Nasty Habit

Killer Nun (Trailer)

Giulio Berruti, 1979

Swedish bombshell Anita Ekberg frolicking in the Trevi fountain in Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita (1960) might be peak cinema to snobbish cinephiles, but she'll be remembered as a drug addicted, dentures-stomping, horny nun in Giulio Berruti's nunsploitation/giallo and one time video nasty, Killer Nun (1979) by film degenerates like myself. At the risk of offending both sides of the kino taste spectrum, I can't say I'm a fan of either of those films. However, one particular track featured on Killer Nun by composer Alessandro Alessandroni has been a fave of mine for many years; which at least makes it somewhat redeemable.

Alessandro Alessandroni - Suor Omicidi, Seq. 4

 Killer Nun/The Strangler of Vienna/Lady Frankenstein compilation, 1999

 

Something about Suor Omicidi, Seq. 4's jangly acoustic guitar strumming away while the sounds of an ominous choral build in the background, concluding with a manic church organ, really does it for me. Little wonder it’s amongst my favourite giallo tracks of all time.

Killer Nun's soundtrack didn't get a vinyl release until twenty years later. The tracks finally appeared in an Alessandroni compilation containing two other scores of his: Lady Frankenstein (1971) and The Strangler of Vienna (1971). The latter, I have yet to see.

Lady Frankenstein (Trailer)

Mel Welles & Aureliano Luppi, 1971

 

From Orson Welles to Mel Welles; you know Joseph Cotten's career hit an even greater decline than Anita Ekberg's when he went from Citizen Kane (1941), Shadow of a Doubt (1943) and The Third Man (1949) to Italian horror Lady Frankenstein; a far cry from his classic earlier body of work. Far more entertaining than Killer Nun and La Dolce Vita, though.

Highest Rated Films of the 21st Century

When it comes to film reviews, Letterboxd is a reprehensible social platform for hive-minded narcissists. Not even worth posting a review there. But it does happen to be a useful site for grading and logging films when compiling miscellaneous lists. Handy for anyone running a film blog.

Here's a list of your humble curator's highest scoring films from the 21st century (minimum of ★★★★½ out of ★★★★★) logged onto Letterboxd:

American Psycho (Mary Harron, 2000)
Battle Royale (Kinji Fukasaku, 2000)
Sexy Beast (Jonathan Glazer, 2000)
Shadow of the Vampire (E. Elias Merhige, 2000)
Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, 2001)
Training Day (Antoine Fuqua, 2001)
28 Days Later (Danny Boyle, 2002)
City of God (Fernando Meirelles, 2002)
Ju-on: The Grudge (Takashi Shimizu, 2002) 
Oldboy (Park Chan-wook, 2003)
Kill Bill: Volume 1 (Quentin Tarantino, 2003)
The Descent (Neil Marshall, 2005)
Apocalypto (Mel Gibson, 2006)
Children of Men (Alfonso Cuarón, 2006)
Pan's Labyrinth (Guillermo del Toro, 2006)
[REC] (Jaume Balagueró & Paco Plaza, 2007)
Hot Fuzz (Edgar Wright, 2007)
Love Exposure (Sion Sono, 2008)
Bronson (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2008)
Let the Right One In (Tomas Alfredson, 2008)
Martyrs (Pascal Laugier, 2008)
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call – New Orleans (Werner Herzog, 2009)
The House of the Devil (Ti West, 2009)
Triangle (Christopher Smith, 2009) 
13 Assassins (Takashi Miike, 2010)
Black Swan (Darren Aronofsky, 2010)
I Saw the Devil (Kim Jee-woon, 2010)
Troll Hunter (André Øvredal, 2010)
Toy Story 3 (Lee Unrich, 2010)
Drive (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2011)
The Raid (Gareth Evans, 2011)
The Skin I Live In (Pedro Almodóvar, 2011)
Berberian Sound Studio (Peter Strickland, 2012)
Dredd (Pete Travis & Alex Garland, 2012)
The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese, 2013)
Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2013)
It Follows (David Robert Green, 2014)
The Raid 2 (Gareth Evans, 2014)
The Babadook (Jennifer Kent, 2014)
Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller, 2015)
The Witch (Robert Eggers, 2015)
The Neon Demon (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2016)
Train to Busan (Yeon Sang-ho, 2016)
Brawl in Cell Block 99 (S. Craig Zahler, 2017)
The House That Jack Built (Lars Von Trier, 2018)
Hereditary (Ari Aster, 2018)
Mandy (Panos Cosmatos, 2018)
The Irishman (Martin Scorsese, 2019)
The Lighthouse (Robert Eggers, 2019)
Parasite (Bong Joon-ho, 2019)
Dinner in America (Adam Rehmeier, 2020)
Benedetta (Paul Verhoeven, 2021)
Mad God (Phil Tippett, 2021)
The Northman (Robert Eggers, 2022)
The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer, 2023)

Dada Debaser Notes:

• For the record, I couldn't be arsed to include the ★★★★ movies as originally intended since it would have been 246 entries rather than the 55 above. Ain't nobody got time for that!
• Worked with release dates according to Letterboxd rather than when they came out in my region to avoid a massive headache.
• Most of the entries were rated prior to a six year hiatus from Letterboxd (from 2016 to 2022). The cool part is how their ratings are largely unchanged.
• Unapologetic about the overall horror bias. 
• Some critically revered films that didn't make the cut were either rated lower than the minimum requirement, or were just shite. Make your own damned list if you don't see picks you expected!
  

Walk With Me

In a Violent Nature (Trailer)

Chris Nash, 2024

 

After all these years, why do film release dates still differ depending on country? So much for globalisation. The latest example is In a Violent Nature (2024) not hitting my corner of the world until another month after the U.S.A..

It's as clear as Crystal Lake that slasher fans want another Friday the 13th film, but the film rights seem to be up in the air. Until that mess is sorted out, Chris Nash's In a Violent Nature serves as an adequate alternative.

Other than the obvious Friday the 13th vibes, the other draw of the film is it following in the point of view of its Jason Voorhees styled killer. The downright creepy clip of him observing two potential victims across the otherside of a lake and walking toweard them is what really sold me on the film:

In a Violent Nature (Lake Scene)

Chris Nash, 2024

 

Picks of 2004

Greece winning the UEFA European Championship wasn't the only shocker of 2004. A number of films released that year genuinely surprised me. As a staunch opponent of films dear to me getting the remake treatment, who would have thought Zac Snyder's Dawn of the Dead would have been great. Don't get it twisted, anyone who prefers the remake over the original still deserves to be put in stocks and shamed.

Way too many blindspots in 2004 for your host, along with films which were enjoyable at the time, but scarcely remembered, hence left off.

The Aviator (Martin Scorsese)

Calvaire (Fabrice Du Welz)

Creep (Christopher Smith)

Dawn of the Dead (Zac Snyder)

Dead Man's Shoes (Shane Meadows)

The Incredibles (Brad Bird)

Kill Bill: Volume 2 (Quentin Tarantino)

Kung Fu Hustle (Stephen Chow)

Man on Fire (Tony Scott)

Mean Girls (Mark Waters)

Pusher II (Nicolas Winding Refn)

Shaun of the Dead (Edgar Wright)

Spartan (David Mamet)

Team America: World Police (Trey Parker)

Dumplings (Fruit Chan)

The Village (M. Night Shamalamadingdong)

Unpopular Opinions: 

Never fell under the spell of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Not sure how anyone could fall in love with Kate Winslet in the first place let alone be so heartbroken after breaking up with her you'd want your memories of the relationship erased from your mind.

Regarding the second chapter in Tarantino's Kill Bill saga, there's a lot that I like and a lot that I don't. It is a good film, but it's the turning point for me where his indulgences would really become irksome from this point onward.

Simon Pegg owes his entire success to Edgar Wright. Much prefer Hot Fuzz (2007) in the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy, but won't front on Shaun of the Dead being a good film. Pegg is less of a whiny and annoying manchild in the second one.