LISTS

Guy Maddin List

from "From the Atelier Tovar :Selected Writings of Guy Maddin"...

Old Dark House 1932 US James Whale
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde 1932 US Rouben Mamoulian
The King of Jazz 1930 John M. Anderson
Broadway Melody 1929 US Harry Beaumont
Dames 1934 US Ray Enright & Busby Berkeley
Merry Widow 1934 US Ernst Lubitsch
Mad Love 1935 US Karl Freund
Fireworks 1947 US Kenneth Anger
Blessed Event 1932 US Roy Del Ruth
Day of Wrath 1943 Denmark Carl Theodor Dreyer
The Devil Doll 1936 US Tod Browning
The Crime of Monsieur Lange 1936 France Jean Renoir
Berlin, Symphony of a City 1927 German Walter Ruttman
The Italian Straw Hat 1928 France Rene Clair
A Woman's Face 1941 US George Cukor
Vampyr 1932 German Carl Theodor Dreyer
Random Harvest 1942 US Mervyn LeRoy
Gun Crazy 1950 US Joseph H. Lewis
Curse of the Cat People 1944 US Robert Wise
Red River 1948 US Howard Hawks
Johnny Guitar 1954 US Nicholas Ray
Written On the Wind 1956 US Douglas Sirk
Scarlet Street 1945 US Fritz Lang
Svengali 1931 US Archie Mayo
Forbidden Games 1952 France Rene Clement
Zero for Conduct 1933 France Jean Vigo
Night and the City 1950 US Jules Dassin
Naked Jungle 1954 US Byron Haskin
Medea 1988 Denmark Lars von Trier

Bleeding Skull

I’d felt that there was nothing else out there like Sometimes Aunt Martha Does Dreadful Things. I wanted every film labeled psychotronic to be as psychotronic as The Mask (1961). I’d noticed a pattern of brilliance and a hidden promise of surprise from the strange reshot covers of Genesis Home Video releases. I had wondered to myself, “What is going on with this S.F. Brownrigg guy?” Then I found the review site Bleeding Skull (bleedingskull.com) and discovered a great source for further exploration. Not only does Bleeding Skull delve head-on into this subcategory of film weirdness but, and this is the capper, the writing is much more appealing than the clever rhetoric that you usually find online; especially when dealing with the trashier dismissed side of cinema. “Spooky Trash” is the term they use to encompass the films they review which is typified by the work of DIY master filmmakers such as Herschell Gordon Lewis, Andy Milligan or Ray Dennis Steckler. A way to maybe describe these movies could be; “beyond Ed Wood”. If you are the type of viewer who is less likely to laugh dismissingly at Ed Wood’s films and more likely to gaze open mouthed inspired in cosmic wonder and find a poetry in strange calamity, than I strongly recommend you dig into this list. I have rounded-up all the films that we have at the store that Bleeding Skull has reviewed and made it so you can click the titles below to go directly to the reviews. Do yourself a favor and check some of these out. In my darkest hour, bored out my mind with the obvious patterns of film language, Nightbeast came into my life and gave me a renewed appreciation for the true potential of cinema. Recommended by Bleeding Skull, I strongly suggest to all those interested in film to get DOHLERIZED!!!

Click the title to read the Bleeding Skull review

-Alien Dead (DVD)
-Blood Freak
-Blood Stalkers
-The Body Beneath*
-The Child*
-Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things*
-Class Reunion Massacre
-The Corpse Grinders*
-Crazed
-Death Spa
-The Devil Master
-The Devil’s Messenger (DVD)
-Don’t Look in the Basement*
-Don’t Open the Door*
-Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde
-Dr. Jekyll’s Dungeon of Darkness
-Elves
-Fatal Pulse
-Frankentein’s Daughter*
-Ghosts of Hanley House (DVD)
-Goremet Zombie Chef From Hell
-The Gruesome Twosome*
-Haunts
-Horror of Party Beach / Curse of the Living Corpse (DVD)
-How to Make a Monster
-Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed Up Zombies!!?(DVD)
-Intruder (DVD)
-Invasion of the Blood Farmers*
-Jack-O*
-The Jar
-Mardi Gras Massacre
-The Mask (1961)
-The Meateater
-Night of Bloody Horror*
-Night of the Ghouls (DVD)
-Nightbeast*
-Nightmare in Wax*
-Orgy of the Dead (DVD)
-The Outing
-Pieces (DVD)
-The Rats Are Coming! The Werewolves Are Here!
-Revenge of Doctor X
-Savage Weekend
-Schizo*
-Shriek of the Mutilated*
-The Slumber Party Massacre*
-Slithis
-Something Weird (DVD)
-Sometimes Aunt Martha Does Dreadful Things
-Splatter :Architects of Doom
-Straight Jacket [Dark Sanity]
-Terror in the Haunted House*
-Terror on Tape
-Terror on Tour
-There’s Always Vanilla
-Three on a Meathook
-The Thrill Killers*
-Unhinged (DVD)
-Vampire Hookers [Night of the Bloodsuckers]
-The Violent Years*

* review is for DVD

Some Surrealist Advice


Largely culled from the collected essays in Paul Hammond's book "The Shadow and Its Shadow" and from my own fascination with the marvelous world of "Hollywood surrealism" and, truth be told, as a way to maybe lure folks (that normally wouldn't) into watching some 30s and 40s Hollywood pictures; we give you SOME SURREALIST ADVICE...

-Juve vs Fantomas 1913 France Louis Feuillade
-Perils of Pauline 1914 US Louis J. Gasnier & Donald MacKenzie
-In the Land of the War Canoes 1914 US Edward S. Curtis
-Shoulder Arms 1918 US Charles Chaplin
-Entr’acte 1924 France Rene Clair
-Big Parade 1925 US King Vidor
-Cat and the Canary 1927 US Paul Leni
-College 1927 US James W. Horne & Buster Keaton
-Chang 1927 US Ernest B. Schoedsack & Merian C. Cooper
-Woman in the Moon 1929 Germany Fritz Lang
-Un chien andalou 1929 France Luis Bunuel
-Broadway Melody 1929 US Harry Beaumont
-King of Jazz 1930 US John Murray Anderson
-Animal Crackers 1930 US Victor Heerman
-L’age d’or 1930 France Luis Bunuel
-Tabu : A Story of the South Seas 1931 US F.W. Murnau
-Frankenstein 1931 US James Whale
-Strange Interlude 1932 US Robert Z. Leonard
-Island of Lost Souls 1932 US Erle C. Kenton
-The Mask of Fu Manchu 1932 US Charles Brabin
-Zero de Conduite 1933 France Jean Vigo
-Duck Soup 1933 US Leo McCarey
-King Kong 1933 US Ernest B. Schoedsack & Merian C. Cooper
-Land Without Bread 1933 Spain Luis Bunuel
-Stand Up and Cheer 1934 US Hamilton MacFadden -Mad Love 1935 US Karl Freund
-Peter Ibbeston 1935 US Henry Hathaway
-The Raven 1935 US Lew Landers
-The Devil Doll 1936 US Tod Browning
-Never Give a Sucker an Even Break 1941 US Edward Cline
-Smilin’ Through 1941 US Frank Borzage
-Tom, Dick and Harry 1941 US Garson Kanin
-Reap the Wild Wind 1942 US Cecil B. Demille
-Laura 1944 US Otto Preminger
-Yolanda and the Thief 1945 US Vincente Minnelli
-Ministry of Fear 1944 US Fritz Lang
-Dark Passage 1947 US Delmer Daves
-The Lady From Shanghai 1947 Us Orson Welles
-Moonrise 1948 US Frank Borzage
-Gun Crazy 1950 US Joseph H. Lewis
-Night and the City 1950 UK Jules Dassin
-Father of the Bride 1950 US Vincente Minnelli
-Pandora and the Flying Dutchman 1951 UK Albert Lewin

Unsettling Cinema

This Halloween instead of making a typical HORROR section, with werewolves and lesbian vampires, we've gone a slightly different route and come up with an UNSETTLING CINEMA section. Films which, for one reason or another, made our skin crawl or left us with that paralyzing apocalyptic feeling. In no particular order…

-Gummo 1997 US Harmony Korine
-Dogville 2003 Denmark Lars von Trier
-River's Edge 1986 US Tim Hunter
-High Tension 2003 France Alexandre Aja
-The Donner Party 2000 US Ric Burns
-Mr. Death 1999 US Errol Morris
-The Thin Blue Line 1988 US Errol Morris
-Monster's Ball 2001 US Marc Forster
-Deliverance 1972 US John Boorman
-The Moon-Spinners 1964 US James Neilson
-Don't Look Now 1973 UK Nicolas Roeg
-Platoon 1986 US Oliver Stone
-Natural Born Killers 1994 US Oliver Stone
-Blue Velvet 1986 US David Lynch*
-Heart of Glass 1976 W Germany Werner Herzog
-The Beast of Yucca Flats1961 US Coleman Francis
-Deliver Us from Evil 2006 US Amy Berg
-Fight Club 1999 US David Fincher -Stevie 2002 US Steve James
-Jesus Camp 2006 US Heidi Ewing & Rachel Grady
-Let Me Die A Woman 1978 US Doris Wishman
-Dracula 1931 US Tod Browning*
-Secretary 2002 US Steven Shainberg
-Easy Rider 1969 US Dennis Hopper
-Mystic River 2003 US Clint Eastwood
-Begotten 1991 US E. Elias Merhige
-Happiness 1998 US Tod Solondz
-13 Ghosts 1960 US William Castle
-Julien Donkey-Boy 1999 US Harmony Korine
-The Swimmer 1968m US Frank Perry
-Bully 2001 US Larry Clark
-Paradise Lost :The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills 1996 US Joe Berlinger & Bruce Sinofsky
-The Mask 1961 Canada Julian Roffman
-Apocalypto 2006 US Mel Gibson
-Spider 2002 Canada David Cronenberg*
-Something Wicked This Way Comes 1983 US Jack Clayton
-The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb 1993 UK Dave Borthwick
-Audition 1999 Japan Takashi Miike*
-The Eyes Without a Face 1960 France Georges Franju
-Pink Floyd The Wall 1982 UK Alan Parker
-Sante Sangre 1989 Mexican Alejandro Jodorowsky*
-Suddenly, Last Summer 1959 US Joseph L. Mankiewicz
-Fingered 1986 US Richard Kern*
-Peeping Tom 1960 UK Michael Powell
-The Arousers 1973 US Curtis Hanson
-The Two Mrs. Carrolls 1943 US Peter Godfrey
-Joe 1970 US Avildsen
-Sometimes Aunt Martha Does Dreadful Things 1971 US Thomas Casey

* Pretty much all the films we have by this director are this kind of creepy.


WORST LIST

How can one fail to be inspired by "I Know Who Killed Me"? My response to that gem was to immediately round up all the other films in the store which grace various worst lists on-line. Sometimes you just gotta get your rotten watch on. The films listed below in no way reflect the personal tastes of Simmons Brothers Motion Picture Company, (case in point "Stealing Harvard" which I saw TWICE in the theatre) but I guess its kinda funny how many of these movies we ended up having without even realizing that they were so revered.

-Number 23 2007 Joel Schumacher
-Premonition 2007 Menna Yapo
-The Wicker Man 2006 Neil LaBute
-When Stranger Calls 2006 Simon West
-Ultraviolet 2006 Kurt Wimmer
-Scary Movie 4 2006 David Zucker
-House of Wax 2005 Jaume Collet-Serra
-Man of the House 2005 Stephen Herek
-The Cave 2005 Bruce Hunt
-Doom 2005 Andrzej Bartowiak
-Cursed 2005 Wes Craven
-Alone In the Dark 2005 Uwe Boll
-The Dukes of Hazard 2005 Jay Chandrasekhar
-Bewitched 2005 Nora Ephron
-AVP :Alien vs. Predator 2004 Paul W. S. Anderson
-Envy 2004 Barry Levinson
-Taxi 2004 Tim Story
-Freddy vs. Jason 2004 Ronny Yu
-A Man Apart 2003 F. Gary Gray
-Swept Away 2003 Guy Ritchie
-Malibu's Most Wanted 2003 John Whitesell
-Jeepers Creepers II 2003 Victor Salva
-Crossroads 2002 Tamra Davis
-Stealing Harvard 2002 Bruce McCulloch
-The Cat in the Hat 2002 Bo Welch
-Ballistic : Ecks vs. Sever 2002 Kaos
-Glitter 2001 Vondie Curtis Hall
-Ghosts of Mars 2001 John Carpenter
-Freddie Got Fingered 2001 Tom Green
-Down To Earth 2001 Chris & Paul Weitz
-Ready To Rumble 2000 Brian Robbins