Criterion Film Club: Suggestions and General Discussion

[Drucker]

Voting for H3 since my wife loves it and I'm aware of its unique place in the Halloween movies series, so happy to really watch it and give it a fair shot.

[domino harvey]

Halloween III is my favorite of the ones I've seen from this culling, From Beyond didn't do much for me and I barely remember People Under the Stairs though my recollection from seeing it as a kid is that it has a great first act but never really recovers from it. Haven't seen Without Warning either but since I have Cat People and haven't watched it yet, I give it the edge since it's likelier that I'd be able to get to it! Plus I've never been able to forget that part in Biskind's book on seventies cinema where Nastassja Kinski recalled something to the effect of, "I always fuck the directors on my films, but with Paul it was hard"

[colinr0380]

Here are a couple more things about the films that have come to mind since talking with Mr Sausage!:

I'd probably rate From Beyond slightly higher than Stuart Gordon's ealier Re-Animator if just because it features an amazing go-for-broke performance by Barbara Crampton. From her rather limited role as the kidnapped and menaced heroine in Re-Animator (though she does take part in some of the most eye-opening scenes of that film), here she is really given the chance to get involved in the action as the initially buttoned up 'intellectual' (in the same sense that Denise Richards in The World Is Not Enough was supposedly a nuclear physicist) heroine who lets her curosity about various subjects get the better of her! Her character arc in that film is something to behold!

If Halloween III gets chosen, my question for discussion will be how far the structure of the second half of the film was intended to mimic Charlie and the Chocolate Factory!

If you want another opinion/introduction to The People Under The Stairs to mull over, here's Alex Cox's take on the film from when it was shown on Moviedrome! I would agree the final film is rather broad (though I've always wanted a giant house full of nooks and crannies, though maybe not the wall of spikes, since then and have just had to content myself with playing Gone Home) but it feels like the closest that Craven got in his mid-period to the tone of a Grimm's fairy tale. I particularly love the opening scene of the birthday tarot card reading! Plus, forget his sidekick role in the Mission: Impossible films or Pulp Fiction, his brief appearance in this film is what I most often remember Ving Rhames for!

The biggest problem with the Cat People remake is that it takes an original film that was all about suggestion and implication (and was celebrated for that aspect) and throws all of that out of the window for a much more viscerally full blooded take on the ideas at the heart of the story. If you are OK with that admittedly enormous tonal shift (and I am, as the original Cat People is perhaps my least favourite of the Lewton films, despite its fantastic performance by Simone Simon) then Paul Schrader's film is an otherwise sensitive take on the same story. Plus it has David Bowie singing to a Giorgio Moroder soundtrack!

And on Without Warning there is not much I can tease, apart from saying to watch out for a future NYPD Blue star making his feature film debut!

[Mr Sausage]

Cat People wins.

[Mr Sausage]

As part of our Halloween celebrations at the film club, accidental slasher expert, Domino Harvey, has curated a list of five slasher films for your vote. He has also added a write-up to explain his choices:

In the process of seeing films for the Horror List Project, I've seen 100+ 80s Slashers, plus dozens more from other decades, making me something of a reluctant expert on the genre. Slasher movies are hardly art, but they are interesting, specifically when viewed in context with each other. So, removing the most compelling (and justifiable) avenue for praise by singling out one title to stand for the genre is a fun challenge, and the five selections I've made have pretty basic reasoning for their inclusion here.

As I've said before, if you're only going to see one 80s Slasher film, it might as well be the Slumber Party Massacre, which is Roger Corman doing what he does best and cashing in on the craze at the height of its popularity and distilling everything the genre does into 75 minutes of non-stop carnage. It's an impressively concise catalog of familiar trappings (the only thing missing is the surprise reveal of the assailant), but I'm not sure what kind of discussion could result after watching-- though that's true for most of these titles, so we'll have to get creative regardless!

Alone in the Dark lends itself best to discussion, if that's our highest virtue in selection, as it perversely either parodies or embraces Reagan-era political viewpoints in its raucous tale of escaped mental patients (including Jack Palance) run amok. Plus fans of qts in side ponytails and punk band the Sic Fucks will be justly rewarded. This one is long OOP on DVD but is up in whole on YouTube (Note that the other four films are available via in-print American Blu-ray releases)

Intruder is probably the cleverest of the five slashers I've selected, namely for how it uses its setting, a grocery store, to exploit every possible angle of harm with novelty and inevitability. Similarly, the Prowler is an exemplar of a common trope in these films, the avenging force from the past forcing its wrath onto the present day. Unlike the jokey tone of Intruder, the Prowler is mean-spirited and its gore scenes uncomfortably graphic and prolonged, but it also features a memorable "final girl" and some nicely executed moments of suspense.

And fittingly rounding out the selections is Terror Train. The 80s Slasher genre is routinely pegged as a series of coattail ridings on the success of Halloween, and here's the best of the post-Halloween slasher lottery's first wave. It like all of the films I selected can be understood and enjoyed on its own merits and without any preexisting knowledge of the genre. So come on gang, dip your toes into this rather embarrassing cultural marker born out of a passing fancy that nonetheless resulted in roughly 300 films in the 80s alone. I'm sorry in advance.

[Mr Sausage]

I've only see The Prowler and Slumber Party Massacre. The former was a superior slasher with, as domino mentions, a deft sense of tension (surprising considering the director's other entry in the genre). I didn't find the latter particularly distinguished. Just a generally solid example of all the tropes.

I'm voting for Alone in the Dark. Sounds kind of fun.

[gorgeousnothings]

I adore both Slumber Party Massacre and The Prowler. Slumber Party Massacre is just fun, and is worth watching just to see what happens when a (feminist) director takes a (feminist's) satire script and films it straight. It may worth discussing whether or not a horror film even can be feminist. The horror genre is notoriously rife with complicated genre politics, and this film does its best but still feels somewhat exploitative (maybe that's part of the fun?). It's a rare classic slasher both written and directed by women.

The Prowler has some impressive gore from Tom Savini. Definitely an underrated gem. This one is available on Hulu, last time I checked.

I kind of liked Intruder, but if anyone watches it on Hulu or Shudder or any other streaming site, it's probably going to be the highly edited version that takes out a lot of its original gore. I guess that could be a good or bad thing, depending on your taste.

I haven't seen the other two, both of which I've been meaning to watch for a quite a while. Voting for Alone in the Dark for availability reasons.

[swo17]

Some may be interested to know that Terror Train features David Copperfield in his one and only screen role! No points though for guessing his character's profession.

[Mr Sausage]

Well, it was a tie, so I changed my vote to our winner, Terror Train.

[Mr Sausage]

To coincide with the current Noir genre project, here are five noirs / neo-noirs from the collection.

[Drucker]

So many great choices, but I'm going with Von Sternberg. When's the last time we did a silent? Though would be very happy with the superb Siegel film or Thieves' Highway, my Arrow blu still needs watching.

[Sloper]

Underworld for me too - I'd love an excuse to re-visit that whole set.

[DarkImbecile]

Just bought the new Blu double feature in the last flash sale and have never seen either version, so it's The Killers for me...

[Mr Sausage]

And it's Underworld, our second silent film here at the club.

[Mr Sausage]

To coincide with the upcoming mini-genre List project, here are five road movies randomly chosen from the collection by swo17's excel witchcraft.

[Drucker]

We already discussed Vagabond, right?

[Mr Sausage]

We already discussed Vagabond, right?

Whoops. You're right. Replaced it with Leningrad Cowboys Go America

[zedz]

Mystery Train is a road movie? Isn't it three different stories all set in the same hotel?

I went for Je, tu, il, elle, because I love it, it'll never get discussed otherwise, and as a tribute to Akerman. But, oh how sorely, sadistically tempted I was to vote for Border Radio.

[swo17]

Films were randomly chosen from here.

[colinr0380]

I think I promised somewhere that if we did a road movie list project I would watch Border Radio, didn't I? So that's where my vote is going. 8-[

[Drucker]

Currently a tied. Coming down to the wire!

[zedz]

Currently a tied. Coming down to the wire!

I have changed my vote to Border Radio and I regret nothing!

[Drucker]

Currently a tied. Coming down to the wire!

I have changed my vote to Border Radio and I regret nothing!

That's what the kids call YOLOing.

[Mr Sausage]

So either everyone now loves Border Radio or hates it so much that no opportunity to trash it can be passed up.

[Mr Sausage]

Here are five random Criterion films for us to vote on. Have at it!