What Films Have You Seen Recently? - Page 3063

J Harker · #**30621** 30th November 2014, 04:20 PM

If anything I'd say horror doesn't need to be threatening. It's films like this that are all about subtle ideas and imagery, that need some sense of underlying danger or threat. That's why Cat People and to a lesser degree Curse of the Cat People worked so well. In I Walked, none of the characters ever appear to be in any real danger. Ok the Darby Jones character, can't remember his name now is sinister enough in the cane field but we already know our heroine is in no particular danger.

Demdike@Cult Labs · #**30622** 30th November 2014, 04:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by J Harker

If anything I'd say horror doesn't need to be threatening. It's films like this that are all about subtle ideas and imagery, that need some sense of underlying danger or threat. That's why Cat People and to a lesser degree Curse of the Cat People worked so well. In I Walked, none of the characters ever appear to be in any real danger. Ok the Darby Jones character, can't remember his name now is sinister enough in the cane field but we already know our heroine is in no particular danger.

Sorry that's what i meant. It just typed out wrong. Terror is hack and slash, horror tends to be shadows and things that go bump in the night.

J Harker · #**30623** 30th November 2014, 05:11 PM

I'll give the commentary a listen later if i get chance, i did listen to five mins of it last time but I didn't have time for the whole thing.

trebor8273 · #**30624** 30th November 2014, 06:00 PM

Frankie Teardrop · #**30625** 30th November 2014, 06:41 PM

DARK WATERS - Have avoided buying for years as everything available online has tended to be £££, but recently managed to score a copy for a tenner, so all good. As for the film... well, it's excellent, and in my eyes more than lives up to its reputation as a true descendent / torch carrier of Italian Gothic. A woman's past is tangled with that of an island where a murderous convent reigns and an otherworldly entity lurks. Just fabulous on a visual / atmospheric level, with some scenes which really do whip up a surrealist frenzy - like the one with the burned woman on the beach, where shots of her frazzled face alternate with a montage of burning photos soundtracked to an otherworldly blizzard of child like cries and demonic grunts, or those featuring the recurring appearance of a Francis Baconesque crucified figure. It's not flawless - there are a couple of lulls which teeter on being slightly ponderous - but these are easily superseded by the sheer feeling and texture in evidence everywhere else. Definitely a special film, and I wish the director would do others.

THE INCUBUS - Bad things are going down in Galen. Young women are being raped and murdered, and a young guy is dreaming of cowled figures and torture. 'The Incubus' was directed by John Hough, who gave the world the really good haunting movie 'The Legend Of Hell House'. It's a serious, or at least straight faced film which feels really murky and sleazy despite exercising considerable restraint in its depictions of forced demon sex. More than that, there's an undercurrent of doom laden unease running through it - guess it's that early eighties horror thing again. John Cassavetes is the lead, a small town doctor who I suppose we're meant to sympathise with. But he's so creepy. It's not simply the way he leers at his nubile young daughter... he just looks like a wolf closing in on something, pretty much all the time. The film as a whole kind of feels like this. Although it occasionally gets bogged down in typical genre diversions ie procedural aspects and clumsy info-dumps, a dark intensity still cuts through. A great example of downer horror unafraid to coast on its own bad vibes.

keirarts · #**30626** 30th November 2014, 06:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop

DARK WATERS - Have avoided buying for years as everything available online has tended to be £££, but recently managed to score a copy for a tenner, so all good. As for the film... well, it's excellent, and in my eyes more than lives up to its reputation as a true descendent / torch carrier of Italian Gothic. A woman's past is tangled with that of an island where a murderous convent reigns and an otherworldly entity lurks. Just fabulous on a visual / atmospheric level, with some scenes which really do whip up a surrealist frenzy - like the one with the burned woman on the beach, where shots of her frazzled face alternate with a montage of burning photos soundtracked to an otherworldly blizzard of child like cries and demonic grunts, or those featuring the recurring appearance of a Francis Baconesque crucified figure. It's not flawless - there are a couple of lulls which teeter on being slightly ponderous - but these are easily superseded by the sheer feeling and texture in evidence everywhere else. Definitely a special film, and I wish the director would do others.

THE INCUBUS - Bad things are going down in Galen. Young women are being raped and murdered, and a young guy is dreaming of cowled figures and torture. 'The Incubus' was directed by John Hough, who gave the world the really good haunting movie 'The Legend Of Hell House'. It's a serious, or at least straight faced film which feels really murky and sleazy despite exercising considerable restraint in its depictions of forced demon sex. More than that, there's an undercurrent of doom laden unease running through it - guess it's that early eighties horror thing again. John Cassavetes is the lead, a small town doctor who I suppose we're meant to sympathise with. But he's so creepy. It's not simply the way he leers at his nubile young daughter... he just looks like a wolf closing in on something, pretty much all the time. The film as a whole kind of feels like this. Although it occasionally gets bogged down in typical genre diversions ie procedural aspects and clumsy info-dumps, a dark intensity still cuts through. A great example of downer horror unafraid to coast on its own bad vibes.

cool. I've always been a fan of the incubus ever since picking up the pre-cert vhs, many, many moons ago.

Demdike@Cult Labs · #**30627** 30th November 2014, 10:50 PM

The Grifters (1990)

Classic film noir from the er' 1990's. Compulsive viewing, seductive, scheming and brutal. Femme fatales with perverse agendas, sleazy motels, murder, cons that work, cons that don't, and all based on a pulp novel from Jim Thompson.

Cussack, Benning and Huston deliver a tour-de-force in Hollywood style in one of the classics of the last half century.

Recommended.

Make Them Die Slowly · #**30628** 30th November 2014, 10:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

The Grifters (1990)

Classic film noir from the er' 1990's. Compulsive viewing, seductive, scheming and brutal. Femme fatales with perverse agendas, sleazy motels, murder, cons that work, cons that don't, and all based on a pulp novel from Jim Thompson.

Cussack, Benning and Huston deliver a tour-de-force in Hollywood style in one of the classics of the last half century.

Recommended.

Have you read much Thompson Dem?

Demdike@Cult Labs · #**30629** 30th November 2014, 11:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Make Them Die Slowly

Have you read much Thompson Dem?

Just The Getaway. Many moons ago.

Make Them Die Slowly · #**30630** 30th November 2014, 11:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

Just The Getaway. Many moons ago.

Very bleak ending to that one I remember. Been years since I read him myself, but I remember some of his work being oddly experimental in approach for the genre and audience he was writing for.