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azderoth
Here's a list of movies that have had an impact on me--for better or worse.
Session 9
Demons
Cemetery Man
Night of the Living Dead
Se7en
Dead Ringers
Dawn of the Dead
Evil Dead
Tetsuo
Audition
Scanners
Spirited Away
Ichi the Killer
Gozu
Reservoir Dogs
Susperia
Texas Chain Saw Massacre
Mulholland Dr.
El Topo
The Holy Mountain
Bullet In The Head
Izo
Videodrome
Hard Boiled
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
The Start of the Modern Zombie Film
They're slow moving. They walk like somnambulists, slow and with a hint of uncertainty--as if they are unsure who they are. They can be mistaken for normal people, it's a mistake that Barbara's brother certainly won't forget. They are dead and they are going to eat you.
The zombie film, what we today think of as zombies, coalesced in this movie. All of the traits are here. The bleakness, the stark naturalism (in this movie offset by an absurd, illogical, event), the violence. One thing that Night of the Living Dead gets right is it pulls off the horror of a family disintegrating quite well. Actually thats kind of what this movie is about. It's about social disintegration in times of chaos. If the people in the house would have pulled together, then the zombies wouldn't have been as much of a problem. It's the shock of an apparently impossible act, it's the shock of your dead mother getting up to kill you, that wounds.
Tamala 2010: A Punk Cat in Space (2002)
Anime by way of David Lynch
Forget plot. Dispel any notions of linear progression. This is animation simply for the purpose of animation, and it sort of works. This does have a few problems however--I felt it was about ten minutes too long. And the shades of black and white do become a little tedious after awhile (though there is alleviation in the strategic use of colors throughout).
One of the attributes of the movie, the one that could either draw viewers in or send them running, is its tendency to drift in a kind of dream-logic (I feel that animation works well with that sort of surrealistic play) with no regard towards traditional structure. The character design is simple, yet oddly emotive, and the music is dreamy enough to get lost in.
This movie makes me wonder what the next step in these kinds of animation projects is going to be.
The Descent (2005)
A darkness within and below
The Descent proves to me that the idea, or subject, of a movie doesn't always have to be interesting in itself. Sometimes it is the presentation that matters. Quite simply The Descent is about some women who go into a cave. Hijinks soon follow. The A.P.W. (read: All Powerful Writer) is tempted to say that The Descent is nothing original--that the A.P.W has seen movies like it before, years ago, when scary movies weren't afraid to show consequence and a good fright for a fear of appearing "unsophisticated". But it is this return to basic scare tactics that makes The Descent work. The director uses misdirection, develops characters, shocks, and unfolds events like a pro. The creatures too (I thought of them as subhumanoids) are well constructed--even if couldn't believe that they were unaware of fire, or heavy breathing, on a few occasions. The A.P.W. also had a little difficulty believing that a character could throw a dangerous tool with such lethality in a cave with zero visibility.
But these leaps of cinematic logic are, in a way, what keep this movie entertaining. The director, Neil Marshall, knows when to push the movie into more excessively stylistic territory without making it seem forced. In the end The Descent is an excellent movie, if somewhat unoriginal.
Silent Hill (2006)
Only half of a good movie
Where's the other half! I saw this with a friend the day it came out. My friend is an avid player of the Silent Hill games, and I'd often witnessed him navigate different characters through the fog obscured landscape that is Silent Hill. So I'm not unfamiliar with the games.
First, I'll say that the first thirty or forty minutes of the movie feature some of the best horror imagery that I've seen in a long time. It's very minimal; It's simply a person walking around in a spooky town and occasionally being attacked by monsters. It works--it's incredibly effective, and I feel like the movie could go on like that (No words, mind you. No dialog. Just ambient music and imagery allowing me to view into a darker world.} for at least another hour before burning into an effective climax.
And then something happens. Other characters show up and start talking and what they are saying is insanely obvious drivel that somehow intervenes with my pleasure of watching the movie, and instead of stopping it keeps going on, with waves and waves of poorly conceived words, and there's even an expository scene in there somewhere but by that time I've given up on the Silent Hill movie. Certainly there were some interesting deaths in the style of Hellraiser, but it wasn't even remotely interesting enough.
So, basically I thought the movie started off great,with some excellent spook-out moments and minimal dialog, then went down Hill from there. I would probably watch it again, just for the visuals--and to watch Pyramid Head tear the skin off of a woman and throw it around.
Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966)
The Weird, Static, Horror Movie As Comedy
I feel a little conflicted here. Manos is utter trash. It is ineptly made, badly acted, horribly scripted (scripted ?). If I could I'd give the movie two ratings, one--1--from what my logic and better sense tells me (it's crap), and another rating--say around 6 or 7--simply because I was entertained, I would.
There are things I find frustrating, yet humorous about Manos: How all the actors seem to wait a full minute or two before saying their lines, as if waiting for some cue; the odd repetition of dialog like something out of the nightmares of Samuel Beckett (but done unintentionally, it seems); the sheer lack of anything resembling narrative consistency or internal logic.
Make no mistake, this is a bad, bad, movie. But some movie masochists out there may find this entertaining. Hell, at least it's more creative than Bloodrayne.