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Tuesday, July 19, 2016

Strange Flowers/Strange Films

Being a horror fan entails always searching for new strange thrills. Under the moon there are ghostly voices coming in from the static, certain fungi that only grow in shadow, and certain films that can only be appreciated in the post midnight hours. Here are some films I recommend for those looking for some good late night cinematic delirium.



Messiah of Evil - A tone poem of overlet gas stations at night and lovecraftian dread. A woman on a quest to find out what happened to her artist father in the remote town of Point Dune finds out the town hides a hideous past that can no longer be kept secret. A truly haunting film featuring a discordant synth score drifting through the hazy atmospherics of this classic.


Deathbed: The Bed that Eats - One of the most unique films you will ever see. Basically the history of a demon haunted bed, Deathbed is a fever dream that deserves to stand beside surreal classics like Eraserhead and El Topo. A bizarre mix of absurd camp and creepy fairy tale, the whole film seems to have been made in an alternate universe. A masterpiece of carnivorous beds, damned demons, and queer mood.




Goke: Bodysnatcher from Hell - If Cronenberg moved to Japan and directed an alien invasion film, it would end up something like this. A plane crashes on a remote island and the survivors have to figure out how to get help, until they realize there is an even greater danger facing them. Creeping blobs and vaginal face wounds are just some of the pleasures of this film.


Tombs of the Blind Dead - A psychosexual European drama about two former females lovers running into each other when one is going on holiday with her current boyfriend. And then in the middle of the film out of nowhere, the creepiest horse riding specters, dead set on hunting down the living, all in ghostly slow motion, invade the film. And the ending stands up with the bleakest endings of a Romero or a Carpenter.

Tuesday, July 5, 2016

Review: The Neon Demon



I have tried to get behind Nicolas Winding Fehn’s films, always being puzzled by them, but in the end, I find them a bit too fashionably abstract and recycled for my tastes. When I saw the first trailers for The Neon Demon I became excited, maybe he finally made a film that would fulfill the promise he seemed to have but was not able to fully convey ( Valhalla Rising was too comfortable with being vague with no real point behind it and Bronson was to exploitive and shallow). I have to say I was not disappointed. The most challenging film I have seen this year would without a doubt be The Neon Demon. A kind of abstracted postmodern horror film that doubles as a pervert’s guide to economics ( more on this later). No real characters. No suspense. No tragedy. Only cold, shiny surfaces devoid of emotion and blind hunger unfulfilled. There is a lot of talk about currency and the economic value of beauty, combined with the surrealist eyeball ending straight out of a Bataille novel and director Refn’s intentions become clear, The Neon Demon is a Sadean/Bataillean critique of the use of capital/human worth in this strange new era we seem to be lost in ( both de Sade and Bataille would use transgressive/perverse imagery to examine political/economic themes in their writing). Elle Fanning gives an amazing performance as a postmodern vampiric innocent turned virginal libertine. A flawed masterpiece, a little all over the place and a bit overlong, but visually stunning and bravely alienated and challenging, just the kind of film we need to counter the empty action porn of the summer blockbuster’s monopoly of our imaginations.