HALLOWEEN HORROR BINGE ROUNDUP #3
6/10/21
THE CANNIBAL MAN – Woefully mis-sold as a ‘nasty’, TCM follows the struggles of an accidental serial killer whose crimes are motivated more by happenstance and fear than bloodlust. Those still expecting sleaze and gore will be disappointed to find a subtext-driven thriller of a distinctly Hitchcockian hue; I can’t think of a more thoughtful film on that DPP list. Excellent, haunting stuff that I hadn’t revisited for a long while – I’m really glad I did.
7/10/21
THE BURNING – The kind of mean-spirited slasher that wouldn’t get made in the same way today – it’s pretty much about gawking at burns victims. That said, ‘The Burning’ still has an admirable sense of grand guignol ie watch that severed limb fall into shot at just the right moment, in just the right manner. Beyond that, the slow escalation of tension is quite effective, and even Wakeman’s duff soundtrack has an era-specific charm. Does it escape the taint of Weinstein? You be the judge.
8/10/21
BLACK SWAN – N Portman strives to find her dark side so she can pull off ‘Swan Lake’ – her approach misfires a bit, considering it evolves into full scale ‘Repulsion’-style psychosis. A very handsome and absorbing work from Aronofsky, which isn’t after all afraid to lay bare the ugly duckling at its heart; you could say its switch from arthouse drama to being a patchwork of horror quotes (notably from ‘The Fly’ and maybe ‘Carrie’) is pretty balletic in itself.
AXE – Bermanesque grindhouse from the seventies, and always a very firm favourite of mine. It doesn’t offer much by way of exploitative content – in fact, it’s nearly as mute as its grandfather character, who sits silently day after day, watching the snow on a faulty TV. No, ‘Axe’ is all about the stark, uneasy atmosphere that director Fred Friedel seems to conjure effortlessly from his minimal set-up (although a certain amount of its icy charm stems from the enigmatic axe-wielder at the film’s heart, farmgirl Lisa). A downbeat classic that I could watch endlessly.
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