Oblivious Maximus
I am the worm
From the Bergman Archives
There's also a mighty epic Bergman set coming in October. 30 discs! https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B073FFS...qid=1499930485&sr=8-1&keywords=ingmar+bergman
New del Toro later this year (though admittedly I haven't kept up since Pan's Labyrinth. Still a cool guy.):
This has potential to be pretty interesting, just wish the teaser was longer than 50 seconds:
Hot blooded ghost boners:
Laying the Ghost (John Leslie, 1991) - What the actual fuck? The word "eccentric" springs to mind. Everything about this movie is off in the most endearing way possible, from the idea of Peter North and T.T. Boy as the ghosts of 400 year old pirate brothers who haunt (read that as "fuck") the female residents of a specific address in search of their true love, Joey Silvera's histrionic acting, screaming 99.9% of his lines at the top of his lungs like he's auditioning for a Zulawski film and at times sounding like Barney Rubble and the man Tom Byron playing an assistant to a paranormal psychic with a fantastically exaggerated surfer bro accent. The most unusual thing regarding the film however, is the overdubbing of all the scenes involving the ghosts with laughter. The first time it happens it resembles a sitcom laugh track, the other times its more of a maniacal cackle with what sounds like the occasional sneeze? Along with the aforementioned performers, per usual with Leslie's features from this period, the rest of the ensemble is top-tier with the tragic Savannah easily stealing the show, though it can be a bit of an inadvertent downer watching her knowing how that story ended. Again, fucking tragic. Anyway, this great, out there stuff.
Darkness (Juraj Herz, 2009) - More Ghosts! Despite the somewhat bland title (its original title is T.M.A. and I do believe that "tma" is the Czech word for "darkness" although that doesn't explain why its stylized that way.), this is a fresh take on some classic haunted house/ghost story tropes from a master returning the to horror genre where he got his start with the 1968 classic The Cremator. Its both a literal and metaphorical ghost story with the mental ghosts from the main characters past playing just as big a part as the actual specters haunting his old childhood abode. Herz avoids the cliché jump scares that plague modern haunting films in favor of a slower, more psychological approach and although the baroque, colorful style of his earlier films is noticeably absent here, he makes up for it with an atmosphere of mounting dread and sadness with a WWII backstory that's plenty potent. Some nice, Italian style gore to be found too including an eye gag that Fulci would have loved.
Hot Blooded (David Blyth, 1997) - In yet another case of funky titling/re-titlings, this was released as "Red Blooded American Girl II"
or simply "Red Blooded" in select markets and sold as a sequel to Blyth's 1990 vampire film Red Blooded American Girl which makes not one damn bit of sense as this isn't a vampire film. What it is however, is an outstanding exploitation road/revenge/action flick. A bit all over the place tonally, starting off as sleazy and at times kinky (it is a Blyth film after all) fun, then taking a hard left turn into skin crawlingly uncomfortable territory before going back to the sleazy fun while keeping its dark undercurrent before ending on a real downer. Such is life when a naive college freshman gets led down the wrong path after taking off with a truck stop hooker. Had this been made 20 years earlier it probably would have been a drive-in hit but coming out in the late 90's unfortunately meant it immediately went into direct to video/premium cable anonymity which is a damn shame as Blyth certainly elevates it from some random DTV quicky into something that's actually rather emotionally engaging. The gung-ho performance from Kari Wuhrer also has a lot to do with that, she's amazing.
There's also a mighty epic Bergman set coming in October. 30 discs! https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B073FFS...qid=1499930485&sr=8-1&keywords=ingmar+bergman
New del Toro later this year (though admittedly I haven't kept up since Pan's Labyrinth. Still a cool guy.):
This has potential to be pretty interesting, just wish the teaser was longer than 50 seconds:
Hot blooded ghost boners:
Laying the Ghost (John Leslie, 1991) - What the actual fuck? The word "eccentric" springs to mind. Everything about this movie is off in the most endearing way possible, from the idea of Peter North and T.T. Boy as the ghosts of 400 year old pirate brothers who haunt (read that as "fuck") the female residents of a specific address in search of their true love, Joey Silvera's histrionic acting, screaming 99.9% of his lines at the top of his lungs like he's auditioning for a Zulawski film and at times sounding like Barney Rubble and the man Tom Byron playing an assistant to a paranormal psychic with a fantastically exaggerated surfer bro accent. The most unusual thing regarding the film however, is the overdubbing of all the scenes involving the ghosts with laughter. The first time it happens it resembles a sitcom laugh track, the other times its more of a maniacal cackle with what sounds like the occasional sneeze? Along with the aforementioned performers, per usual with Leslie's features from this period, the rest of the ensemble is top-tier with the tragic Savannah easily stealing the show, though it can be a bit of an inadvertent downer watching her knowing how that story ended. Again, fucking tragic. Anyway, this great, out there stuff.
Darkness (Juraj Herz, 2009) - More Ghosts! Despite the somewhat bland title (its original title is T.M.A. and I do believe that "tma" is the Czech word for "darkness" although that doesn't explain why its stylized that way.), this is a fresh take on some classic haunted house/ghost story tropes from a master returning the to horror genre where he got his start with the 1968 classic The Cremator. Its both a literal and metaphorical ghost story with the mental ghosts from the main characters past playing just as big a part as the actual specters haunting his old childhood abode. Herz avoids the cliché jump scares that plague modern haunting films in favor of a slower, more psychological approach and although the baroque, colorful style of his earlier films is noticeably absent here, he makes up for it with an atmosphere of mounting dread and sadness with a WWII backstory that's plenty potent. Some nice, Italian style gore to be found too including an eye gag that Fulci would have loved.
Hot Blooded (David Blyth, 1997) - In yet another case of funky titling/re-titlings, this was released as "Red Blooded American Girl II"
or simply "Red Blooded" in select markets and sold as a sequel to Blyth's 1990 vampire film Red Blooded American Girl which makes not one damn bit of sense as this isn't a vampire film. What it is however, is an outstanding exploitation road/revenge/action flick. A bit all over the place tonally, starting off as sleazy and at times kinky (it is a Blyth film after all) fun, then taking a hard left turn into skin crawlingly uncomfortable territory before going back to the sleazy fun while keeping its dark undercurrent before ending on a real downer. Such is life when a naive college freshman gets led down the wrong path after taking off with a truck stop hooker. Had this been made 20 years earlier it probably would have been a drive-in hit but coming out in the late 90's unfortunately meant it immediately went into direct to video/premium cable anonymity which is a damn shame as Blyth certainly elevates it from some random DTV quicky into something that's actually rather emotionally engaging. The gung-ho performance from Kari Wuhrer also has a lot to do with that, she's amazing.
