DVDs and Films You Have Watched Recently 3 - The Final Insult

[King Pitcos]

Are you Charlie Sheen?

 

He once thought Flower of Flesh & Blood was real and informed the FBI or some shite.

 

On my first reading of this post, I completely missed the word 'Flower' and thought you were referring to this:

 

 

Which was actually a film that quite fucked me up as a teen, I think. My mother bought me the VHS from a second hand shop because I liked Highlander. From memory it's basically a fucked-up version of Princess Bride, where the baddies rape the captured princess, and the chief rapist turns out to be the protagonist whose side you're on against the guy rescuing her.

 

I love the concept behind Eli Roth's Green Inferno, but found the film executed it pretty poorly.

[mim731]

Off to Kickboxer:Vengeance tomorrow. More excited than I probably should be.

[Astro Hollywood]

Add me to the dopes who thought the first Blair Witch was legit.

It finished, credits rolling and me and the ex walked out of the cinema on opening night saying "That's a cunting snuff movie!!! How did they get away with that?"

But with me you're dealing with somebody who didn't get the twist in the Sixth Sense until the way home from the flicks in the car, when my girlfriend at the time had to explain it to me.

 

There's a moment in all the hoohah of Blair Witch's release that stayed with me forever. It was from Cannes, where it was first shown, and they'd put MISSING posters of the cast everywhere to really sell it; a girl comes out of the theatre hysterical. She's sobbing, shaking, and half-sits, half-collapses onto the pavement outside, head in her hands, repeating "oh my God" in a wavering voice, barely able to breathe. In that moment, witches were real to her. Supernatural evil was real. Her whole worldview was shook. You'll never get that now. Everything is pulled to pieces within seconds of appearing online. It was like the last moment of innocence before everything went digital and know-it-all. Now, the only genuine terror people have is the 'shame' of being fooled by something.

[Sergio Mendacious]

I've always felt like you have cracking taste in unsettling movies, Astro — what would you say are your favourite creepy films?

[Scott Malbranque]

You'll never get that now. Everything is pulled to pieces within seconds of appearing online. It was like the last moment of innocence before everything went digital and know-it-all. Now, the only genuine terror people have is the 'shame' of being fooled by something.

This is pretty much exactly what I should have said, only for my lack of ability to articulate got in the way.

Absolutely spot on, and I miss those times. I actually miss being fooled.

 

Even down to advertising. Your 'Who is Keyser Soze?' and 'Who is Tyler Durden?' campaigns would be over in seconds. Some cunt would just post up (I better tag this, just in case someone has a canary)

Kevin Spacey and Edward Norton, respectively

 

I know it's not the point Astro was making, but it's a similar issue in that the innocence and mystery is gone from the movies.

 

And now I'm quite happy to have been duped by that Blair Witch mob back when I was 20.

[Astro Hollywood]

I've always felt like you have cracking taste in unsettling movies, Astro — what would you say are your favourite creepy films?

 

It's getting harder and harder to be affected by horror as I get older. Not that horror is getting worse; there are still great, original horrors coming out; just I've seen so many now, there's so little to be surprised by. Most horrors aren't even trying to be scary. Nobody was ever scared by a slasher. Nobody above the age of 8, anyway. So, anything that truly creeps me out is awesome, and my favourite emotion to be elicited from art. Laughter, tears, being uplifted, straight-up fear; that all fades by the time the credits roll, but grubby creepiness takes days worth of showers to wash away that feeling there's someone standing behind you.

 

Blair Witch Project is right up there. Up until a couple of years ago, I used to watch it every Halloween night as a ritual. I still remember the first time I came across it, flicking channels into Conan O'Brian, playing a clip of the scene where the tent starts shaking at night -- "WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?" -- but crucially for me, missing the intro where the actress introduced it as a clip from a movie. There's an incredible and forgotten short (40mins) film in the accompanying documentaries they did, about Rustin Parr and the only surviving child of his kills, now crazy because of the things he'd seen, called The Burkittsville 7, which has a real Titicut Follies vibe, and a sudden jump-scare that almost finished me off at the time.

 

Lately, The VVitch did an amazing job at setting up an atmosphere and really paying it off. There's something about that whole 17th century witchy period that's viscerally frightening to me on some deep, primal level. There's something off about it, like those strange European kids shows that were on in the 80s -- Heidi, The Legend of Tim Tyler -- all a good ten years old, dubbed so the mouths didn't synch, and on poor quality video, which gives it an odd distance, like we're watching ghosts. Pure hauntology. I even get the willies from that Monty Python bit where John Cleese is stumbling around a German forest in pigtails. Anything set in that time just creeps me the fuck out. Witchfinder General, Mark of the Devil, The Blood on Satan's Claw, and recently, A Field in England. The latter of which has one of the creepiest, most mesmerising scenes in years. Obviously it loses some impact without the context of the film, but...

 

 

Session 9 is a great one too. People talk about getting goosebumps, but that never happens to me. Unless I remember the final line to that film, then it happens every time.

 

The film which made me feel the queasiest, although in a good way, because I absolutely love it, is Beyond the Black Rainbow. I could talk about it lots, so I'll just paste something I wrote about it at the time. No actual spoilers inside.

 

 

 

There’s a queasy feeling associated with the past. Everybody has a handful of things from their childhood, be it TV shows or adverts, or context-less scenes from movies, that continue to chase them from the shadows well into their adult lives. My own personal demons are the Tall, Thin Man from BBC schools program Look ‘n Read’s ‘Boy from Space‘, and an experience at an amusement park that stuck with me forever, as my first handshake with that kind of distilled, sense-robbing terror. Picture this. A room full of jangling, end of the pier amusements; plastic eggs with a toy inside; push-penny games; that thing where you roll a ball up into a hole — and a glass box, six feet high. Behind the glass, on a rocking chair, sits a life-sized old lady, dressed like a 1930’s washerwoman; blanket over the knees, bonnet on her head. My mum drops 10p into the slot, and the washerwoman lurches into life, rocking chair rattling against the floor as she cackles maniacally. One of my earliest, most vivid memories is that gut-punch of fear that led me shrieking out of the amusements and into the model village, where I was found sobbing beside a tiny church, like a pathetic Godzilla. This moment festered with me for years, until, in my teens, black and white footage of Old Mother Riley (a popular music hall drag-act) popped on a TV screen, and I instinctively fled for the nearest miniature cathedral. Even now, distorted by time, the thought of hard-faced, cackly washerwomen puts the proper shits up me and no mistake. “Where the fuck is this anecdote going? Tell us about the film, you helmet!” Well —

 

The experience of Beyond the Black Rainbow is a through-the-bannister glimpse of something your parents were watching when you should have been asleep, before creeping back to bed to lay awake all night with the sheet pulled up to your chin. It’s an eight-year-old’s sickly flu-hallucination about a marble that weighs as much as the Earth. Black Rainbow‘s Arboria Institute, a mysterious place of sterile surfaces and glowing hues, evokes nausea and wonder in equal parts. A hypnotically languid doctor receives a phonecall of sentient electronic sounds; a throbbing pyramid dulls the telekinetic powers of a captive teenage girl; Daft Punk robots with baby’s faces stalk the droning hallways, soaked in brain-melting reds and yellows. Even if the oft-thrown accusation by tedious dullards of “you’re just being weird to be weird” were true (it’s not), visually Black Rainbow is engaging, stimulating and highly original, more-so than anything else in 2012, or for many, many years. Above all, it’s deeply unsettling.

 

More than any film on this list, I’m loathe to offer specifics on plot or scenes that would be best enjoyed with as-yet undestroyed eyeballs, and brains that sit unmolested inside the skull in innocent, pre-mulch form. The entire film has a soporific rhythm that gives the sense of having been drugged. Coupled with the extraordinary visuals, the speech patterns are drowsy, the silences long and uneasy, and there’s an analog synth score which drones like an overhead light in a padded cell. The villain of the piece has such a rattlingly alien quality, there’s no way this guy is a regular human actor. I think he just appeared one day when the director was dicking around with a ouija board inside a mystical cave. It all harks back to an era viewed through well-worn VHS tapes, and this legitimately feels like an undiscovered film from 1983; a film that was redacted from history by sinister forces trying to protect our fragile minds. A lot will be made of the visuals — one sequence in particular is truly the most horrifying, beautiful sequence of primal horror — but it’s a fusion of sights, sounds, and performances that turns this twist on the most Lovecraftian of concepts, of man’s attempt to cope with sights his mortal brain can’t comprehend, into an act of audience participation.

 

 

Ooh, Michael Winner's The Sentinel, too.

Edited September 14, 2016 by Astro Hollywood

[Scott Malbranque]

Your commentary on Beyond the Black Rainbow should be in print, sir.

Fucking tremendous reading.

 

Is Session 9 that good?? Ive heard great things and also damning things about it.

It's always been there on my list, but never really got around to watching it, so I may just pop it on in a bit.

 

Echoing the love for the Burkitsville 7 'documentary', here it is:

 

https://vimeo.com/59334058

 

Here's a couple other Blair Witch documataries worth a watch, including a piece about why Blair Witch 2 is misunderstood:

 

Curse of the Blair Witch:

https://vimeo.com/114798394

 

Shadow of the Blair Witch:

https://vimeo.com/109251556

 

Exploring Book of Shadows:

[Astro Hollywood]

Your commentary on Beyond the Black Rainbow should be in print, sir.

Fucking tremendous reading.

 

Is Session 9 that good?? Ive heard great things and also damning things about it.

It's always been there on my list, but never really got around to watching it, so I may just pop it on in a bit.

 

Thanks, branque. Thanque.

 

Session 9 is that good, but the subgenre of 'creepy shit', more than any other, seems to get black and white responses, and never inbetween, so people who don't like it hate it. Same thing with your Blair Witches and Paranormal Activities. I found the first PA to be unbelievably creepy, ditto BWP, but both films either get the response of "shat my pants, I did" or "biggest waste of money ever." From your posts on here, I think you'll really like Session 9, although possibly will be awake for a month after because of The Fear.

 

Good finding on those links.

Edited September 14, 2016 by Astro Hollywood

[The King Of Swing]

Blair Witch 2 has one of my favourite final acts in a horror movie.

[Keith Houchen]

Is the Vvitch the one with Finchy, bloody good rep? Got that on the laptop this week and have been looking forward to seeing it. More so if it's one of Astros recommendations

[Astro Hollywood]

Yeah, that's the one.

[ColinBollocks]

I enjoyed The Witch too, but I've never seen so many people leave the cinema before a film finished. Either it was too much or, more likely, they were expecting a different type of horror film.

 

It's a film clearly made with an incredible amount of care and detail, which builds and builds into something that fucks you up for the night.

[Keith Houchen]

Yeah, that's the one.

Nice one! Will watch that tomorrow. Cheers.

[Sergio Mendacious]

Blinding post. I hadn't read that article but now I want to see "Beyond the Black Rainbow" more than ever, sounds right up my alley.

 

You mean this sod from The Boy From Space?

 

I've been avoiding "The Witch," as it's now close enough to my birthday for me to add it to my scheduled films that I watch (and force the wife to watch) on my birthday. I agree about the witchhunting era — Even "The Devil Inside Her" fucks me up.

 

My memories of "The Sentinel" are that it's not much cop till the last twenty minutes, and then it totally fucks you up.

 

Thinking of dusting off the old inability to write a decent article to put something together about the horror/porno "Kneel Before Me" — I feel like the mise-en-scéne of that film subtly (and unsubtly) fucks me up when I try to watch it. It's empirically terrible, but the general dreadfulness of the performance, the almost total non-existence of the set, and the demented sound effects miss the mark so fully that they manage to hit a totally different mark altogether. 

[The King Of Swing]

Cannibal Holocaust ranks very high with me on disturbing front. Watching the crew act more and more depraved as the film went on left it's mark.

 

The animal stuff is indefensible though. Some of the non found footage sections drag it down as well.

 

It gets a lot of shit but I love the House on Haunted Hill remake. The final act is a bit pants but everything leading to that point creeped me right out.

Edited September 15, 2016 by The King Of Swing