What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by bizarre_eye@Cult Labs

Recent viewings:

Cheers B_e, now i've got that bloody Burke and Hare song going through my head.

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Demdike

Cheers B_e, now i've got that bloody Burke and Hare song going through my head.

I've had it going around in mine for days!

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by bizarre_eye@Cult Labs

I've had it going around in mine for days!

Whats the pic quality of that release like?

The UK Renown dvd wasn't that great.

[Frankie Teardrop]

Originally Posted by Make Them Die Slowly

I have a theory that once in a while certain film makers for reasons unknown, reach across all known boundaries in their films and offer the viewer a glimpse of something "other". As odd and unfashionable as it sounds these glimpses for me are like Shamans returning from the spirit world with tales of wonder and medication for the soul. "Lemora", "Messiah of Evil", "The Child" and parts of Jean Rollin and Franco's films do this for me.

"Messiah Of..." and "The Child" are definitely operating in that territory. And Rollin and Franco... but they know what they're doing. What also interests me is the feeling that sometimes arises when a film goes so badly wrong, and a strange or alienated atmosphere isn't intended, but happens anyway.
It's funny, only today I was wondering why I stick with movies - because so many times I come away feeling that everything of value could've been concentrated in the form of a few images and addressed in a more succinct form - plastic art, photography or poetry. But watching 'Lemora' today I thought, cliched as it sounds, 'film is the closest thing we have to a manifest dream'... a dream that's stepped outside of itself. In that, there's something to do with film being somewhere between fantasy and reality - I think that's why people get so worked up about potent images, be they violent or sexual. There's that weird power, of fantasy, or something that would normally be associated with an internal state, stepping over, but in a more direct and more pure way than would be the case with any other art form.
I think that possibly has something to do with your shamanic model. My own approach is maybe more nihilist, but definitely shares something with a kind of psychedelia ie. what happens to perceptual systems when thay crack or dismantle? They reorganise - in a psychotic way. Horror films, or just weird films, show that, and embody that too. As much as the most generic horror movies reinforce narrative and perceptual stereotypes, they also point in the opposite direction, to where the strangeness is.

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Demdike

Whats the pic quality of that release like?

The UK Renown dvd wasn't that great.

It was okay - an upgrade over the old Redemption DVD anyway.

[Frankie Teardrop]

Originally Posted by Rik

Watched Nekromantik last night, I first read about this in an issue of TDS sometime in 1991 and it's taken me until now to get a copy, a rather strange film to say the least.

I remember watching a fuzzy bootleg in the late nineties after spending ages trying to get hold of it. The experience was completely ruined by my viewing companion who pored scorn on every possible aspect, from the super 8 cinematography to the "Oh how outrageous, seen more transgressive shit happening on Brookside etcetc" (his attitude, not mine). I had to put up with that through similarly dodgy renderings of 'Cannibal Holocaust' and 'Dr Butcher MD', too! When I finally caught up with 'Nekromantik' 'for real' a few years ago I found I couldn't really get into it, as some bits just put me in mind of a home movie made by some talented young people. You have to remember, my perceptions were primed by the likes of Chas Balun, who may have been a very wise person and important in the realm of cult movie journalism but who seemed to make a big thing at one point about hpw soul searingly dark and transgressive the film was, so I was expecting something completely unwatchable almost. I think my experiences obscured a lot, raised expectations get you off to a bad start in this game, I think some aspects of the film are actually really good in a bleak and grainy kind of way but I just couldn't shake the feeling that, paradoxically there was too much humour in it for my liking, something slapstick about some of the deaths and camerawork. I don't know, I'll have to give it another try. 'Nekromantik 2' I think is really good, his best may be 'Schramm'.

[Make Them Die Slowly]

Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop

"Messiah Of..." and "The Child" are definitely operating in that territory. And Rollin and Franco... but they know what they're doing. What also interests me is the feeling that sometimes arises when a film goes so badly wrong, and a strange or alienated atmosphere isn't intended, but happens anyway.
It's funny, only today I was wondering why I stick with movies - because so many times I come away feeling that everything of value could've been concentrated in the form of a few images and addressed in a more succinct form - plastic art, photography or poetry. But watching 'Lemora' today I thought, cliched as it sounds, 'film is the closest thing we have to a manifest dream'... a dream that's stepped outside of itself. In that, there's something to do with film being somewhere between fantasy and reality - I think that's why people get so worked up about potent images, be they violent or sexual. There's that weird power, of fantasy, or something that would normally be associated with an internal state, stepping over, but in a more direct and more pure way than would be the case with any other art form.
I think that possibly has something to do with your shamanic model. My own approach is maybe more nihilist, but definitely shares something with a kind of psychedelia ie. what happens to perceptual systems when thay crack or dismantle? They reorganise - in a psychotic way. Horror films, or just weird films, show that, and embody that too. As much as the most generic horror movies reinforce narrative and perceptual stereotypes, they also point in the opposite direction, to where the strangeness is.

I think we are talking of the same experience but in different contexts. To go really out on a limb, and perhaps trip into psychosis, I sometimes wonder if really strange films and the experience of them are in fact muddled glimpses into the creation of the soul/psyche but we are so far removed from our true selves that the information, images, sounds etc and experiences we receive no longer have any value to us as we struggle to understand them. We are then left with strangeness and for myself a sense of longing for something I have lost but have never known.

[Nordicdusk]

51rhx2OZrZL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

Great Boxing documentary.

[Frankie Teardrop]

Originally Posted by Make Them Die Slowly

I think we are talking of the same experience but in different contexts. To go really out on a limb, and perhaps trip into psychosis, I sometimes wonder if really strange films and the experience of them are in fact muddled glimpses into the creation of the soul/psyche but we are so far removed from our true selves that the information, images, sounds etc and experiences we receive no longer have any value to us as we struggle to understand them. We are then left with strangeness and for myself a sense of longing for something I have lost but have never known.

I think that certainly what we're talking about is a transcendance of egoic perception, which is very oriented towards social praxis in a conditioned environment. The whole point of avant garde art was to smash those perceptions and the underlying social process, but any excessive experience can take someone beyond their conditioned responses to the world, to different degrees. Ultra weird culture, whether it be horror, transgressive porn or messed up 'art'. Trauma. Chemicals. Not all the same, but pointing beyond normative perception.
I don't really think of a true self or soul alienated by modernity, but I do feel we have layer upon layer of 'sub-selves' dissolving all the way back into base memories, perceptions, fragments of thought... the unconscious, white light. So I think of anything that disrupts 'the ego' as an eruption or a reorganisation rather than a return to the non-alienated part of ourselves.
Right, back to 'Forced Entry'!

[Make Them Die Slowly]

Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop

I think that certainly what we're talking about is a transcendance of egoic perception, which is very oriented towards social praxis in a conditioned environment. The whole point of avant garde art was to smash those perceptions and the underlying social process, but any excessive experience can take someone beyond their conditioned responses to the world, to different degrees. Ultra weird culture, whether it be horror, transgressive porn or messed up 'art'. Trauma. Chemicals. Not all the same, but pointing beyond normative perception.
I don't really think of a true self or soul alienated by modernity, but I do feel we have layer upon layer of 'sub-selves' dissolving all the way back into base memories, perceptions, fragments of thought... the unconscious, white light. So I think of anything that disrupts 'the ego' as an eruption or a reorganisation rather than a return to the non-alienated part of ourselves.
Right, back to 'Forced Entry'!

Here you go.