Friday, January 17, 2025

Curse of Tongues

Incubus (Leslie Stevens, 1966)

Leslie Stevens' folk horror Incubus (1966) is far too much of a strange oddity to simply sum up in a few mere words. Once considered a lost film, the black and white tale pits good against evil with the fate of a pre-James T. Kirk William Shatner's soul hanging in the balance. Elevating the film into bizarre territory is the dialogue being spoken is the artificial language Esperanto. Stranger still, are the various misfortunes and fatal tragedies linked to this diabolical production. Incubus became a cursed film.

Borne from Stevens' decision to write and direct an independent film after his television series, the science-fiction anthology The Outer Limits (1963-1965), was cancelled. Daystar Productions, the studio responsible for the show, would aid in realising Incubus. Much of the film would be shot around California's Big Sur. The picturesque coastal region would contribute a great deal to the film's primal theme of good versus evil. Additionally, the setting was beneficial for an independent horror film with a low budget.

Set in the village known as Nomen Tuum, famed for a deer well able to heal and give beauty to those who drink its water, the region is a hub for the corrupted. The demonic succubus Kia (Leslie Stevens' wife, Allyson Ames) seduces these corrupted individuals; luring them to the sea, where she drowns them. The wretched souls sent to her God of Darkness. The beautiful succubus finds the task far too easy. She tell her demonic sister Amael (Eloise Hardt) that she yearns for a greater challenge; the corruption of a pure soul. Avoiding her older sister's warning to give up this endeavour as it's too dangerous, Kia begins searching for this potential victim.

Trekking (no pun intended) through the countryside, Kia spies upon three suspicious monks. Each of them exemplifying the corruption abound in Nomen Tuum. The first one holds a toad while creepily eating a hard boiled egg; the next buries a mysterious object in the soil; whilst the last monk mocks prayer to a holy crucifix, subsequently turning it over. It's after this strange scene where Kia spots her prey.

Whilst on a pilgrimage with his sister Arndis (Ann Atmar), the hobbling, war hero Marco (William Shatner) becomes Kia's objekto de deziro. The soldier drinks from the well and finds it tasting sweet. He is cured and able to walk again, longer requiring his stick. This is in stark contrast to Kia's previous victim who found the well's waters salty, foreshadowing his drowning under the succubus's foot. Kia follows the siblings to their home from afar. Once again, Amael interjects and warns Kia, but to no avail.

Kia introduces herself to Marc pretending to be a lost and weary labourer searching for a field. Marc instantly falls in love (the simp!) with the succubus. An eclipse occurs in the heavens above (symbolism, innit?). Arndis is blinded by the celestial event. She's also left alone, as Marc, like a lovesick puppy, escorts Kia to the fields she's meant to be working in.

Kia's brief time spent with Marc has put a damper on her objective. Her powers of seduction fail to work on the war hero. Marc turns down the offer of sex on the beach (and the consequential condemnation of his soul) with her. It leads to this choice bit of dialogue from the film:

Marc: I want you Kia. You know I want you. But there is more to it than lying naked in the sun. I want your body and I want to give you mine. But our bodies mean very little unless we also give our souls to love.”
Kia: I don’t have a soul.

A passionate kiss is enough for the succubus to faint and leave her out cold. Thus, Marc carries Kia to a nearby monastery where he thinks she'll be safe. Meanwhile, the blinded Arndis is guided to their location with the aid of Amael. The scene inside the monastery, where Kia is awoken by a ringing church bell and sent to absolute distress by being on consecrated ground, and being surrounded by all the religious objects inside the monastery, sends the demoness into a panic where she storms out crying.

When Amael catches up with her sobbing, demonic sister, she enquires what could have possibly happened to leave her this way:

Amael: Sister, what did he do to you?
Kia: He carried me...inside...to the altar.
Amael: He has defiled you, Kia...befouled you with love!
Kia: Yes, he said he loved me.
Amael: He has violated you! Sister you must revenge this holy rape!

The course of action leads to the titular incubus being summoned. In what's perhaps the best scene in the film, where the two succubi pray to a demonic, winged creature that is standing over wooden, execution gallows. It's beautifully lit, with eerie smoke everywhere, and reminiscent of something you might spot in a German Expressionist film. The soil nearby is disturbed by the incubus (Miloš Milošević - credited as Milos Milos) rising out of the ground. It's from this point onwards the film goes in a surprisingly shocking direction.

Depending on various sources, the jury seems to be out whether the use of Esperanto was incorporated as a marketing gimmick by Leslie Stevens, or genuinely meant for international art house audiences. Fluent Esperantists who had watched Incubus (the second feature film to use the language) found the folk horror unintentionally laughable, as the actors were constantly mispronouncing the dialogue. It sounds like a mixture of Italian and Portuguese; two languages I don't know. I have no idea how laughably bad the actors were speaking any of the dialogue. Therefore, it's impossible to slate it like the Esperantists.

Incubus would fail to find distribution - with the exception of France. According to William Shatner's film commentary, "The French love this film, because they can’t understand it. And the French speak, when they speak French, they’re very difficult to understand each other." I'm not even sure if the Shat is making the slightest bit of sense with his rambling, or just having a go at the French, but we ought to be thankful to our Gallic, cineaste brethren as a rare surviving print of the film was discovered in the Nineties at the Cinémathèque Française in Paris. Incubus had been a lost film for decades until then.

Of course, Incubus's notoriety stems from its cursed film label. The Serbian actor and Alain Delon stand in Milos Milos was in a relationship with Mickey Rooney's estranged fifth wife, Carolyn Mitchell (AKA, Barbara Ann Thompson). On the 31st January 1966, Milos, fearful of his lover reconciling with her husband, would take Mickey's chrome-plated .38 calibre revolver and murder Carolyn right before taking his own life. Mere weeks before the Incubus premiere at the San Francisco Film Festival, Ann Arter would commit suicide. She was only twenty-seven years old. The film's failure that very same year would lead to Leslie Stevens and Allyson Ames' marriage falling apart, resulting in their divorce. The curse would strike again as the body of Eloise Hardt's seventeen year old daughter was found brutally murdered after her abduction on the 1st January 1969. Although linked to one of Charles Manson's crimes, her murder remains unsolved to this day. Coincidentally, a tenuous link to the film's curse involves Sharon Tate having attended the film's premier with her husband Roman Polanski. We don't need to go any further with that story.

In 1968, producer Anthony M. Taylor decided to give Incubus another go with finding US distribution; albeit releasing a risqué version of the film. According to Video Watchdog (#53), nude colour inserts were intended to be edited into the existing film. Not an uncommon trend at the time, but having one of its original actors returning, Robert Fortier as Kia's first victim, Olin, was certainly unusual. This new and nude footage would be filmed by none other than exploitation auteur (and Eminem lookalike) Ray Dennis Steckler. Too many contradictory sources to ascertain if this version actually exists, or not.

Incubus appears to be inspired by Ingmar Bergman's films. The coastal scenes alone give obvious The Seventh Seal (1957) vibes. Yet, despite the cast speaking in Esperanto, it still has the identifiable air of being an American production; a low budget one at that. Given its remarkably short running time, along with the various players being salvaged from The Outer Limits, Incubus does come across as some bizarre, melodramatic, American teleplay rather than a pretentious, European art house film. There's obvious padding with characters slowly walking from one location to the next, typical of many TV serials, but it's not so bothersome given the film's appealing visuals and unique atmosphere.

Conrad L. Hall's stunning black and white cinematography is irrevocably the film's greatest asset. Light and dark is contrasted in perfect opposition; symbolic of the good versus evil theme. Ironically, Hall abruptly left the film before it was finished, and was replaced with an uncredited William A. Fraker to complete the work. According to Shatner, Hall's departure was due to a series of misfortunes which befell him during the shoot; said to be by an enraged hippie putting a hex on the production after he being told to clear off by the film crew. Another reason to hate hippies.

Composer Dominic Frontiere reuses his music from The Outer Limits in Incubus. Angelic harps compliment Hall's stunning cinematography and add another level to the undefinable time period of the film. A further layer to the dreamlike atmosphere of Incubus.

Last, but not least, there's the inimitable William Shatner and the quality of his performance. Regardless of your opinion on his acting, his reputation for over-performing is unavoidable. Despite spewing nonsensical gobbledygook like the rest of the cast, Shatner is rather good here. Quite nuanced at times, except for the fight with the incubus; which is almost as silly as Kirk fighting the Gorn from Star Trek. Admittedly, when it comes to over-acting, Milos is the major culprit in the film, and he's only in the film in the last third of the film. As for the rest of the cast, Allyson Aymes was impressive as the seductive, succubus Kia. I also found Ann Atmer's Arndis the most sympathetic and likeable character in the entire film. That might unconsciously be because of her real life tragedy, but she was still good in it.

To sum up Incubus, it's nowhere near the bad movie it's reputed to be. I consider it very good. It's certainly flawed, like its use of Esperanto, and punches above its weight at times, but I admired it for it was, and never found it in the least bit boring. With the exception of The Intruder (1962), Incubus contains one of Shatner's best film performances, in my opinion. Various sources cite Incubus as being ahead of its time in terms of the occult and folk horror boom in 1968 with films like Rosemary's Baby and Witchfinder General. Although, I don't entirely agree since John Llewellyn Moxey's The City of the Dead (1960) and Mario Bava's Black Sunday (1960) immediately come to mind; preceding Stevens' film by several years. It is, however, a fascinating oddity from the past, one that appeals to me in a similar way to John Parker's Dementia (1955) one of my favourite film discoveries from last year. This instantly makes Incubus a major film highlight for me this month. 

Well worth watching.

Thursday, January 16, 2025

Anora to Anorak

Sean Baker's Anora was arguably one of the best films of 2024. Therefore, it shouldn't be a surprise how much cinephiles are looking forward to its home format release. Criterion's artwork for the forthcoming Blu-Ray/4K UHD is a winner for film nerds, as it supports the theory of Baker's films being as much in exploitation territory as they are in neorealism. The cover art is an obvious homage to the iconic pose of the stunning Soledad Miranda in Jesús Franco's The Devil Came from Akasava (1971).

The famous photo has also been used as artwork for other films helmed by Uncle Jess which feature the actress; notably Vampyros Lesbos (1971). The Criterion artwork is also about as close as we'll get to seeing Franco or Miranda receiving any sort of love from the elitist label. However, considering how much the tide has turned more favourably for Franco's films in recent years, you never know.

Thursday, January 9, 2025

Picks of 2015

Movie picks from the year when we bid farewell to Sir Christopher Lee, Wes Craven and Cilla Black.

Two of the best releases of the decade were from this specific year. (In case you were wondering - Mad Max: Fury Road and The Witch)

Bone Tomahawk (S. Craig Zahler)

Cop Car (Jon Watts)

Crimson Peak (Guillermo del Toro)

Deathgasm (Jason Lei Howden)

Ex Machina (Alex Garland)

The Hallow (Corin Hardy)

Hardcore Henry (Illya Naishuller)

The Invitation (Karyn Kusama)

Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller)

Night of the Rat (David R.L)

Sicario (Denis Villeneuve)

The Witch (Robert Eggers)

Films I liked at the time, but never revisited:
Ip Man 3 (Wilson Yip); Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse (Christopher Landon); Howl (Paul Hyett); Southbound (Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, David Bruckner, Tyler Gillett, Patrick Horvath, Roxanne Benjamin, Justin Martinez, Chad Villella); A Christmas Horror Story (Steven Hoban, Grant Harvey, Brett Sullivan); The Blackcoat's Daughter (Osgood Perkins); Turbo Kid (François Simard, Anouk Whissell, Yoann-Karl Whissell); Green Room (Jeremy Saulnier); The Lobster (Yorgos Lanthimos); Ava's Possessions (Jordan Galland); Welcome to Leith (Michael Beach Nichols, Christopher K. Walker); The Hateful Eight (Quentin Tarantino); The Revenant (Alejandro González Iñárritu); The Gift (Joel Edgerton). 

Also my opinions went 360 degrees with the seventh instalments in the Star Wars, Rocky and Fast & Furious franchises. Call it falling victim to hype-nosis.

Yet to see Can Evrenol's Baskin, which is perhaps the biggest blindspot from 2015.

2015 was also the year that introduced to me, and I'm sure many others out there, the actress Ana de Armas in an English language film; Eli Roth's Knock, Knock. A remake of the psychological thriller Death Game (1977).

Monday, January 6, 2025

Lust for a Vampyre

Vampyres (José Ramón Larraz, 1974)

Rather than moan about not having the opportunity to check out Robert Eggers' Nosferatu (2024/2025) yet, I'm doing what every other film blogger who hasn't seen it is currently doing; kicking off the new year by reviewing some other vampire film. Presenting José Ramón Larraz's cult erotic horror movie Vampyres (1974), AKA Daughters of Darkness (not to be confused with Harry Kümel's 1971 film of the same name, which also features lesbian vampires). Vampyres would wind up as the most salacious and bloody entry in the sapphic vampire films of its time. An era which gave us Jesús Franco's Vampyros Lesbos (1971), Vicente Aranda's The Blood Spattered Bride (1972), Hammer's Karnstein series and Kümel's aforementioned film.

Larraz, a Spanish comic book artist turned director was no stranger to shooting in the UK. His debut, Whirlpool (1970), was the first shot on British soil. In the same year as his sapphic vampire masterpiece, he also delivered Symptoms (1974), a slow-burn, psychosexual horror starring Angela Pleasence, which took some inspiration from Roman Polanski's Repulsion (1968). Various elements from Symptoms, e.g. its lesbian theme and a remote house of horrors in the English countryside setting, would also find their way into his very next film Vampyres.

The premise of Vampyres is simple yet effective: a pair of beautiful vampires, the buxom brunette Fran (Marianne Morris) and blonde bombshell Miriam (Anulka Dziubinska), traipse through the English countryside and lure motorists to their secluded, dilapidated manor (a personal favourite film location -Oakley Court) under the assumption of it being their lucky night. The more than willing hapless men are gruesomely murdered and feasted on by the sexy pair. These seductive temptresses are just as savage in their blood lust as they are in their carnal actions. Resulting in Vampyres being equally as much a disturbing horror film as it is seventies softcore erotica. Vampyres is arguably a primal film.

Beginning with a cold open scene where Fran and Miriam are both in bed naked and sensually kissing each another, the pair are brutally gunned down by a mysterious intruder. Cut to the title sequence of flying vampire bats and James Kenelm Clarke's psyche rock theme to set the tone of the film. It's followed by the introduction of brown tweed suited Ted (Murray Brown), the film’s male protagonist, arriving in a hotel reception wanting to book a room for the night. The elderly hotel manager seems to recognise Ted. "The gentleman is an old client. We haven't seen you down here for years. Years have gone by since then. Do you remember me?" A mildly annoyed Ted denies knowing him. Which is the first clue in the film that there's something more to Ted than we might think.

Following on, the next two supporting characters are introduced. Caravanners John (Brian Deacon) and Harriet (Sally Faulkner) spot the two femme fatales looking suspicious along the roadside. The young couple decide to spend the night near the grounds of what they assume is the abandoned building featured in the prologue. Harriet is still concerned by the two women she spotted earlier, while hubby John is completely nonchalant about the whole thing. Call it female intuition, but Harriet is the only one grossly worried about the mysterious women. During the middle of the night, Harriet sees both Fran and Miriam in her dream, only for her to be suddenly awoken by a man's scream outside. It's followed by a bloody hand thudding against her window. Totally freaked out, Harriet does what any married woman always does, and wakes her fella up to go outside and investigate in the pissing rain. Soaked to the bone, John finds no signs of anything outside. Returning to the caravan, John tells Harriet that she was only dreaming.

The following morning, a dead naked man is found inside a wrecked Mini Cooper by the police. At this point John spends much of his day fishing by the nearby lake, while Harriet paints the seemingly abandoned building on her canvas. Coincidentally, Ted is back on the scene and picks up Fran looking for a lift back home. Instantly attracted to the mysterious hitch hiker (and who wouldn't?), Ted tells her, "You remind me very much of someone I knew a long time ago. Yes, very much indeed." Echoing what the hotel manager said to Ted earlier.

Despite the obvious suggestions that Ted possesses a past history with the lustful femme fatales, the character really does serve as the every man in this tale. What would you do if you picked up a hot hitch hiker and drove her home? It's the typical thirst trap. Ted telling Fran,"You arouse me more than any woman I've met for a long time." after she's went AWOL on him during the day, spells how deep in the hole he is in without realising it. The trouble is, it's so hard wired in most men's brains, they'll risk their ultimate doom if it means they have a shot with beautiful women like Fran and Miriam. Therefore, Ted is physically and mentally trapped by the vampires (much like Jonathan Harker). As our protagonist goes without food, consuming only booze and a pack of Rothman's for three days, whilst being completely drained (figuratively and literally!) by the lustful vampire wenches, is a sympathetic, yet comical doom for many a poor randy bloke.

It's worth noting that although the sex and violence are high off the lesbian vampire equivalent of the Richter scale, Vampyres is blessed by an incredible atmosphere throughout. This in turn stops the film feeling repetitive whenever new potential male victims are lured to their doom. The cluttered, cobwebbed decor of colonial bric-a-brac around the neglected manor lend to the gloomy feel of the home. Which in turn adds to how much these men will forego any obvious red flags if it means they manage to score with the blood-sucking babes. Hence, more dead naked men being found along in their crashed vehicles. There's also the fantastically eerie drone sound emanating from the wine cellar beneath the manor, where Fran and Miriam sleep during the day. The cellar is surrounded by old bottles of wine and decayed cadavers.

A hidden layer that might be overlooked upon the first viewing is how time passes in the film; most specially, inside the antagonists' home. Ted discovers his watch has stopped while there. The morning after his night with Fran (spent, hungover and with a nasty gash on his arm...what a night!!!), who's left him alone in the manor, Ted spies a grandfather clock is not working either. Additionally, when the pair lure a playboy wine expert (Michael Byrne - perhaps the most recognisable cast member in the film) to their cellar, his watch too has stopped.

Vampyres is impeccably well shot, thanks to Harry Waxman, the director of photography for genuine classics The Nanny (1965), Twisted Nerve (1968) and The Wicker Man (1973). Which is definitely advantageous for Vampyres, as its budget was only around £42,000 at that time, and yet it looks superb. The scenes of Fran and Miriam wondering around a graveyard could have easily been lifted from a gothic Hammer production, or one of Rollin's early films. Sun rays piercing through the morning mist and tree branches are reminiscent of Larraz's autumnal look in Symptoms. At its core, Vampyres definitely has more to offer than the sleaze horror it's labelled as. 

Considering Marianne Morris and Anulka Dziubinska were inexperienced actresses and only got their roles for being attractive women willing to appear in the buff on film, they're still rather good as performers. Their lack of acting experience doesn't seem to affect the film much. An anecdote shared by Dziubinska was a chance meeting of the esteemed actor John Mills at a party, where she asked him for any tips for her fledgling acting career. His answer was to accept any role she was offered. This was the first film which landed on her lap. Thank you very much, John Mills. In an interview with Morris, she admitted to needing a few drinks to loosen her inhibitions during her shower scene with Dziubinska, but it’s very erotically charged, regardless.

Sadly, Vampyres doesn't get the love it deserves as one of the superb British horror films from the seventies, nor does it get the recognition of it being the best of the lesbian vampire movies out there, in my humble opinion. It's not compelled to dwell on some poetic existentialism you might come across in Rollin and Franco's erotic horror films. Vampyres is an unadulterated and unapologetic primal savagery, and it's why I rank it above the rest.

Larraz's later films don't hit in the same way as Vampyres (of the ones I've managed to watch at least). The satanic themed Black Candles (1982) is noteworthy for its outrageousness, but nowhere near as engrossing as his earlier films. He would also helm a bunch of forgettable slashers like Edge of the Axe (1988) which further highlighted his decline in quality as a director for me. Regardless of his descent, it's Larraz's early films which are most appealing, and Vampyres is undoubtedly his best, in my opinion. Some words of warning: avoid the atrocious 2015 remake!

Tuesday, December 31, 2024

Viewings: December 2024

Took complete advantage of the festive break and crammed an obscene amount of recent films until my eyeballs melted like Gerstead's. The biggest highlights were undoubtedly Sean Baker's comedy drama Anora and Jang Jae-hyun's horror mystery Exhuma. Two very different films and two great examples why 2024 in film was a winner for me.

Roll on 2025!


Film:

12 Angry Men (Sidney Lumet, 1957)

Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (Nicholas Webster, 1964)*

The Blood Beast Terror (Vernon Sewell, 1968)

The Colour of Pomegranates (Sergei Parajanov, 1969)*

The Italian Job (Peter Collinson, 1969)

The Conformist (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1970)*

Hands of the Ripper (Peter Sasdy, 1971)

Fuzz (Richard A. Colla, 1972)*

Barry Lyndon (Stanley Kubrick, 1975)*

I Don’t Want to Be Born (Peter Sasdy, 1975)

The Black Hole (Gary Nelson, 1979)

Dawn of the Mummy (Frank Agrama, 1981)*

The Escapees (Jean Rollin, 1981)*

Paris, Texas (Wim Wenders, 1984)

Blood Games (Tanya Rosenberg, 1990)*

Beau Travail (Claire Denis, 1999)*

Lost in Translation (Sofia Coppola, 2003)

The Borderlands (Elliot Goldner, 2013)

Red Rocket (Sean Baker, 2021)*

Anora (Sean Baker, 2024)*

The Apprentice (Ali Abbasi, 2024)*

Conclave (Edward Berger, 2024)*

The Devil’s Bath (Severin Fiala, Veronika Franz, 2024)*

Exhuma (Jang Jae-hyun, 2024)*

Frogman (Anthony Cousins, 2023/2024)*

Gladiator II (Ridley Scott, 2024)*

Heretic (Scott Beck, Bryan Woods, 2024)*

Humane (Caitlin Cronenberg, 2024)*

Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person (Ariane Louis-Seize, 2023/2024)*

Hundreds of Beavers (Mike Chislik, 2022/2024)*

It’s What’s Inside (Greg Jardin, 2024)*

Kill (Nikhil Nagesh Bhat, 2023/2024)*

The Order (Justin Kurzel, 2024)*

The Shadow Strays (Timo Tjahjanto, 2024)*

The Substance (Coralie Fargeat, 2024)

Thelma (Josh Margolin, 2024)*

 

Television:

Doctor Who - ‘Doctor Who and the Silurians’ (Sydney Newman, 1970)

Doctor Who - ‘The War Games in Colour’  (Sydney Newman, 1969/2024)*

Doctor Who - ‘Joy to the World’ (Sydney Newman, 2024)*

Squid Game - Season 2 (Hwang Dong-hyuk, 2024)*


*First time viewings.


Dada Debaser Notes:

  • Remember when Benedict Cumberbatch's mum was a giant blood-sucking moth in The Blood Beast Terror? I do, but then again, I also remember thinking it was better than it really was.
  • Oscar bait performances by the Brits this month: Nicholas Hoult as a bowl haired white nationalist and Jude Law's moustachioed fed were both exceptional in true crime thriller The Order. Ralph Fiennes's concerned trolling cardinal in the bitchfest that was Conclave was also very noteworthy. I'll probably only ever catch these films again whenever they're aired on TV, however.
  • Joan Collins spurning the advance of a lustful dwarf and subsequently cursed with a demonic killer offspring in Peter Sasdy's laughably terrible I Don't Want to Be Born should have been great in theory. Waste of a great cast: Donald Pleasence, Ralph Bates, Caroline Munro and a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo from the first lady of Play School (1968-1988) Floella Benjamin. Thankfully, Sasdy delivered with the excellent Hands of the Ripper (1971) a few years prior.
  • The Apprentice follows the typical Hollywood style formula of any biopic or period piece featuring the aid of vintage visual filters, an OTT campy wardrobe, and nostalgic needledrops. I was sick of hearing Bacara again and again. To the film's credit, Jeremy Strong's performance as Roy Cohn makes it highly watchable. Simultaneously channelling Dustin Hoffman's Rain Man and Beelzebub. There's a hilarious scene that parallels Trump's liposuction and hair surgery with Darth Vader's creation.
  • The Color of Pomegranates is a five star banger in terms of its sublime cinematography and gorgeous production design. However, despite its relatively short run time, it's a challenging slog to wade through, thanks to its cold and avant-garde religious sensibility. One for the Criterion chin strokers.
  • The last twenty or so minutes in Frogman are great fun. Unfortunately, the fifty minutes that precede it are absolutely boring.
  • The proverbial picture paints a thousand words proved true as Gi-hun's memeable mugshots from Squid Game summed up my satisfaction regarding both seasons of the show:

Did my best and worst films of 2024. Also listed my fave discoveries and Blu-Ray/4K releases. Even did the Top 100 Directors Challenge (and failed).

Blog reading I enjoyed this month were the Martorialist's best movies and TV shows awards and Dark Eyes of London’s top 10 films of 2024.

Sunday, December 29, 2024

Squid Pro Quo

People risking their lives in a variety of demented playground style contests for money made for addictive viewing in Hwang Dong-hyuk's Netflix series Squid Game (2021). The  global phenomenon successfully managed to entertain and shock in equal measure. It also felt like a complete package in its nine episode run. Netflix commissioning a second and third season obviously makes business sense for the streaming giant, but just like film sequels, it runs the risk of being inferior and diluting the brand. For Dong-hyuk's creation, Squid Game season two is still a highly bingeworthy offering, but also a mixed bag compared to its sublime predecessor.

What's instantly noticeable about the second season is it being reduced to seven episodes. Hardly a red flag, but cause for concern considering it's significantly slower paced in getting to the actual games than before. Main protagonist, Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), is a completely changed man after winning the previous tournament. Joined by cop Hwang Jun-ho (Wi Ha-joon), they now command a team of mercenaries searching for the location of the deadly games and the cryptic higher ups who run it.

Gi-hun becoming a contestant again leads to a few changes in both the variety of games and general theme of the show. His familiarity with the iconic first game Red Light, Green Light leads to more survivors, which consequentially means less prize money for everyone alive. This in turn leads to scenes where the survivors vote more often in proceeding with the next games. The winning majority dictating what happens next. This in turn has the voting losers forced to play on and risk their lives. Whereas the first season was a satire on capitalism, season two makes a prodding commentary on democracy, and how the exploitation of it. 

The new contestants are a varied bunch of desperate individuals: an elderly mother and her idiotic son are perhaps the most interesting of the new lot. The most odious of the bunch is Thanos, a Korean rapper, with eye rolling hood talk, who had me praying for his instant death. The actor who played him was terrible, too. The first season's players were far more memorable, however.

Season two's biggest offence is it feeling like it has been divided from the inevitable third season, thanks to its pacing and various sub plots being ridiculously drawn out. Thus, even with its violent finale and predictable cliffhanger, it doesn't come close to being as satisfying as its debut season. This reeks of Netflix's tampering, as other shows exclusive to the platform have intentionally been divided (Cobra Kai's sixth season).

Overall, Squid Game season two is a mixed bag. A series which continues to shine with its incredible premise and high risk stakes, make it easy to binge all the way through, effortlessly. However, the slower pace and drawn out story telling, replete with it all being told in less episodes, make it feel a little underwhelming compared to its monumental debut. Still, despite this criticism, Squid Game still left me feeling invested and wondering how it will conclude.

Thursday, December 26, 2024

Home Format Releases of 2024

Another bumper, but bittersweet year for cinephiles with a vested interested in owning films on physical media.

More boutique labels were eager to cut out the customer convenience of purchasing off Amazon and pushing folk into ordering directly from their sites. Cutting out the middleman is understandable, but a right pain in the arse if something was available for pre-order off Amazon, months in advance, only to be withdrawn and already sold out elsewhere. My pre-order of The Stone Tape is the latest example. Hence, FOMO became an even bigger issue in 2024 and leading to more scalpers cashing-in on folk with money to burn.

2024 was also the year where quality issues were more prevalent with various major boutique releases having dodgy sound mixing or picture freezing. This would lead to the headache of having to get in touch with customer service and provide proof of purchase for a replacement disc, rather than automatically like some other labels.

Anyhow, without further ado, here are the physical media highlights for me this year:

The Flesh and Blood Show - The Horror Films of Pete Walker | Blu-Ray | 88 Films

The Hitcher | 4K | Second Sight

Inside the Mind of Coffin Joe | Blu-Ray | Arrow Films*

Looking for Mr. Goodbar | 4K | Vinegar Syndrome

Blake's 7: The Collection - Series 1 | Blu-Ray | BBC

The Blair Witch Project | Blu-Ray  |Second Sight

Columbia Horror | Blu-Ray | Indicator

Häxan | Blu-Ray | Radiance Films

Dawn of the Mummy | Blu-Ray | Treasured Films

Forgotten Gialli Vol. 7 | Blu-Ray | Vinegar Syndrome

J-Horror Rising | Blu-Ray | Arrow Films

The Sadness | 4K | Shudder

* Technically released last year, but the absence of subtitles on one of the discs meant the corrected set didn't come out until earlier this year.

With the proposed US tariffs, now might be a good time to pack it in with ordering overseas. Buying films is already an expensive hobby, and I can't see myself importing with the same frequency next year. Probably sticking to the home grown labels for the foreseeable future.

Also, managed to score most of Michel Soavi's oeuvre on 4K, which was released by Severin last year, during the Black Friday sales. Currently lumbered in some depot in Stanstead over Christmas. Anna Falchi in Dellamorte Dellamore (1994) on 4K ❤.

Wednesday, December 25, 2024

I Got Ninety-Nine Films, but Les Biches Ain’t One

Found a challenge for cinephiles over on Letterboxd that I shamelessly stole. You can read the original challenge rules here. The best 100 films sourced from TSPDT's list of the top 250 directors - one film per selected director.

At the very least that would give me some leeway, right? Wrong. The original list turned out to be filled with films by overrated pinko hacks, foreign film makers no one had heard of, and the pretentious shite men pretend to like to score with artsy women. This was a tougher challenge than I imagined and it turned into something of an obsession.

Various individual auteurs have way too many classics, but I ended up including my own personal fave pick from their filmography, despite not being regarded as their best by others.

Evidently, based on the blog title alone, I failed. I couldn't find that one last worthy entry and hit one hundred great films.

Here's the list regardless:

A Trip to the Moon (Georges Méliès, 1902)
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene, 1920)
Nosferatu (F. W. Murnau, 1922)
M (Fritz Lang, 1931)
Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931)
Freaks (Tod Browning, 1932)
Duck Soup (Leo McCarey, 1933)
King Kong (Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack, 1933)
The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, 1939)
The Maltese Falcon (John Huston, 1941)
Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942)
I Walked with a Zombie (Jacques Tourneur, 1943)
The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks, 1946)
A Matter of Life and Death (Emeric Pressburger, Michael Powell, 1946)
Kind Hearts and Coronets (Robert Hamer, 1949)
The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949)
White Heat (Raoul Walsh, 1949)
In a Lonely Place (Nicholas Ray, 1950)
The Day the Earth Stood Still (Robert Wise, 1951)
Les Diabolique (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1955)
The Ladykillers (Alexander Mackendrick, 1955)
The Bridge on the River Kwai (David Lean, 1955)
Witness for the Prosecution (Billy Wilder, 1957)
Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958)
The Magician (Ingmar Bergman, 1958)
Eyes Without a Face (Georges Franju, 1960)
Le Trou (Jacques Becker, 1960)
Peeping Tom (Michael Powell, 1960)
Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
The Servant (Joseph Losey, 1963)
The Hill (Sidney Lumet, 1965)
The Collector (William Wyler, 1965)
Bunny Lake Is Missing (Otto Preminger, 1965)
For a Few Dollars More (Sergio Leone, 1965)
The Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo, 1966)
Belle de Jour (Luis Buñuel, 1967)
The Dirty Dozen (Robert Aldrich, 1967)
Bonnie and Clyde (Arthur Penn, 1967)
Rosemary's Baby (Roman Polanski, 1968)
Targets (Peter Bogdanovich, 1968)
The Wild Bunch (Sam Peckinpah, 1969)
Army of Shadows (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1969)
The French Connection (William Friedkin, 1971)
Dirty Harry (Don Siegel, 1971)
Deliverance (John Boorman, 1972)
Aguirre, the Wrath of God (Werner Herzog, 1972)
Don't Look Now (Nicolas Roeg, 1973)
High Plains Drifter (Clint Eastwood, 1973)
Badlands (Terence Malick, 1973)
The Parallax View (Alan J. Paluka, 1974)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Tobe Hooper, 1974)
Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Miloš Forman, 1975)
Picnic at Hanging Rock (Peter Weir, 1975)
Marathon Man (John Schlesinger, 1976)
Carrie (Brian De Palma, 1976)
The Pink Panther Strikes Again (Blake Edwards, 1976)
Star Wars (George Lucas)
Suspiria (Dario Argento, 1977)
Dawn of the Dead (George A. Romero, 1978)
Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)
The Elephant Man (David Lynch, 1980)
The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980)
Mad Max 2 (George Miller, 1981)
Time Bandits (Terry Gilliam, 1981)
Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982)
The Thing (John Carpenter, 1982)
Zelig (Woody Allen, 1983)
This Is Spinal Tap (Rob Reiner, 1984)
The Terminator (James Cameron, 1984)
Ran (Akira Kurosawa, 1985)
Back to the Future (Robert Zemeckis, 1985)
Down by Law (Jim Jarmusch, 1986)
Manhunter (Michael Mann, 1986)
The Fly (David Cronenberg, 1986)
Platoon (Oliver Stone, 1986)
Raising Arizona (Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, 1987)
Robocop (Paul Verhoeven, 1987)
Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee, 1989)
Drugstore Cowboy (Gus Van Sant, 1989)
Goodfellas (Martin Scorsese, 1990)
Point Break (Kathryn Bigelow, 1991)
The Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme, 1991)
Braindead (Peter Jackson, 1992)
Ed Wood (Tim Burton, 1994)
Serial Mom (John Waters, 1994)
Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994)
Boogie Nights (Paul Thomas Anderson, 1997)
Fight Club (David Fincher, 1999)
The Matrix (Lana Wachowski, Lilly Wachowski, 1999)
Memento (Christopher Nolan, 2000)
Children of Men (Alfonso Cuarón, 2006)
We Need to Talk About Kevin (Lynne Ramsey, 2011)
The Skin I Live In (Pedro Almodóvar, 2011)
Holy Motors (Leos Carax, 2012)
Hard to Be a God (Aleksei German, 2013)
The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson, 2014)
The House That Jack Built (Lars Von Trier, 2018)
Parasite (Bong Joon-ho, 2019)

Reasons Why TSPDT's List Sucks:

  • Why are genre film makers like Tobe Hooper, John Carpenter and George A. Romero listed, while Wes Craven is omitted? All those directors experienced similar highs and lows.
  • Michael Powell is listed twice in TSPDT's list; one on his own, and the other with Emeric Pressburger. I took this a valuable loophole to get closer to one hundred films. Besides, both films I listed are legitimately great.
  • Wound up including certain rare great films from film makers that I'm not even a fan of, or in some cases - despise.
  • Don't blame me for the miniscule number of 21st century titles. The likes of great contemporary auteurs such as Robert Eggers, Nicolas Winding Refn and Jonathan Frasier not being available says more about the source I had to work with. Here's your host's highest rated 21st century films.
  • TSPDT's original list included Peter Greenaway and Ken Russell, but they were given the heave-ho for other film makers I was unfamiliar with, or just couldn't give a toss about. This was crucially costly for me as either The Devils (1971) and The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989) would have helped me hit the finish line.

Please excuse the lack of a Christmas related post this year, this challenge took way too much time. Between all the "classics" and 2024 movies binged this month, it was too much. Also, I just couldn't be bothered, to be totally honest. Merry Christmas, though!!!

Friday, December 20, 2024

Worst Films of 2024

Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis is undoubtedly the worst film I've watched this year (and probably the decade thus far), but at least its withdrawn trailer with fabricated quotes managed to provide some entertainment. Can’t say the same for the other wretched releases this year.

Ranging from overrated fart-house darlings, awful remakes, and made for Tubi slop, here's a list of films which were the nadir of the year for me:

Apartment 7A (Natalie Erika James)

Borderlands (Eli Roth)

La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher)

The Crow (Rupert Sanders)

Cuckoo (Tilman Singer)

The Fall Guy (David Leitch)

Gladiator II (Ridley Scott)

I Saw the TV Glow (Jane Schoenbrun)

The Killer (John Woo)

Lisa Frankenstein (Zelda Williams)

Maid Droid Origins (Rich Mallery)

Megalopolis (Francis Ford Coppola)

Night Swim (Bryce McGuire)

Thelma (Josh Margolin)

Trap (M. Night Shamalamadingdong)

Uglies (McG)

Under Paris (Xavier Gens)

V/H/S/Beyond (Jay Cheel, Jordan Downey, Christian Long, Justin Long, Justin Martinez, Virat Pal, Kate Siegel)

Did you know the inspiration for Eli Roth's cinematic turd that was Borderlands was inspired by his French bulldog taking a dump? True story