whether the somewhat artful titles here are original or replacements intended to help sell the films to more sensitive western audiences, and i don't really trust imdb on this. he's said to be a well respected director within his micro-genre, an experimental punk artist working at the furthest fringes of commercial cinema. i wouldn't know, and i'm not sure i want to further explore a filmography full of titles like lolita vibrator torture and horse woman dog. he did make a gay pink film called muscle, which sounds intriguing, but i haven't found a torrent.

personally, i see naked blood as an interesting and convincingly anguised peice of outsider art. the fact that the director apparently spent the bulk of his career making sleazy, violent, low budget pornography only adds to the nihilist resonance.

and wow, death powder sounds great! thanks for the tip, will watch.

Anyone been seeing these recent BFI disc releases? Stuff like M R James/Ghost Story For Christmas collection, Robin Redbreast, Gaslight, Sleepwalker, Dead Of Night, Supernatural and Schalcken The Painter?

Most of this appears to be old British tv shows, I'm sceptical but I've seen some extremely positive reviews for them. I've seen one or two of the M R James episodes and they were fine. I read Le Fanu's Schalcken The Painter recently and I am curious how they'd pull it off for screen.

A word of warning: the complete Karloff's Thriller is packaged and blurbed like a pure horror show but really only something like 10 episodes of the 67 are horror; it was really a noir/crime/mystery show. Quite a few people said it was better than Twilight Zone and Outer Limits but I never saw much of them.
It was decent but I never sustained enough interest to watch the whole thing. A lot of the acting is a bit sloppy. The highlights for me were a haunted house story with Rip Torn; a Bloch story about a mirror or glasses that let you see monstrous "true" forms of people; best was a Derleth story with Karloff as a weird pale lethargic scientist covered in cobwebs. But none of this was really enough to justify getting the boxed set.

I super dug the three episodes I watched before it was taken off Netflix. Also: tons of fuckin money ass goldsmith scores on those.

The theme tune was great.

100 bloody acres now streaming on us at least netflix

The Watson/Webber version of Fall Of House Of Usher. I'd say it was among the best silent horror films. Only 12 minutes...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPYjrOST-VQ

Any opinions on the 1974 version of Dracula? I guess it's about to be reissued, and Varese Sarabande just issued the soundtrack by Bob Cobert-- I listened to it on spotify today and it's great stuff in the hammer romantic-menace vein (but better recorded than most of the hammer music).

Who was playing that Dracula, it doesn't sound familiar.

Anyone saw Mimic directors cut? Del Toro said he was pleased because he didn't have to disown the film anymore. But I'm still kind of reluctant because unlike Barker's Nighbreed, I never got the sense that it could have been something special if left alone (admittedly based on the opinions of people who saw it before it was butchered). I guess The Keep is another film that people are still hoping for a directors cut.

Just watched my new copy of IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS (not a good copy, I think it's Korean, it has way too small a screen size), I hadn't seen it in maybe more than 10 years and it holds up less well than I had imagined.
The light metal music in the intro/outro doesn't set the tone very well. I remembered the film being cheesy with the appearance of the evil writer and the clichéd scary children but I didn't remember the goofy humour at all, with all those wisecracks.
I used to be freaked out by Sam Neill laughing in the cinema but I guess there was nothing wrong with that part, I'm just older. I kept thinking Neill didn't care that much about his performance or maybe he thought this was going to be closer to a horror comedy than it really was. It's unbelievable and funny how he makes a map from the book covers.

What is still quite effective is the disordered reality scenes almost like Jacob's Ladder, a lot of the driving scenes with the tunnels, dark roads and the cyclist; I liked the creatures (especially the main tunnel scene that is very similar to Lovecraft's "At The Mountains Of Madness") and the church interior too.

2 taglines: "Lived any good books lately?" and "Reality isn't what it used to be".

I have really strong memories of being very young and even terrified of this films existence, trying to avoid looking at pictures of it. As a young teen finding it pretty scary too.

It isn't great but I don't know why it rarely gets mentioned for quite a long time.

One of my favourite sites heavily recommended an obscurity called Atrapados that sounded really great...
http://www.fright.com/edge/Atrapados.htm

Now he linked to vimeo where the director has uploaded the film...
http://vimeo.com/92413499
I hope I can watch it soon if my internet speed gets fixed.

I'd watch a Keep director's cut out of curiosity, but the film is perfect as is

I think the reason it has never had a DVD release is possibly the difficulty of finally putting together the directors cut. Not sure what is stopping Nightbreed.

THEY LIVE

I got an unexpected amount of pleasure seeing a musclebound hero who is also a convincing, likable everyman (for lack of a better word). Not a fan of Arnold Schwarzenegger, I don't mind Stallone but I could do with more big muscle guys who seem approachable in films. Don't think I've seen a film with The Rock in it but he seems nice.

I'm very familiar with the majority of Carpenter's films but for some reason I had never heard of They Live until a few years ago.

Great funny long fight scene. The thing I liked least is the very forced sounding wise cracks and cheesy lines.

Been looking around for Jean Rollin DVDs and some are prominently labelled for being uncut but I don't think any of his films have been censored for decades have they? He seems way too tame to be censored into the DVD age.

Are the Dr Phibes films worthwhile?

I had passed on The Hunger and Paul Schrader's version of Cat People many times because I never bought the hype, they didn't sound interesting to me. I lump them together as very 80s sexy horror films that were very modern and cool for their time, I guess Near Dark might even fit in there. But I finally watched both this weekend and I'm glad I did.

Cat People feels like a radical new interpretation possibly more based on the source short story than the original film (?), I have to agree with the camp that prefers this to the Lewton film (I think there were better Lewton films), there were so many aspects I don't recall in the older film. Kinski was really sweet in this.

The Hunger was a real surprise. I don't have much experience with Tony Scott but I was never remotely attracted to most of his output that I know of (I have heard he has done lesser known great stuff); so I was amazed that this is one of the most visually impressive and stylish films I've ever seen; really beautiful at times. A lot of old makeup jobs look terrible but the makeup for aging Bowie was very impressive. This is the type of surprise that makes me think that sometimes I should listen to hype when I'm reluctant.

first doctor phibes is fun, not great, but a nice period piece, great production design. second is a wash.

dig both the hunger and shrader's cat people remake, moreso the former. other than that and true romance, though, i've never had much use for tony scott.

This might be kind of silly but Angel Witch's Dr Phibes tune made me think "wow, maybe if that film inspired such great music maybe the film is great too".

Corman's version of The Raven. I had no idea it was a full on comedy about rival magicians, it's probably one of the better Price/Corman/Poe films but I could imagine it horrifying some serious Poe fans and I guess using a classic poem like that as nothing but a framing device for a goofy comedy is pretty lousy. One of the funnier parts has Lorre calling Karloff a "dirty old man" for turning his magic wand floppy.

Wake In Fright. Liked it a lot but I'm surprised that this has uncontroversially been treated as a horror film by everybody. Peoples ideas of genre must be a lot more inclusive these days.

One thing I found odd about the film is that it's difficult to really gauge what was getting to him the most. He wasn't totally uptight about hunting or drunken antics; you're not really supposed to totally sympathise with his knee-jerk feelings about the other characters sex lives either.
I guess the kangaroo fighting and the idea of becoming a stranded alcoholic around those same people was the worst.

The director seems to be yet another guy who unfortunately spent most of his days doing less than ideal material.
Gary Bond has such an impressive face and voice, I'd like to see him in more.

popular definition of horror seems to have changed massively in the last decade & a half. now includes basically anything that could reasonably be described as "horrifying" (or even just "disturbing"). there's an admirable clarity and simplicity to this, but i'm not comfortable with it.

I'm conflicted too about horror being basically only required to be unpleasant/disturbing. But if it pleases some fans and creators then I'm for it.

I did recently see someone complaining that Jean Rollin films shouldn't be called horror. I may have never discovered The Shout if it wasn't lumped in the genre, so I'm grateful for that (fantasy films have such a poor tradition that stuff like Hourglass Sanatorium and Dean Spanley is more likely to be discussed in horror magazines).
I also think that if Bride Of Frankenstein qualifies then so does Nightmare Before Christmas.

I think it's a bigger issue in prose than anywhere else. I've seen so many reviewers disgusted that they read someone like Robert Aickman rather than something more traditional. I support diversity but I have to admit that I'm disappointed when I read a horror anthology with too much mundane realism for my taste(stuff like losing a child or terminal cancer), but I shouldn't be able to(nor anyone else) get to decide what never goes in a horror anthology.

INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (50s version)
It's fine but it didn't do anything special for me. Not really required viewing.

SECONDS
Good. Has some really fine moments (especially when the images are distorted), I might need to see it again because I didn't pick up on everything. I actually think it's one of the bleakest harshest pre-70s horror films I've ever seen.

Both incredible films imo

Seen someone talking about the House series and I just realised I have saw the first three at different times. I remember some seriously heated expectations when I was young as if they were the ultimate haunted house films but they really aren't.

It's mostly a horror comedy series. I think more than one film has the houses with gateways into different locations, like jungles.

The first one has some okay monstery stuff but it's mostly memorable for one of the most hideous creatures I've ever seen in a film (a miserable looking corpse of a large lady with sharp teeth), I remember seeing its face on a Fangoria cover and being incredibly disturbed, thinking the film must be totally harrowing. I don't remember if any of it was funny though, probably not.

I thought the second was quite entertaining in a goofy way, with buddy comedy, these weird jungle adventures, a charming old cowboy corpse and some impressive monster creations at the end. But I still wouldn't go as far to recommend it.

The third one was just renamed to fit into this series, so the reason it feels nothing like the others is that it wasn't supposed to be part of the series.
I don't think it's supposed to be funny, although there is a really out of place scene in which the villain makes cat noises before he forces himself on the wife of the main character. That scene is really upsetting because (1)the cat noises and the cartoonish behaviour of the villain make it seem like it was supposed to be the only funny thing in the film (2) as silly as the villain is played, he comes across a genuinely horrible, hostile and malicious rapist, the wife seems totally helpless and the hero kind of hopeless too. At the time it felt uncomfortably cruel but I saw it quite some time ago.

always hated the house movies, though they seem beloved of many. seconds is spectacular tho.

house 4 sucks but it does have this classic scene:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDZoPxi7r64

Abominable Dr Phibes. This is actually just like Theatre Of Blood in that it's a horror/comedy Vincent Price vehicle in which he kills off people in inventive ways with the help of a pretty young female assistant, people who he believes wronged him in the past. Very specific similarities.

It's way more stylish than Theatre Of Blood, his character is more cool too. Quite enjoyable in places but I wouldn't recommend it strongly.

The House That Screamed (1969). Spanish production. Girls are disappearing from an isolated boarding school. I highly recommend this, it's reminiscent of Bava - especially Blood and Black Lace - but with a heavy layer of sexual repression and some of the perversion that goes with that. Boasting a spectacular female cast led by Lilli Palmer, plus the young actor who would appear the next year with Jane Asher in Deep End.

Don't get people who are rooting against Sgt Howie in TWM. He may be a bit of a prude but how can you not feel for him? Even on a basic level of empathy for a guy who's clearly trying to do good while all around plot against him.

I never root against Howie! He's certainly not someone I'd want to hang out with in real life, but he's a damn good cop, has a philosophy and sticks to it, and does nearly everything right... though it ultimately does him no good. Love Howie!

COFFIN JOE COLLECTION is a bargain even if most of the 9 films are very poor

I'm shocked by how many people still haven't seen these. There are kind of mind-blowing. There is nothing else like them. That dude had some obsessions and he never let them go, and the movies, if memory recalls, just get trippier and trippier. If only that 9-disc set weren't Region 2!

house 4 sucks but it does have this classic scene:

this is amazing btw

I wouldn't say they were progressively trippier, some of the later ones are very stale, even with the (completely real) eyeball operation scene. They are all interesting for some reason or other. The anthology film had real potential to be a good film but didn't make it.

Some have compared him to Jodorowsky and in terms of his obsessions, there is something to that. The idea of a horror icon who is obsessed with finding the ultimate woman to make the ultimate son to carry on his bloodline is very fresh and fascinating.

Coffin Joe lamented that there are fewer horror icons now (or less good ones) and I agree that is unfortunate. After the various Chaney, Schreck, Barrymore, Veidt, Lugosi, Karloff, Christopher Lee, Cushing and Price characters, what are we left with? I like Englund a bit, Bruce Campbell can be good if not spread too thickly but I can't see much else. Maybe there should be conscious effort to make new exciting characters who are somewhat cartoony.

MESSIAH OF EVIL

I was wondering for quite a while which DVD version I should get and how much I was willing to pay. Code Red version is supposed to be the only one worth getting, it has the originally intended widescreen and the director pulled out the theme song he didn't approve of.

The few Code Red copies left were very expensive so I went for the public domain version on YouTube.

I actually like the theme song, it's as evocative as anything in the film. Since I didn't see it widescreen, I guess I can't completely judge the visuals but it didn't look quite as stylish as I had heard it did. It has nice touches here and there but I couldn't recommend it on that basis.

I generally don't flinch when I see lousy fashions of 60s-70s-80s films but I think a lot of horror films are damaged by fashions that were contemporary for the time. It's an annoyance in loads of 70s films when you see people who look ready to go to the disco, or wealthy people at parties surrounded by bland leisure music, it's a bit garish yucky and it makes a lot of sexploitation films quite unpleasant. The men's haircuts are often quite bad too.

It's quite goofy and badly acted generally but there are some decent foreboding moments and night wandering scenes. It's okay, I'm glad I didn't pay some silly price for it.

I'm thinking I should start limiting the amount I pay for films more, only pay above 13 pounds for less risky seeming films. Even though I buy a fair amount of films, I generally don't find it rewarding enough. It's very rare that I find something I love. With all these film streaming services around, maybe I should wait until more becomes available. The UK Netflix selection is still lousy.

Also, the film is said to have stopped shooting before they could finish properly. It seems like a full film to me.

I listen to Scream Scene Podcast, which has been covering horror movies chronologically one film per episode for a while, like I want to say seven/eight years. They're up to 1962 releases now after 337 episodes, and I've been listening and watching along the whole time. I recently decided to do a rewatch because I was looking at the Letterboxd list I maintain for the show and my ratings seemed so low to me, like I wasn't really enjoying watching most of the movies. On rewatch I like almost all of them better outside of the real duds. I think I'm less harsh on myself now as a viewer, where before I was being really critical about most movies falling into a bell curve of enjoyment for me.

Surprises? I really liked The Bad Seed, The Ghost Ship, The Body Snatcher, I Married a Monster from Outer Space. I don't know if any of those are underrated though. Maybe The Ghost Ship. I'll probably turn up more as I go from 1939 where I'm at now through to 1962 again.

I couldn't do a big project like this, I need to cherry pick very carefully now and it's largely going to depend on strong recommendations and whatever is being reissued. Just couldn't tolerate seeing many more films like The Ape Man.
Want to see both the House Of Wax films, Waxworks, The Uninvited, Island Of Lost Souls and many more of the japanese ones.

Wasn't long ago that I written about it but 30s Jekyll & Hyde was a big surprise. There was a Universal crossover film I liked much better than the others but can't remember which.

So I rewatched that Mexican box and the four films are pretty much as I remembered them and in order of preference.

xpost
Island of Lost Souls is very good, easily a top ten pre-war horror film. First House of Wax has its moment, but is fatally undone by a comedy reporter lead actor who is just insufferable. The Vincent Price remake has lots of shots designed to exploit the 3D process, probably more than any other 1950s 3D movie.

And Charles Bronson in a small supporting role.

I think it's quite surprising how rarely films are made in the style of 20s-30s horror films. I don't want to encourage more studiously retro films but I think those styles could be expanded in interesting ways and the 1920s films that have survived and stand out the most point in exciting directions that never happened.

I have whatever completist streak it takes to do big projects, like working down the thousand entry They Shoot Zombies, Don't They? list was another one I more or less completed back in the day. I did suffer from burnout this year though, after peaking at about 1500 features watched in 2024 (I have a lot of free time). Even though I do have to suffer through films like The Ape Man (although I haven't gotten to it yet; maybe I'll give it more than one star this time), even some of the cheapies end up being kind of endearingly goofy, like The Devil Bat, where Lugosi plays a mad perfume maker who douses his enemies with scent that attracts giant mutated killer bats.

You averaged 4 films a day?! I take my hat off to you.

Curse Of The Crying Woman (1961) - It takes one of it's main images from Black Sunday, if you like Bava and Corman from the early 60s, you might as well throw this one in too. Dodgy special effects come with the territory but one that really stood out is when the big dogs are supposed to be eating a man's face, but they're licking food from a pane of glass.
The bonus interviews with Rita Macedo's daughters are notable.

This 1942 version of Malombra looks great, there's a few dvd bootlegs with english subtitles but I'm going to wait a bit. No idea of what the chances of a bluray are.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCzMUuo24OY

I enjoyed Malpertuis, I've had the novel for a long time but never got around to it, but this film version really exceeded my expectations.

Oh cool, I got that lovely new Radiance set as a Christmas present, looking forward to digging in. I was briefly Facebook friends with Harry Kumel - and unlike most 'celebrity' FB friends, he did actually respond occasionally to things I posted - but a string of alt right posts led me to unfriend him, with no regrets.

There was an interview in the big Flesh & Blood compilation and he made a really bad impression for multiple reasons (I'm sure some of you already know he slapped one of the lead actresses in Daughters Of Darkness) and even disowned Malpertuis, which put me off seeing it for a long time but it's really good.

Jean Ferry written the script and I don't know how much of his own ideas were added

If I recall right, Kumel felt in the 90s that Malpertuis had too much fantasy for his liking. I suspect he might feel different in the newer bonus interviews. Personally I liked Malpertuis much better than Daughters Of Darkness.

I must have seen her somewhere before but I've never taken note of Susan Hampshire before, she has 5 roles in this

Although I'm generally opposed to a single film having super fancy packaging, I have to say this edition of Malpertuis is the nicest looking film release I've ever owned. Bonus features have been good so far, a lot of it from 2005 but there's new stuff too.

I saw Poison For The Fairies, been meaning to see it for a long time but I don't get the fuss. There's a very nice scene of a swing hung in a very tunnel-ish space in the woods but not much else made an impression.

I found both The Invisible Man Appears and Invisible Man vs The Human Fly really dull (they're both on an Arrow disc and the second film is not mentioned on the cover or spine). The Human Fly of the latter film is just a tiny shrunken man who can fly without wings. I got this double pack for Ikuko Môri in the second film because I loved her so much in Haunted Castle, she's a club singer/dancer in a relatively small role, 4 minutes or so. Wasn't really worth it for me.

thanks for doing the dirty work RAG

I can never tell what genre film fans will dig so don't take my word for it, some podcasters I respect loved Lady Frankenstein and Warlock and I wish I hadn't bothered.
Invisible Man Appears and Invisible Man vs Human Fly are crime films with some scifi concepts more than the type of horror I like. Have to say I'm getting less patient with checking out obscure old horror films but some of those films in the Daiei Gothic sets are well worth it (Haunted Castle is an all-timer for me). I also still recommend Jean Pierre Mocky's Litan. Malpertuis is great.

While I can understand some people not liking it that much, Sam Raimi's Dark Man is honestly one of my favorite films I've seen in the last few years.

I've been thinking recently about how other people's tastes grow more and more mysterious to me. 20 years ago I thought of most comics, animation and horror fans as My People but now I genuinely don't get the enduring appeal of much of this stuff for other fans, now they're as mysterious as sports fans and people who really love food. Gives me a lot to think about. What I loved about Spiderman is probably very different to what other people loved. These realizations add to my hatred of critics who give really reductive takes about the essential point/appeal of so many things. Even the trashiest art contains so much for different types of people.

> (they're both on an Arrow disc and the second film is not mentioned on the cover or spine).

it's a reversible sleeve. but odd that you can only choose one or the other. (they are both mentioned on the back, at the top)

i have a copy here in front of the tv - it was mentioned in a recent commentary track, is a daiei film and was relatively cheap. oh, eiji tsuburaya, that's probably why it was mentioned.

Watched the next film in the Carlos Enrique Taboada boxed set (Mexican Gothic), Blacker Than The Night is about a young woman who inherits her aunt's home with a cat and invites her friends to live there, the aunt haunts the place. It has an obligatory scene of low effort shitty dancing that every low budget film from the 70s was legally required to contain.
I liked this a tad better than Poison For The Fairies but I'm not sure I'll bother with Rapina, which admittedly looked a bit more interesting, it has a nice mountain/forest setting and Rosenda Monteros (better actors in general), more intense drama, but it's longer than the others I'm struggling to convince myself to watch it. Not really a horror film, it looks more like a mexican version of A Simple Plan.

Santo vs. the Vampire Women (aka Santo vs. las Mujeres Vampiro aka Samson vs. the Vampire Women) isn't exactly pants-shittingly scary for anyone over the age of about 3 but is completely nuts and I recommend it.

I've referred to Rapiña as the Mexican Coen Brothers so your call out to A Simple Plan is pretty bang-on.

On the other hand, it's very good and is from nearly 10 years before Blood Simple.

So I went ahead and watched Rapina and indeed it is head and shoulders above Poison For The Fairies and Darker Than The Night. It was released the same year as the latter and the quality is miles apart. Rosenda Monteros is a vision, much better actor than anyone in those other Taboada films. The star of Macario and the star of one of the 50s Mexican vampire films are in it too.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0302961/mediaindex/

I know they mostly miserable from lack of money, lack of variety and working too hard but the place they live is incredible, I wonder if it takes seeing more of the world or just getting older to appreciate the countryside?

Heart Of Stone was pretty good, better than a lot of similar films but the ending felt like a big cop-out

It's new to me that there was an older director called Paul Verhoeven

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uNVPg8njGQ

Anyone seen Office Killer?

I had no idea Ernest Dickerson worked on "Day of the Dead"!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxmY_ZjAN_g

Office Killer is pretty good. Less of a comedy than I expected, Carol Kane is scarier than expected, it gets genuinely morbid. The credits sequence near the start is really impressive too.