November 2008 - Horrorphile

E-mail Subscription

Receive an e-mail notification of new posts on this site:

Horrorphile - November 2008

Horrorphile's 13 SCARIEST MOVIES EVER MADE

November 28th 2008 00:54

Over at The Blog of Lists fellow Orble blogger Chris Champion has painstakingly put together The Big List of Scary Movies compiled from 29 existing lists and two polls, all posted online, to see which flicks came out on top as the very best scariest movies ever made. Not surprisingly The Exorcist was most popular.

I’m not surprised because The Exorcist is a very well made movie that exudes a genuine atmosphere of terror and is executed with intelligence and panache. But - and I’ll go out on a limb here – I think The Exorcist is over-rated as being the scariest movie ever made.

Halloween Jamie Lee Curtis and The Shape

John Carpenter's seminal shape of fear

Grotesque and profane possession by the Devil, as clever a cinematic ploy as it is, just doesn’t throttle me hard enough in the terror department. There’s something ‘playful’, something almost silly about it. Perhaps it’s the Christian aspect to it? Perhaps it’s the pea-soup vomit? Perhaps it’s Linda Blair’s potty mouth? Perhaps it’s Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells? The real reason is probably because the movie is so demographically popular. I can think of many other movies that are far more terrifying.

So, in response to Chris’s list, and at his suggestion that I extend my existing list of five all-time scariest movies (compiled and posted back on September 11 - scary date! - 2006), I’ve decided to re-boot my original list, but with a fresh perspective. This is also an indirect response to the lists that Movie Mall has been posting over at Movie Catcher i.e. 10 Lamest Alien Invasions in Movie History, 7 Most Useful Movie Corpses, et al.

Nightmare incarnate: Suspiria

My original selection for all-time scariest movies was based on first impressions (movies that had scared me when I first saw them regardless of how old I was). For this re-envisioning I will be jumping up on the “in my humble opinion” pedestal and championing a definitive cause: the 13 scariest movies ever made. It’s a tough call, and there’ll be tears before bedtime, but someone’s gotta get their hands bloody.

Fear of the dark and enclosed spaces? Oh yes indeedy

Are you alone? Good. Now turn out the light.

Here they are in terrorder:

1. Alien
(US, 1979, Ridley Scott)
2. Halloween
(US, 1978, John Carpenter)
3. Suspiria
(Italy, 1977, Dario Argento)
4. The Descent
(UK, 2005, Neil Marshall)
5. Ils
(France/Romania, 2006, David Moreau & Xavier Palud)
6. Ju-on: The Grudge
(Japan, 2003, Takashi Shimizu)
7. Ringu
(Japan, 1998, Hideo Nakata)
8. Wolf Creek
(Australia, 2005, Greg Mclean)
9. The Blair Witch Project
(US, 1999, Daniel Myrick & Eduardo Sánchez)
10. The Omen
(US, 1976, Richard Donner)
11. The Thing
(US, 1982, John Carpenter)
12. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
(US, 1974, Tobe Hooper)
13. Phantasm
(US, 1979, Don Coscarelli)

Ils aka Them aka Fucking Scary Movie

194

Vote

Comments (30)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Bryn - Category: lists

Email this Post to a Friend

La Belle et la Bête (Beauty and the Beast)

November 27th 2008 06:12

Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont’s fairy-tale of the beauty and the beast is one of the more famous. French poet-artist-cum-filmmaker Jean Cocteau directed his first feature adapting the story to the screen as La Belle et la Bête (1946).

It’s a magnificent fable of love and identity set a couple of hundred years ago in rural France. A merchant (Marcel André) lives with his son Ludovic (Michel Auclair) and his three daughters. The two eldest, Félicie (Mila Parély) and Adélaïde (Nane Germon) are selfish and vain, and they exploit their sister Belle (Josette Day) as their servant.

Josette Day as Belle

One day the father becomes lost in the nearby forest and comes across a strange castle. He takes advantage of the garden and plucks a rose (something Belle had always wanted), but the castle’s owner suddenly appears and he’s none to happy. He’s half human-half animal (lion-esque) and he possesses magical powers.

Jean Marais as the beast

The furry fanged beast (Jean Marais) condemns the man to death unless he gives up one of his daughters. The man gives him his word and the beast gives him directions out of the forest. Later after he explains his ordeal to his family Belle sacrifices her freedom and goes to the castle. She becomes the beast’s prisoner. But the beast turns out to be more compassionate and genuine than Belle’s suitor, Avenant (Jean Marais). The beast is grotesque on the outside, but beautiful on the inside.

The beast wants Belle’s hand in marriage, but she steadfastly refuses. Avenant, along with Belle’s brother, find the castle with the intent of rescuing Belle and killing the beast, but, in perfect fairy-tale fashion there’s a twist of fate that turns everything upside down and inside out.

Beauty and the Beast Jean Marais and Josette Day

Avenant (Jean Marais) woes Belle

Jean Cocteau would go on to make one of the finest examples of surrealist drama with Orphée (1949), which was based on the myth of Orpheus who travels down into Hades to confront Death and ressurect his wife Eurydice. Beauty and the Beast isn’t as surreal as the latter work, but it does possess some truly sublime moments of ethereal beauty and magic realism. It’s all a phantasmogorical tale that delves deep into the heart of what it is to love and be loved, to reject and accept, regardless of what you look like.

Belle in the corridor of the beast's castle

Drenched in melancholy, yet it transcends its inherent sadness, and at film’s end takes flight into the misty ether of unconditional love, Beauty and the Beast is a cinematic creature that belies its theatrical trappings and embraces the visual artifice of film with wit and wonder.

The production design is classic, yet unique, the monochromatic cinematography is luminous and poetic. The special effects, including clever use of film in reverse, and smoke wafting out from the beast as he smolders in contempt, is novel, while the bestial facial prosthetic make-up is fantastic.

Beauty and the Beast Josette Day and Jean Marais

The beast loves to watch Belle dine

Jean Marais and Josette Day command the screen as the two leads. The subtleties and nuances of their performances give the film a richness that shines beyond the black and white veneer. The French dialogue adds a further exotic appeal.

Avenant and Belle strike a classic pose

Beauty and the Beast is a wondrous work of cinema, a classic fairy-tale told with a poet’s conviction and painterly eye; essential viewing for anyone who loves to escape into the fable realm of make-believe where virtue floats and conceit is defeated. If only more filmmakers approached cinema with the same sense of unbridled imagination as Jean Cocteau the world would be a better place (... perhaps Guillermo del Toro is not too far off).

A roar to the beast within us all; cry hard for true love, and pierce the mirror of narcissism, you’ll see your soul reflected back between the cracks … the pleasure of the perverse, spellbound by the black and white magic.

Here's an original trailer:

La Belle et la Bête DVD is courtesy of Madman Entertainment, many thanks!

Vote

Comments (6)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Bryn - Category: movie reviews

Email this Post to a Friend

The Brood

November 26th 2008 01:19

David Cronenberg’s The Brood (1979) is his version of Kramer vs. Kramer, as he’s been quoted. He wrote the screenplay not long after a bitter divorce and child-custody battle from his wife, Margaret Hindson, and the lead character Nola, played by Samantha Eggar, apparently bears some similarities. If the movie is anything to go by Cronenberg was indeed bitter, and just a little twisted. Curiously though, the same year as the movie was released he married his assistant editor on the film, Carloyn Zeifman, and they are still together.

Nola Carveth (Eggar) is under the care of an unconventional psychologist, Dr. Hal Raglan (Oliver Reed), at his isolated clinic. Dr. Raglan uses progressive, but controversial techniques involving intense confrontations in front of audiences that result in physical manifestations of the patient’s emotional fragility; namely rage.

The Brood Samantha Eggar and Oliver Reed

Samantha Eggar as Nola and Oliver Reed as Dr. Raglan

Art Hindle as Frank

Cronenberg calls the scientific process psychoplasmics, and Raglan is trying to breach the mental blocks in his patients but forcing their bodies to betray them. Nola is his star patient. Frank Carveth (Art Hindle), Nola’s estranged husband, arrives at the clinic to pick up their young daughter Candice (Cindy Hinds). Later while giving her a bath Frank notices welts and bruises on Candice’s back. He is furious and attempts to bar his wife from seeing Candice, only to run into resistance from Dr. Raglan.

One of the brood broods

Later when Candice is being babysat by Nola’s (alcoholic) mother Juliana (Nuala Fitzgerald), a mutant child attacks the grandmother and bludgeons her to death. After Candice’s schoolteacher Ruth Mayer (Susan Hogan) is hammered to death by two of the deformed, hooded children, who then calmly lead Candice from the scene (a disturbing scene which takes place in front of other kids in a classroom), Frank has to try and free Candice from the clutches of Raglan … and more importantly, Nola, who’s metaphysical power has given humanoid shape to her rage.

Lil' brood 'un kills Juliana (Nuala) and leaves its mark

Dr. Raglan's book on psychoplasmics

The Brood was Cronenberg’s third major feature following Shivers (1975) and Rabid (1977). It fits snugly into his oeuvre of body horror and his fascination with teratology, however it is a more insular and character-based movie than the previous films. He attempts to ground his narrative and the material in as much realism as possible, although essentially the concept of “the brood” is about as morbidly zany as any of Cronenberg’s ideas.

Innocence masks evil

Although not as explicitly grotesque as his next movie Scanners (1981), The Brood is definitely the darker. Not as hysterical as the sexual chaos of Shivers and Rabid, but The Brood is more defined, and ultimately more cohesive. Where it’s let down is in the character (and arguably the performance) of Oliver Reed, one of the most gamey hams in cinema history. His dreadful whispering of lines with that God-awful “aristocratic” accent, and those piercing, sozzled eyes is enough to make anyone break out into a cold sweat.

The killer brood

Samantha Eggar’s not much better (another thespian thinking she's on stage not on-screen), although she handles herself well enough in the movie’s controversial climax which had censors in a flurry. Most prints of the movie had the two most disturbing scenes cut; the schoolteacher being brutally murdered in front of her class (by what appears to be children), and Nola tearing the placenta-foetal sac open and “licking her pup” in the graphic birth scene of another addition to her deadly brood (I have an uncut version on DVD which was released by MGM in 2003).

Candice (Cindy Lind) in jeopardy

Robert Silverman as Jan

In a small support role is Robert Silverman as Jan Hartog, an ex-patient of Dr. Raglan’s who is seeking revenge over what he essentially sees as malpractice. Jan’s body is revolting against him, his lymphatic system has broken down and cancerous tumours have begun to form on his body. Silverman is a Cronenberg regular, and he’s always a scene-stealer.

Nola displays her motherhood ...

... and exhibits primal behaviour

The theme of child abuse inflicted from parent to child; the subsequent trauma being bottled-up, only to emerge again later within the adult as rage directed to their own children, is a vicious cycle that is deeply prevalent. Cronenberg takes it several steps further by suggesting that this uncontrollable wrath is a form of mismanaged adult anger and is one of the most destructive forms of humanity, one that perpetuates domestic violence and cannot be easily healed or stemmed. This theme of irrational violence; that manifests both psychologically and physiologically permeates all of Cronenberg’s movies. Also significant is Cronenberg’s exploration of evolution, a kind of Neo-Darwinism that also dwells within all his movies. In France and Spain The Brood was re-titled Chromosome 3.

Welts on Candice's arm suggest bad things to come

I don’t think The Brood is one of Cronenberg’s best films - although many critics and fans champion it - but it’s a unique and powerful story, with memorable scenes (including a curiously “Hollywood” ending which almost suggests a sequel). However Cronenberg rarely makes a movie that is less than interesting, and The Brood is definitely a study in relationship dynamics worth investigating. Puffy winter jumpsuits on kids will never look the same!

Here's the terrific, of-its-time, trailer:

Vote

Comments (2)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Bryn - Category: movie reviews

Email this Post to a Friend

Quarantine

November 25th 2008 00:58

I’m gonna have to start eating my words, which for this movie has a tenuous element of irony to it. I’ve been raving on at semi-regular intervals about my disdain over the increasing rate of (horror) remakes that are spewing out of the Hollywood machine. 90% of them are crap, but there are exceptions, albeit far and few between.

Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead (2004), the re-envisioning of George Romero's cult classic was a darkly wonderful surprise (although apparently Romero isn’t too fond of it). I found Alejandre Aja’s The Hills Have Eyes (2006), the re-envisioning of Wes Craven’s cult shocker superior to the original (many others will beg to differ, I’m sure). That’s about as far as it goes. I could mention John Carpenter’s masterpiece The Thing (1982) which is a total overhaul of The Thing from Another World (1951), but that’s a different kettle of tentacled fish

[ Click here to read more ]

Vote

Comments (8)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Bryn - Category: movie reviews

Email this Post to a Friend

Desu nôto (Death Note)

November 24th 2008 01:38

A live-action adaptation from the successful Manga comic, Death Note (2006) is an elegant and compelling supernatural crime thriller with nightmarish undertones and edge of romantic tragedy. Directed by veteran Japanese director Shusuke Kaneko the movie follows the original comic which was created as an anime Japanese series the same year as the feature.

After being bullied by crims at a bar Light Yugami (Tatsuya Fujiwara) finds a notebook lying on the street entitled Death Note. It turns out to be a supernatural “execution” device left behind by a powerful shinigami God of Death known as Ryuk (voiced by Shido Nakamura), a grotesque humanoid who is only visible to those who touch the Death Note notebook; in this case Light

[ Click here to read more ]

Vote

Comments (7)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Bryn - Category: movie reviews

Email this Post to a Friend

The Backwoods

November 19th 2008 01:13

The Backwoods (2006) has all the right ingredients, but it falls short of being the powerhouse study of prejudice and violence that it strives to be. The debut feature from director and co-writer Koldo Serra, the movie deals with isolation, shame and anxiety and is set in a Northern Spanish forest in the summer of 1978.

Several other movies spring to mind while watching The Backwoods, all of them better films, but that’s not to say The Backwoods isn’t well-made. In fact it’s better than most other straight-to-DVD releases. It features an excellent cast, superb cinematography, a good score, and the direction and editing are terrific. It’s the script that lets the movie down. The build-up is solid, the use of tension and suspense is beautifully handled; a real sense of impending doom is blanketed over the main characters, but the movie falls apart during the second half and the ending is very disappointing, and wholly unsatisfying

[ Click here to read more ]

Vote

Comments (5)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Bryn - Category: movie reviews

Email this Post to a Friend

Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!

November 17th 2008 23:53

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to violence, the word and the act. While violence cloaks itself in a plethora of disguises, its favorite mantle still remains... sex. Violence devours all it touches, its voracious appetite rarely fulfilled. Yet violence doesn't only destroy, it creates and molds as well. Let's examine closely then this dangerously evil creation, this new breed encased and contained within the supple skin of woman. The softness is there, the unmistakable smell of female, the surface shiny and silken, the body yielding yet wanton. But a word of caution: handle with care and don't drop your guard. This rapacious new breed prowls both alone and in packs, operating at any level, any time, anywhere, and with anybody. Who are they? One might be your secretary, your doctor's receptionist... or a dancer in a go-go club!"

Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! Tura Satana

Tura Satana as Varla

The late, irrepressibly unconscionable Russ Meyer was a prolific filmmaker. A couple of his movies stand out in the annals of cult psychotronic cinema; one is the Roger Ebert-scripted satire Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970). The other is Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965); a one-of-a-kind piece of the highest art lying sprawled amongst the trash in an alley behind a strip-joint. Cult exploitation director John Waters describes it as the best movie ever made, and possibly the best movie that will ever be made. It certainly arouses your attention, tickles your funny-bone, and slaps your face

[ Click here to read more ]

Vote

Comments (10)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Bryn - Category: movie reviews

Email this Post to a Friend

July 2009

2 Posts

June 2009

16 Posts

May 2009