1.
Videodrome (David Cronenberg) - Could it be anything else? What else to say without beating a dead horse? Although it's been said by virtually every person to have ever discussed the film, it's basically impossible to overstate just how prophetic it was and still continues to be, Cronenberg establishing himself as a tech Nostradamus. It does something incredible by being very much of it's time with some of the technology of of the day on display, yet the way Cronenberg constructs all these ideas about how how technology and media is consumed, how the consumer relates and engages with both and the philosophy of “watching is better than living”, the film becomes more relevant with each passing fiscal quarter. Cronenberg essentially predicted social media as it is now. Had he written the story in the here and now, the O'Blivion's would be YouTube superstars and Spectacular Optical would be a Google/Apple/Facebook type of company. The sheer imagination of the visuals, be it James Wood's literal handgun, the chest vagina or Wood's becoming one with a TV screen, all literal representations of Cronenberg's fascination with the fusion of flesh and technology and still some of the most innovative and hallucinatory images to ever be captured on film. Long live the new flesh, indeed.
2.
Eureka (Nicolas Roeg) - Starting with his co-directorial debut with Donald Cammell,
Performance (1970), Nicolas Roeg had one of the most astonishing and consistent hot streaks that any filmmaker could hope to have. Even back when financiers were not only willing to fund films like
Walkabout (1971),
Don't Look Now (1973),
The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976) and
Bad Timing (1980) but such films actually saw wide distribution, Roeg still seemed ahead of the curve and on his own wavelength. By 1983 however, the changes in the movie zeitgeist finally caught up with him and the masterwork that is
Eureka, a film so far out of step with what had become fashionable at the time, suffered for it. Labeled “uncommerical” by its own studio who effectively kept the film hidden away for years, the film is Mystic Nic at the height of his powers. Thing is, it's damn near impossible to summarize. What might seem like a simple story of a prospector striking it rich very quickly becomes a beguiling saga of greed, gangsters, telepathy and voodoo which then becomes a courtroom drama. The first 15 minutes alone features some of Roeg's best technical work and Roeg wields that “Roeg magic” throughout the entirety of the film, his style being so distinct and singular that “Roegian” is indeed the only possible descriptor for the film. Filmmaking on another level. Then there's the cast. Gene Hackman. Theresa Russell. Rutger Hauer. Joe Pesci. Micky Rourke. Joe Spinnel even has a small, dialogue-free but very memorable role. Jack McCann never made a nickel off another man's sweat and Roeg was simply of a higher caliber.
3.
La belle captive (Alain Robbe-Grillet) - It can be a bit difficult to say what would be an appropriate film to start with for newcomers to Robbe-Grillet given that his work is the antithesis of accessible, but La belle captive might not be a bad place as it gives a great example of ARG's visual style as well as his nouvelle roman, or “new novel” approach to storytelling, or perhaps anti-storytelling, a field in which he was a pioneer. Much like Jess Franco, whom ARG was a major influence on, Robbe-Grillet had an impeccable knack for obliterating any sense of time and place with any semblance of logic so far removed the effect of watching the films can be downright narcotic and this is no exception. The film is also one of Robbe-Grillet's most explicit examples of toying around with genre, more specifically the vampire subgenre and although not as prominent as it is in some of his other films, Robbe-Grillet's S&M fixation keeps the film in a perpetual state of sadosurreality. ARG was always an innovative visualist, but this film stands out due to the films imagery being directly inspired by René Magritte, and it's worth nothing that Magritte's work served as illustrations for Robbe-Grillet's novel of the same name, though the two share no other similarities.
4.
The 4th Man (Paul Verhoeven) - The last and best of Verhoeven's Dutch films until his return in 2006 with
Black Book, it's also the closest of his films to being an outright horror movie (excluding
Hollow Man (2000) which was more of a hybrid). Verhoeven himself has said that the film could be considered a precursor to
Basic Instinct (1992) and has even gone further, saying that
Basic Instinct could be considered an American version of this film. Indeed, the parallels to be drawn between the two films are many. The Hitchcock is laid on thick in both, with each film featuring a rather hapless male fall into the psychical and psychological clutches of icy, potentially fatal blondes. The infamous bisexual theme of
Basic Instinct was more prominent in
The 4th Man and both films left the guilt or innocence of their femme perhaps fatales up in the air. What separates the films is whereas the narrative of
Basic Instinct was firmly rooted in the neo-noir/erotic thriller genre,
The 4th Man is the deviant Dutchman going full-tilt surreal with the added supernatural element of Renée Soutendijk possibly being a black widow or witch who may or may not be responsible for the death of her three previous husbands. Just as Robbe-Grillet did in
La belle captive, Verhoeven was open about taking influence from Magritte as well as Paul Delvaux and a standout sequence in the film wouldn't feel out of place in a giallo.
Basic Instinct would also wear the influence of Italian thrillers and in 2014, Takashi Miike tipped his hat to
The 4th Man in his brilliant
Over Your Dead Body.
5.
Sweet Bunch (Nikos Nikolaidis) - The second film in Nikolaidis' loosely connected “Years of Cholera” trilogy, in many ways this film could be considered the ultimate Nikolaidis film, incorporating certain elements from his other, official trilogy “The Shape of the Coming Nightmare”. Just as he did in the first “Cholera” film,
The Wretches are Still Singing (1979), Nikolaidis once again presents a group of lovable sociopaths who's world comes crashing down, though whereas in The
Wretches... the downfall of the group was the inability to adapt to the changes of society, with
Sweet Bunch Nikolaidis gives the threat a human face. Nikolaidis keeps the exact nature of the intrusion into the group rather obtuse, but at the same time it's highly likely a shadowy government organization is the culprit, the nonstop surveillance is what ties the film in with the Coming Nightmare series of films. Just as in
Wretches, despite the titular Sweet Bunch's antisocial and criminal actions, Nikolaidis establishes a sense of solidarity, so by the time the inevitable violence begins and the films turns into somewhat of an action film, there is no ambiguity as to where allegiances should be. Nikolaidis' warped sense of humor is also in effect, most notably the pastime of one member of the group who jacks off a man playing a corpse in a casket, presented entirely without context. Typical of Nikolaidis, the soundtrack is brilliant and even includes two, yes two Black Sabbath tracks from
Technical Ecstasy!
6.
The Art of Love (Walerian Borowczyk) - Not a title many Borowczyk aficionados would call a favorite and would probably consider minor, especially after coming after a masterpiece like
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Miss Osbourne (1981). While the film does bare some hallmarks of producer interference, namely in the form of spliced-in orgy footage from Joe D'Amato's
Caligula: The Untold Story (1982), the film still features several of Boro's signature touches. Borowczyk couldn't have made a bad looking film even if he tried, even still, he's really showing off here. The ancient Roman setting let him spare no expense in the way of immaculate production design and typical of Boro's work at the this time the film is shot mostly hand-held with heavy diffusion and soft-focus, light beaming off of every object in sight, especially leading lady Marina Pierro. Already one of the most beautiful women in the world, she radiates like a fucking angel in this film. While not as infamous a title like
The Beast (1975), an exceptionally strange moment in the film involving a hollowed out bull does recall not only Boro's most notorious work but also José Ramón Larraz's
The Coming of Sin (1978). In the grand scheme of things, probably a film best watched after a taste for Borowczyk has been acquired, but the sheer artistry of it makes it a standout of the year.
7.
The Dead Zone (David Cronenberg) - Cronenberg strikes again with the best Stephen King adaptation. There are two major takeaways from this film. Firstly, it further emphasizes what an underrated actors director Cronenberg is. Guys like Jeff Goldblum, Jeremy Irons, Elias Koteas, Ralph Fiennes and Viggo Mortensen have all done some of their finest work for Cronenberg and Christopher Walken is among that class. It's Walken's performance that lends weight to the second big takeaway, which is how the film easily debunks the tired theory of Cronenberg being a “detached” or “cold” director. While it's true that Cronenberg is often purely objective when it comes to presenting his characters (though interestingly his work this year diverts from this approach), the films are rarely devoid of emotion. Walken is brilliant at conveying the unbearable burden his “gift” is on him and those around him. This is a heavy film. The ice is gonna break.
8.
Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (Terry Jones) - The dark horse of the Python filmography with
The Holy Grail (1975) and
Life of Brian (1979) getting all the fanfare, even John Cleese has been known to be a bit down on it, when in truth the film is one of the most hysterically funny things to come from the Pythons. Returning to the sketch format of
Flying Circus, the film is everything that made the Pythons great in the first place, that be surreal, outrageous, utterly absurd and destined to offend every possibly demographic. Segments like the over-the-top bloody “Live Organ Transplants” and the jaw-droppingly disgusting “The Autumn Years” recall the classic "Sam Peckinpah's Salad Days" sketch and Terry Gilliam's suicidal leaves bit is wonderfully random as is the pure nonsense of “Find the Fish. Speaking of Gilliam, the way
The Crimson Permanent Assurance makes another appearance in the middle of the film is rather brilliant. It's the musical department, however, which is one of the films greatest strengths with “The Galaxy Song” and the short-but-sweet “Penis Song” being some of Eric Idle's finest compositions but nothing compares to the genius that is “Every Sperm is Sacred”. Had any other film placed something like that so early, said film would have, pun very much intended, blown its load too quickly but the Python's keep the consistency going for the rest of the film. The kind of comedy the world is in desperate need of.
9.
Christine (John Carpenter) - Another Stephen King adaptation and one that's strangely underrated by its own director. Carpenter has stated that while it was the right film to make at the time for his career, ultimatly he didn't really think of it as anything more than a job. The funny thing about that is that while the storyline might not have been something Carpenter would have written on his own, he really was the perfect director for the project as the final product feels like a Carpenter film. Much like King, there is something distinctly American about Carpenter's aesthetic. That feeling of a 50's-esque, small town Americana that's inherent in so many of King's stories can be found in a lot of Carpenter's work, and while there was no shortage of 50's nostalgia in the 80's, Carpenter essentially has the film suspended in time, melding the past with the contemporary era the film is set in, really not unlike what Lynch did in
Blue Velvet (1986), with a fantastic selection of songs for the soundtrack and Keith Gordon going from typical nerd to a 50's style greaser asshole the most the spirit possessing Christine emboldens him. A great example of how to retain a signature style while doing journeyman work.
10.
Eyes of Fire (Avery Crounse) - One of the the best kept horror secrets of not only this year but the 80's as a whole. It's certainty not without its champions, with many fans online asking long wondering what's preventing the film from being released on DVD. One of the strangest and most unique takes on witchcraft and superstition, and a film that the current folk horror craze owes an awful lot to. Something feels “off” from the beginning, the atmosphere is thick from the location and 1700's pre-revolution period setting all in spite of it's minor funding, which at times even works in the films favor when it comes to the visual effects. Some of the technology used for the primitive video effects may have aged rather quickly, but effects used on trees is fairly striking and in a way predicts some of the tree-based imagery William Friedkin would employ is the equally underrated and bizarre
The Guardian (1990). The films imagery on the whole is plenty potent and at times genuinely startling, and again the low budget seemed to up the ambition. Writer/director Crounse only made two more films after this, the last of which was in 1996. Seems like such a waste to let talent like his lay dormant, though the way the film industry is, perhaps it was destined that someone who makes a film like
Eyes of Fire only work sporadically. So it goes.
