Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop  Various viewings from the last week & 1/2
KOTOKO - Shinya Tsukamoto returns with a weird flick that'll mess with yr head. It kind of reminded me of 'Repulsion' and 'Possesion', and, although it's probably the lesser of the three, I thought it was really good. 'Coco' stars as a lady of questionable mental stability who sees malevolant doubles of those around her, although in essence this is an exploration of a woman's relationship with her son rather than a supernatural horror flick . Includes a lot of self harm and screaming, which together create a really feverish atmosphere at points. It's hard to pin down and resides somewhere between horror, 'arthouse' drama and surrealism. Recommended.
MEMENTO - I forgot just how excellent this twisted neo-noir headf*ck was / is. Strikingly clever and original, yet manages to be utterly immersive. Guy Pearce is a guy whose short term memory has been destroyed, and must construct his reality on the back of scribbled notes and polaroids as he goes about extracting revenge for the murder of his wife. Of course, everyone around him is about as trustworthy as a bag of vipers, and his attempts at constructing his own narrative are shattered and manipulated at every turn. A must see.
EYEBALL - Umberto Lenzi giallo from the mid seventies. I quite enjoyed it, although sadly less than the last time I saw it, perhaps due to a booze deficit this time around. But I still liked the serial murder / tourism crossover angle and the killer's modus operandi, which is memorably sick and brought home wonderfully during the 'reveal'. It's also mildly sleazy, quite fast paced and gets into the kills pretty quickly, all points in its favour. Worth watching.
CENTIPEDE HORROR - Mid eighties HK horror. I always think 70s / 80s HK horror tends to have problems with pacing ie everthing happens in the last 40 mins, and this is no exeption, although these issues aren't glaringly obvious here. The brother of a woman killed by poisonous centipedes investigates her death and uncovers a magical vendetta against his family. It's not 'The Boxer's Omen', but there are impressive scenes of sorcerous conflict, scorpion puking exorcism, creepy centipede attacks, and climactic centipede vomming. Good, but not very available.
MONDO KEYHOLE - I thought this film was amazing! An early Jack Hill number, it seems incredibly advanced for its time, being a sort of deconstructed roughie before such a thing even existed (not that the 'deconstrucred roughie' subsection in Blockbusters is particularly overflowing). Basically, a porn bookseller who moonlights as a rapist bites off more than he can chew when he attacks a woman whose girlfriend is a kung-fu dominatrix... but this film isn't about unravelling a plot, it's more a sequence of mad scenes which somehow feel like they happen all at once... I don't know, you'll just have to check it out for yourselves. More than recommended.
BODY SNATCHERS - Abel Ferrara is a genius and the best of his films bear witness to an unbelievably intense personal vision. This isn't one of his best films, but it's still good, I still lked it. I noticed that the script was written by Larry Cohen and Stuart Gordon... it's a mid range budget studio B movie, which could've been something of a Trojan horse for Ferrara had it been successful. The usual Ferrara themes ie the impossibility / agonising possibility of redemption in a world of shit aren't really present, but a few of the scenes feature a certain ickiness which a more mainstream director would've balked at, not to mention a certain style. Not up there with Ms.45 etc, and not a patch on Philip Kaufman's 1978 version, but still worth checking out.
FRAGILE - Sinister goings on in a children's hospital on the Isle of White. I thought this was really good, a supernatural flick which bypasses obvious jumps for atmosphere and some quite uncomfortable subject matter. Calista Flockhart is good in the lead role as an agency nurse drafted in to oversee the last few nights on the ward before it's shut down... she seems really unsympathetic, but somehow still quite magnetic. There seem to be some probable debts to Japanese ghost - horror of the time, but all for the good - the 'entity' involved really spooked me out, for once. Good, worth watching. |