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Post by Her 69 Eyes on Oct 6, 2010 20:06:54 GMT -5
MVZ MMC: October 2010Daughters of Darkness (dir. Harry Kümel, 1971) Daughters of Darkness is a weird marriage of an art film and a trashy genre picture. Delphine Seyrig, among the most beloved actresses in Europe at the time (she of The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, Last Year at Marienbad, and Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles fame), plays a mysterious countess who claims to be of the bloodline of the infamous Elizabeth Báthory. Her presence automatically grants the picture a level of prestige uncommon for it's subject matter, and her elegance is exploited to it's fullest by the director. Equally seductive, motherly, and monstrous, the film's slow rhythm has one expecting Báthory to commence the blood bath at every turn. It's to the film's credit, however, that there are only few elements of traditional horror plotting, and the minimal use of gore is appropriately non-supernatural. The film's biggest asset is it's discussion of sexuality and gender roles. Stefan, the arrogant, perhaps sadistic newlywed is an aggressive male. More perceptive and cunning is Báthory herself, who has no trouble in seducing him. Each has a repressed sexual partner - a lesbian relationship clearly implied between Báthory and her young secretary, Ilona - and each of those partners betrays their domineering companion. To put it simply: just about everybody fucks at one point or another. Much of the film has not aged well, but it's rendition of eroticism is still of interest, and Delphine Seyrig's supposed vampire remains an enchanting threat. My MMC History:
10/6: Daughters of Darkness (Kümel, 1971): 3.5/5[/url] [/size]
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Post by Rishlicious on Oct 6, 2010 20:58:00 GMT -5
WHERE IS RUBEN?!
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Post by RyanGoslingFan99 on Oct 7, 2010 5:06:07 GMT -5
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Post by AD on Oct 7, 2010 15:24:37 GMT -5
Eyes Without A Face (Georges Franju, 1960) One tends to snicker at the idea of a film about a mad scientist, and such films are often worthy derision. Georges Franju’s “Eyes Without A Face” is perhaps the exception that proves the rule. It is a film that combines the poetic visual style of Jean Cocteau’s “Beauty and the Beast” with a story of cold obsession and moments of grisly horror. The story is of Dr. Genessier (Pierre Brasseur), a leading surgeon whose daughter (Edith Scob) has been horribly disfigured in a car crash. The doctor’s personal assistant (Alida Valli) helps him lure beautiful young women back to his secluded home where they will be used as unwilling donors in experimental transplant surgeries as he attempts to restore his daughter’s former beauty. Unsurprisingly, the surgeries fail, the kidnapped girls die, and the daughter remains scarred, and forced by her father to hide her face behind a plain white mask. The film’s most memorable moment is a scene where we see the doctor perform one of his surgeries. The images in this scene, while tame by today’s standards, were undoubtedly some of the most graphic ever seen by audiences in the early sixties, but they never seem gratuitous or mean-spirited. In fact, the cold, matter-of-fact way that the doctor carries out the procedure is far more disturbing than all of the sensationalized splatter that we get from today’s most bankable horror films. The featureless mask worn by the daughter to hide her scars, when seen under the proper lighting, creates a much creepier effect than one might expect. We never do get a clear image of the poor girl’s disfigured face, but those sad eyes peering out from behind that lifeless mask leaves a far more haunting memory. You might be thinking that the film I've just described sounds pretty absurd, and Franju was clearly not concerned with realism. He thought of the film as more of a fairy tale than a scary movie (hence the Cocteau comparison). But, consider that we now live in a world where parents are regularly paying for their daughters to undergo extensive plastic surgery before they even finish puberty, and ask yourself: is this silly little fairy tale really as ridiculous as it seems?
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Post by Her 69 Eyes on Oct 14, 2010 0:11:18 GMT -5
MVZ MMC: October 2010Vampyr (dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1932) I revisited Vampyr twice in one night - once with the commentary, once without. It's a movie that's fascinated me since I first saw it, but only after two additional viewings do I feel like i'm starting to scratch the surface of what Dreyer's up to. To say the film demands multiple viewings is a grand understatement. What's interesting structurally about Vampyr is it's use of ellipsis. Shots don't edit together naturally, and the viewer gains no sense of time or space. There's a complete omission of linking material - the stranger arrives at the inn, and almost immediately thereafter he's in a bed. How'd he get a room? Was the inn abandoned? We don't know. This strategy is not merely indulgent, though - it adds spectacularly to the hallucinatory, dreamlike nature of the film. Few films are able to express nightmare logic in the way that this one does. Hazy images, muffled voices, disjointed and irrational progressions in time. It's not for everyone's tastes, although i'd imagine that even the biggest of skeptics will find themselves lulled by it's reverent spell. My MMC History:
10/13: Vampyr (Dreyer, 1932): 5/5[/url] 10/06: Daughters of Darkness (Kümel, 1971): 3.5/5[/url] [/size]
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Post by Her 69 Eyes on Oct 14, 2010 17:55:20 GMT -5
MVZ MMC: October 2010Near Dark (dir. Kathryn Bigelow, 1987) Among the most lyrical of all modern vampire films is Near Dark, a well-realized hodgepodge of genres featuring an unforgettable set piece. The biggest asset to the film is the gorgeous, although perhaps overly self-pleased cinematography. As a hybrid of genres narratively, Adam Greenberg's visuals compliment the picture with a scatter-shot of homages to westerns, noirs, and other films of the horror genre. Additionally, the film's eroticism and the manipulation of gender roles is quite interesting. Mae, nursing Caleb like a child, allows him to feast from her wrist. The long-dead vampire who happens to be stuck in a young boy's body begins a pedophilic obsession with a young girl. In the bar scene, the gentle Mae successfully seduces a patron before killing him. The eroticism in the subject matter has it's roots from Stoker, although the sympathetic, sexually-charged vampires are directly linked to Anne Rice's take on the genre. Like it or not, this film is one of Twilight's direct predecessors. Near Dark is almost sabotaged by a cop out ending, a series of lazy contrivances that lead to an all-too-familiar, hardly inspired variant on the Western stand off. But the ride getting there is wholly absorbing, a tense exercise in genre-juggling and atmosphere. My MMC History:
10/14: Near Dark (Bigelow, 1987): 3.5/5[/url] 10/13: Vampyr (Dreyer, 1932): 5/5[/url] 10/06: Daughters of Darkness (Kümel, 1971): 3.5/5[/url] [/size]
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Post by AD on Oct 14, 2010 18:00:42 GMT -5
I also watched "Vampyr" a couple days ago. I enjoyed it a great deal, but when I sat down to write about it I quickly realized that I was definitely going to need a second viewing before I would have anything particularly intelligent to say about it. I definitely agree with what you said about the movie's use of nightmare logic. The only other movie I can think of that compares in that sense is David Lynch's "Eraserhead." Also John Boorman's "Point Blank" but that's not a horror movie, just an awesome movie.
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Post by Her 69 Eyes on Oct 14, 2010 18:14:33 GMT -5
Do get around to revisiting Vampyr - I appreciated it a lot more after I knew exactly what to expect. And is it just me or is Marguerite Chopin one of the most terrifying villains of all time? I can hardly bear looking at the screen when she peers into the coffin...
I watched Point Blank about a month ago. I had a hell of a time figuring out the plot specifics, although I would agree that it's a pretty stunning accomplishment in style and structure.
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Post by AD on Oct 15, 2010 18:06:48 GMT -5
Do get around to revisiting Vampyr - I appreciated it a lot more after I knew exactly what to expect. And is it just me or is Marguerite Chopin one of the most terrifying villains of all time? I can hardly bear looking at the screen when she peers into the coffin... Oh, I'll see it again eventually. It intrigued me far too much for me to stay away. And Marguerite Chopin is pretty fucking horrifying.
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Post by AD on Oct 16, 2010 15:50:00 GMT -5
Dead of Night (1945) This cult classic horror anthology was quite possibly Rod Serling’s biggest inspiration for creating his groundbreaking television series “The Twilight Zone.” Now, I have no evidence to suggest that Serling ever even saw this film, but anybody who has seen it would certainly agree with me that the similarities between the type of stories told in the film, and many of the stories told in Serling’s show have to be more than coincidental. What sets “Dead of Night” apart from the average anthology film is that it’s not just a collection of unrelated stories. Instead, it is comprised of five tales that are told by characters in a single narrative. A man tries to convince a room full of strangers that he has seen them all before in a recurring dream. After he’s able to predict a number of events, some of the others begin to believe him and tell of their own experiences with unexplainable events. These stories are presented as short films (each with their own director) within a feature film. Some are relatively short, others are quite long, but they always help drive the linking narrative, and bring about questions. Is this man crazy? Has he experienced an important premonition? Or is he possibly having another of his recurring dreams? I almost always have a hard time fully embracing these omnibus style films. It seems that no matter how good some of the stories may be, there are always one or two duds to bring the overall quality down. While this film is no exception to that rule, the connecting narrative is clever enough to carry the film through to a satisfying conclusion. If you like your horror movies with more wit than gore, and more questions than screams, then “Dead of Night” is a film you should not hesitate to seek out.
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Post by Harry on Oct 27, 2010 17:37:08 GMT -5
So, after searching five stores and coming up empty handed every time, the wonderful overpriced folks at Barns & Noble had it in stock.
Tonight, I watch <----------------
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Post by Harry on Oct 28, 2010 21:14:08 GMT -5
House (1977)I've been excited to see this movie since the trailer popped up on the Criterion site last winter. I've had a soft-spot in my heart for B Movies for quite some time, and this looked to be the true holy grail of the "creature feature" genre. After all, the trailer alone leaves you questioning reality. The film itself starts out fairly normal enough. Something of a coming-of-age tale as it starts. Slowly but surely, they start slipping in nutty scenes as the movie progresses. It starts with a whacky watermelon salesman here, a magical pet there, and eventually you're neck-deep in bloody cat vomit trying to grab hold of an ottoman. But somehow, the structure of the film doesn't lose it's bearings. It more or less evolves into it's final product seamlessly. All in all, despite it's ability to lose all grasp of reality, it doesn't lose it's plot. Do I recommend this movie? Absolutely, 100%, yes.
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Post by AD on Oct 28, 2010 22:14:51 GMT -5
Just an update: HY2J still hasn't sent me his challenge for next month, so if anybody wants to send in a backup challenge just PM me. If I don't get one from somebody before the end of the month I guess I'll just come up with my own challenge again, but I'd prefer that somebody else does it.
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Post by Her 69 Eyes on Oct 28, 2010 23:06:46 GMT -5
I tend to watch a pretty broad array of films so i'm okay with just about anything. A decade? A country? A genre? Films released by the Criterion Collection? Films nominated for an Oscar? Films from Roger Ebert's great movies?
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Post by Her 69 Eyes on Oct 29, 2010 3:26:03 GMT -5
MVZ MMC: October 2010Onibaba (dir. Kaneto Shindô, 1964) In Onibaba, war seems to loom just outside of every frame. We hear of feuding warlords throughout the picture, and every so often a doomed samurai will wander into the fields of the devilish mother and her daughter-in-law, who sustain themselves by murdering soldiers and selling off their equipment. The mother feels no remorse - it is the samurai's duty to take the lives of men, and therefore death is what they deserve in return. The mother's morality is not all too warped in the context of the hellish world that the film presents. The returning soldier, friend of the deceased daughter-in-law's husband and mother's son, submits that he doesn't know what he'd been fighting for. The soldiers are simply the pawns of whatever warlord possesses their services. In a world otherwise defined by senseless death, we begin to feel as though their murderous means of living is perhaps not as despicable as we originally thought it out to be. The film is a surreal, highly-erotic folktale. It's a raw progression of carnal desires - each moment seems hinged around consumption, fornication, or manslaughter. The nudity is perhaps a bit exploitative and gratuitous, and there may be one too many lingering shots of tall grass blowing in the wind, but it's a thoroughly engaging morality play disguised as a purely atmospheric horror film. My MMC History:
10/29: Onibaba (Shindô, 1964): 4/5 10/14: Near Dark (Bigelow, 1987): 3.5/5[/url] 10/13: Vampyr (Dreyer, 1932): 5/5[/url] 10/06: Daughters of Darkness (Kümel, 1971): 3.5/5[/url] [/size]
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