Friday, October 13, 2023

The Wish List: 'You Ain't Seen Me, Right?' Edition

We've reached that time of the year where folks like to flex their favourite/best horror films for content. Guessing late game Gen X’ers and millennials are feeling nostalgic since the latest meta is on horror's lost decade - the 1990s. Too lazy for all that palava, although it does remind me of some glaring films I've yet to see before even entertaining the very notion of a nineties horror list.

I've been either ignorantly unaware of the following films, or have found them just too elusive to track down:

Baby Blood (Alain Robak, 1990)

This early nineties French horror actually aired in the noughties on UK TV as part of a season dedicated to banned films, which included infamous titles like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and Salo (1975) on the roster. Alain Robak's Baby Blood is about an ancient demonic parasite dwelling in a woman's womb and forcing her kill inorder to feed its need for blood. This has Second Sight release written all over it since feminist film critics and Kotaku journalists have embraced the hustle of writing film essays for overpriced limited edition boutique film releases.

The Reflecting Skin (Philip Ridley, 1990)

Philip Ridley's southern gothic really piqued my interest for actually appearing as a serious film rather than the dime a dozen, straight-to-video trash around at the time. Other than how gorgeous The Reflecting Skin looks, I'm keen to see it largely because Viggo Mortensen's performances in horror films tend to be really fun to watch and elevate films like Prison (1987) and Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (1990) more than they deserve to be. I can see this being released by Arrow Films or possibly even Criterion.

Evil Dead Trap 2: Hideki (Izô Hashimoto, 1992)

Huge fan of Toshiharu Ikeda's slasher meets body horror mash-up Evil Dead Trap (1988). Watching that film and you can see the obvious influences of Dario Argento and David Cronenberg. I couldn't tell you how the sequel fares, however, as I only knew about its existence earlier this year when Unearthed Films released it on blu-ray. Sadly, they're in the States, and importing anything these days has become way too costly in recent times. Fingers crossed a domestic label like 88 Films might take a stab at releasing the J-Horror sequel over here.

Nadja (Michael Almereyda, 1994)

Mid-nineties, monochrome vampire flicks set in New York City are like waiting for a 29 bus as both Nadja and Abel Ferrara's The Addiction (1995) both arrived around the same time. It might lack the hilarity of Onyx's Fredro Starr being in it, but it does have the eccentric director David Lynch amongst its cast and features two Portishead bangers on its soundtrack, which instinctively tells me I'll be cranking my head to and fro like an epileptic headbanger even if it is some emo vampire shite. This potentially might be the type of art house horror that Marc Morris and Jake West over at Nucleus Films could release. Bound to be better than West's very own God-awful blood sucker film Razor Blade Smile (1998), innit?

Tesis AKA Thesis (Alejandro Amenábar, 1996)

Serious 8mm (1999) vibes in this Spanish mystery horror about a snuff film discovered on a university campus by a film student. Written and directed by the same bloke who gave us what's arguably one of Nicole Kidman's best films, The Others (2001), along with writing her midget ex's Vanilla Sky (2001), this has me yearning to find out if Tesis is any good. I can't find this film anywhere, however. Considering Radiance Films have released another dark themed Spanish film from the nineties recently, I'm praying the company might do the same for this.

In summary, taking into account these are all unwatched, there's no real guarantee if these films are any good or not. What is a certainty is these titles fitting this blog's film tastes to a tee, making them ripe picks for the wish list.

2 comments:

  1. The Reflecting Skin looks interesting.

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  2. Seen Ridley’s demonic urban horror Heartless. Wasn’t all that, tbh. Still really want to see The Reflecting Skin, though.

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