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

The Brood is a good idea, but on second viewing (and any viewing after) it's less scary than depressing. Cronenberg was going through a divorce when he made it and that information basically seeps through every fucking frame of it.

I was just reading about that on wiki, yeah.

looked up a few of the lower titles on that graphic and yeah, no thanks. Although compared to its company, Orozco the Enbalmer looks like a worthwhile film that I will absolutely never watch.

there's also some stuff there that is really questionable politically: Buried in the Sand is a vile and racist propaganda film, pretty explicitly so, and that's just one example. of course there's a tinge of awful politics to a lot of horror films, but horror films made for explicitly propagandistic purposes are a little "no thanks" from me.

watched Event Horizon (1997) last night. hmmm. i'll call it Stupid Solaris.

that's why it's good!

word

I haven't seen EH front to back in years, but I liked it when I first saw it, and started re-watching it on HBO Max a couple of weeks ago and was enjoying it a lot.

Watched Videodrome on Halloween and was struck by how gross every inch of it was. No, not the special effects, I mean the state of Max's apartment etc. The whole film gave me the urge to either shower or give something a fresh coat of paint.

I haven't seen EH front to back in years

Yeah you haven't!

when seeing EH front to back YOU WON'T NEED EYES [rips own eyes out because...reasons not explained]

Don't know who painted the In The Mouth Of Madness book covers. Joseph Griffith is listed as illustrator but it doesn't look like anything on his site

"Did I ever tell you my favorite color was blue?" 🔵#ICYMI, Sutter Cane novels from @TheHorrorMaster's 'In the Mouth of Madness' (1994) are now on display inside our 'Scared to Death: The Thrill of Horror Film' exhibition. 📚

» https://t.co/XrmazJiuBa pic.twitter.com/dVAHmwj01a

— MoPOP (@MoPOP) November 6, 2021

I’ve seen Africa Addio (1966) from the iceberg graphic and would say it’s definitely grim and dark and makes one concerned for the human race. But it should be watched and criticized, as any other film purported to be a documentary should be.

Other Meiko Kaji films like Lady Snowblood 1-2 and Blind Woman's Curse didn't make a huge impression on me so Female Prisoner Scorpion boxed set is an amazing surprise. Genuinely a contender for my favorite films series ever. Giallo fans should all see the first 3 films because there's a lot of similar stylization and it has just amazing horror scenes while not being in that genre overall, like up there with Bava and Argento. First film is great, second and third are brilliant (Kayoko Shiraishi is a fantastic supporting actress), fourth film is a different director and a definite step down but still pretty solid.

I appreciate the bonus video essay which covered a handful of the endless reboots.

After all the pissing on the japanese flag in this series, it's a shame Shun'ya Ito went on to make a film going soft on Hideki Tojo.

Love how many japanese girl gang films have "girl boss" in the title, hoho

Really the first 3 films are must see, the shot of the sex>flames>Scorpion rising out of the water is masterful

Not hugely keen on merchandising and licensing crossovers but Scorpion would be pretty awesome in a fighting game. I'd like a t-shirt of the third film poster

I'm still only two films in, but Female Prisoner Scorpion series is all time.

That video essay was 40mins but I'd really love to hear more about the source manga and all the reboots and whatever else has came of it. There was a big homage in Love Exposure and I wonder if that was the first time I'd heard of the character

Only seen the first but FSP is soooo sick

I still have it to come but if Sister Street Fighter and Stray Cat Rock are anything to go by I'm in for a treat.

I haven't liked much of the pinky violence/roman porno films I've seen but there's a guide to them I'm tempted by. Maybe Kumashiro's excellent version of Jigoku falls into that? (so much better than the Nakagawa one Criterion put out)
Will be an absoloute minefield and impossible to find much of them but artsploitation is one of the best kinds of film.

Watched Svengali (1931) starring John Barrymore. People don't talk about this much but it's quite an oddity. Kind of a comedy but has a totally downer ending. Lots of german expressionist aesthetics in the sets/architecture and Barrymore's eyes look genuinely creepy in one scene (reminiscent of Mabuse). Writer or director probably liked feet. A scottish man and english man strip Barrymore and put him in a bath (but mostly off-camera).

Writer or director probably liked feet.

If you're referring to the bit where Trilby kicks off her shoes to display her feet, that's in the source novel.

But yes, the art director and cinematographer borrowed copiously from Expressionism. Anyone who likes this should check out The Mad Genius (1931). This also stars Barrymore, playing a mashup of Rasputin and Diaghilev.

It was also that bit with the artist drawing her feet on the door

Also worth mentioning is Barrymore was possibly the most striking looking Jekyll & Hyde

So much that Graham Ingels based a character on that version of Hyde

Mentioned in a few posts back in September. Just watched the whole thing. Thanks for the recommendation, really well done.

Oh wait thought I was responding to a post in the pre-2005 thread about Woodlands Dark.

88 Films is releasing Pupi Avati's Zeder. I liked House Of Laughing Windows okay but I've always wanted this one. Hopefully Mysterious Enchanter won't be long away too.

Watched a muddy version of Spider Labyrinth on youtube, it's heavily inspired by Argento but with more monster stuff. It's okay but I wonder how much better it could look with a remaster, I used to think you could tell roughly how well a film is shot even in a shitty copy but I think I've been surprised before.

https://www.fabpress.com/the-ghastly-one-paperback.html
Has anyone read this? I've never seen any of his films but the book sounds great

I'm cautiously interested in this but I fear it will spend more time on everything but the films
https://www.johnhuntpublishing.com/zer0-books/our-books/fear-before-fall-horror-films-late-soviet-union

Didn't know this was coming back into print so have ordered, thanks for the tip.

I'm going to stick my neck out and say his films are not for you. The acting is rarely more than amateur, he makes some ridiculous shot choices repeatedly (my favourite is when he sets up a two shot on a table with a giant centrepiece which obscures at least one actor wherever he shoots from and he does in at least three films), weird bits of actual hardcore pornography, poorly realised gore or real animal abuse appear frequently and often not in service of any plot point. But...

He has a real charm that somehow gets under your skin. The movies are edited together haphazardly, but part of that is because scene length is based on whatever offcuts he could buy. And Vapors is genuinely good, I think.

Of his famous works, Fleshpots is a good start and then try his British films. There's a BFI Flipside twofer of Nightbirds and The Body Beneath that's fairly easy to get hold of. Then I guess you can take your choice after that.

I'll probably try one someday, but not in a hurry.

His real life is pretty fascinating though, so you might get a kick out of the book.

I was okay with Zeder but Gabriele Lavia is super handsome, had only seen him in the Argento films I think. Maybe a little too sunny and prosaic?

Finally got around to Tenderness Of Wolves, it's pretty good. In an extra Stephen Thrower talks about how strange the trajectory of Lommel's career has been, one of those directors who either straddles or goes back and forth between arthouse and more traditional exploitation films. Is Boogeyman worth a go?

Really enjoyed Darkman but it is so much like Batman, love how cartoony all the angry bits are

Hope this means blurays are coming soon, Demon Pond has been literally at the top of my most wanted film for years

4K restoration of Masahiro Shinoda's haunting and fantastical DEMON POND premieres this Friday @MoMAFilm to kick off their series "Beyond Ozu: Hidden Gems of Shochiku Studios!" https://t.co/dSXpigMzyo pic.twitter.com/60TapVFQCB

— Janus Films (@janusfilms) June 5, 2022

most wanted film list, that is

Been hearing great things about Ghost of Sierra de Cobre, seems like it came on disc in 2018 so this seems like really delayed praise

"Ghost of Sierra de Cobre" (1964) have just entered my top 5 horror movie list. Great everything, but top casting and sound design. The thing surprisingly made me tense some moments. The thing looked like found footage glitch apparition, super creepy,super good. pic.twitter.com/t2FlxfHI06

— Gontijo (@gontijodesign) June 9, 2022

https://johnnyalucard.com/2019/05/09/film-review-the-ghost-of-sierra-de-cobre-1965/

watched The Changeling (1980) over the weekend having never seen it before. solid, not gimmicky, not really what i was expecting. probably influenced a lot of later films.

(what i was kind of expecting was a film about a possessed girl. what am i confusing it for?)

and last Saturday i went to spend the last of some tokens i had on the Female Prisoner Scorpion box set but it was gone 8(

^ but it was there yesterday

Definitely worth seeking out

Seventh Curse - This is fun, like a gorier Indiana Jones with monsters. People have said that Maggie Cheung's character is an idiot but she's downright nuts, she knocks Kara Wai out with a brick just to get ahead in her job. Ni Kuang introduces the film in the middle of a luxurious party surrounded by people drinking wine, more films should open with the original writer of the source material hosting a party, have this at the start of every Stephen King film.

I watched both versions of Ghost Of Sierra De Cobre/The Haunted. The former is longer and has a sharper picture but the latter is tighter. I'd recommend it to fans of The Haunting, though it's at the seaside and the architecture is more modern. The ghost is quite eerie. It is sad that it never aired on television, I wonder how the series would have progressed because it's a cut above any Thriller and Twilight Zone episodes I've seen. Seems to be from people who worked on The Outer Limits series.

Yeah, it's surprisingly tight for something that started out as a tv pilot.

I rewatched Tsukamoto's Gemini and it's still a contender for the best looking color film I've seen. Why does a film like this happen then the film industry mostly doesn't learn anything from it? It's a shame Ryo hasn't had more major roles that I can see, most of her work seems to be on television. I didn't know that writer Yasutaka Tsutsui was playing the father first time but then I probably didn't know who he was back then. Wonderful film.

Rewatched Beauty And The Beast (Virgin And The Monster) by Juraj Herz. Commentary points out how much Beast resembles Phantom Of Paradise and that was well spotted, I wonder if it was an actual influence? Herz made it at the same time as Ninth Heart and I hope to see that someday. The film studio accused him of tricking them because they asked for fairy tales and got horror films.

I thought Black Death with Eddie Redmayne and Sean Bean was really good. There's a couple of ambiguities that make it richer than it might have been. I thought the director's earlier film Creep was just okay but I might keep an eye on him now.