jack_ryder (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jack_ryder) wrote2007-10-31 11:14 pm
jack_ryder) wrote2007-10-31 11:14 pm
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24 Hours of Horror
Or terror in my case, as I'm not a big gore fan by any means and lately horror's become synonymous with the rending of flesh rather then the tearing of the mind - I prefer more subtle terrors as my choices indicate:
12pm - 1:40pm
Dead of Night
Let's start with a classic (and the second earliest film on my list.) Dead of Night was made by Ealing Studios (yes the same production company that brought you The Lavender Hill Mob, Kind Hearts and Coronets and other classic comedies) in 1945. It was a portmanteau film (now known as an anthology film) and composed of four segments linked by a wraparound narrative. It's tempting to just go with the ventriloquist segment with Michael Redgrave, but there are some good moments in the rest of the segments as well, and the narrative wraparound has its own peculiar force.
The Haunted Mirror story tends to be overlooked, and the adaption of HG Wells "A Golfing Story" is just silly enough to balance what follows.
And it's a nice gentle lead in to:
1:40pm - 2:10pm
Caterpillar from Rampo Noir
Yes, another anthology movie, but this time only the one segment - to prove that I'm not screwing around. Caterpillar is one of the nastiest short films ever made, based on a story by one of the nastiest of the old school short story writers, Edogawa Rampo. Directed by Hisayasu Sato, the Caterpillar of the tile is a crippled war veteran (and by crippled, I mean no arms, no legs and no sight) "taken care of" by his sadistic wife. It starts in a dark place and gets much, much worse.
Just the thing for Halloween.
2:10pm - 4:00pm
Cemetery Man or Dellamorte Dellamore
And now for something a lot lighter. A zombie film. A funny zombie film, directed by Michele Saovi (a protege of Dario Argento's) and starring Rupert Graves. Possibly the only zombie film to carry tributes to Rene Magritte - this should be a palate cleanser before:
4:00pm - 5:40pm
In the Mouth of Madness
Every list seems to have a Carpenter film and this is my favourite one. It's also based (without attribution) on one of my favourite books Land of Laughs by Jonathon Carroll. Not so dead authors and a not so sane Sam Neil mixed up with Elder Gods and end of the world shenanigans. Lots of fun and it has the added bonus of making your head really hurt at the end.
5:40pm - 7:20pm
The Fly
Just in time for dinner (make sure you order pizza!) Cronenberg's great love story / entomological study / cancer/aids analogy. Starring Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis as you've never seen them before - as a couple in love. No other film better defines the "...for worse" part of the marriage vow. This film left a Fulci-loving friend of mine in shock.
7:30pm - 9:30pm
Kairo / Pulse
Let's make the horror a little less personal and a little more ontological shall we? Kiyoshi Kurosawa's masterpiece is one of the most frightening films I've ever seen - not just for what it shows, but also for what it means. If this one doesn't scare you - well maybe you need the much less subtle frights of:
9:30pm - 11:05pm
Deliria / Stage Fright
Michele Soavi (there's that man again) directed this superior slasher film cribbing everything he could from Argento. It's short, brutal and completely merciless. You don't know who's going to die next, you don't know how they're going to die, you just wish they could find their fucking way out of the theatre.
11:05pm - 12:05am
Baby - episode of Beasts
Well this sure scared the shit out of me when I saw this on television. Standard setup - young couple move into haunted farmhouse, the wife is pregnant and the house has a history of causing - I think you can pretty much work out where this is going. Did I mention it was written by Nigel Kneale? He'll be showing up again too.
12:05 - 1:35am
Carnival of Souls
The other influential living-dead infused independent film of the sixties. Just past midnight may be the perfect time to see it as it possesses a liminal, oneiric quality quite unlike other films of the era
1:35am - 2:00am
The Mascot
And whilst we're still in the half world - why not one of the scariest animated films ever made all about a cute stuffed dog who has to recover his ball. Unfortunately the ball bounces all the way to hell... (Fans of Millennium will recognise part of this from the episode "The Curse of Frank Black".)
2:00am - 3:40am
The Descent
I love the remorselessness of this film. A caving expedition goes terribly, terribly wrong as the all female team find themselves with no other choice than to descend as far as they can. The caving sequences alone are chilling, but when they find they're not alone...
3:40am - 6:00am
Lost Highway
And who does nightmares better than David Lynch? Nobody, that's who...
6:00am - 7:30am
Kill Baby Kill
Except maybe Mario Bava. I really haven't seen enough of his films, but this one has that suffocating nightmarish quality that works so well after a night of no sleep. As does...
7:30am - 8:45am
Next Door
Two girls move next door to a man who's recently lost his girlfriend. However, this is not porn, it's pretty much the opposite. A nightmare from Norway that sears into the memory.
8:45am - 10:30am
The Nameless
As the sun rises higher in the sky - something more to darken the light and the mood. Jaume Balaguero's adaption of Ramsey Campbell's novel captures the dissonant and disturbing nature of his prose effectively. And, unlike many other adaptions, the movie improves on the ending of the book, something Campbell himself has recognised. A mother grieves for her dead child, only to receive a call from her six years later - her daughter had been taken by a cult so secret neither it nor its members have a name.
10:30am - 12pm
The Stone Tape
And to bring our proceedings to a close - the most frightening television movie ever made. I remember catching NIgel Kneale's masterpiece as an episode of Stuart Wagstaff's World Playhouse and being chilled to the bone. 30 years later I managed to see it again, and none of its impact is lost. A team of scientists and recording engineers are checking the recording properties of stone in a haunted house. They want a new medium - what they get is much worse.
And there you have it (finally) my very own picks for the 24hourhorrorpeople project.
Coming up next - links to everyone else's.
Happy Halloween!
12pm - 1:40pm
Dead of Night
Let's start with a classic (and the second earliest film on my list.) Dead of Night was made by Ealing Studios (yes the same production company that brought you The Lavender Hill Mob, Kind Hearts and Coronets and other classic comedies) in 1945. It was a portmanteau film (now known as an anthology film) and composed of four segments linked by a wraparound narrative. It's tempting to just go with the ventriloquist segment with Michael Redgrave, but there are some good moments in the rest of the segments as well, and the narrative wraparound has its own peculiar force.
The Haunted Mirror story tends to be overlooked, and the adaption of HG Wells "A Golfing Story" is just silly enough to balance what follows.
And it's a nice gentle lead in to:
1:40pm - 2:10pm
Caterpillar from Rampo Noir
Yes, another anthology movie, but this time only the one segment - to prove that I'm not screwing around. Caterpillar is one of the nastiest short films ever made, based on a story by one of the nastiest of the old school short story writers, Edogawa Rampo. Directed by Hisayasu Sato, the Caterpillar of the tile is a crippled war veteran (and by crippled, I mean no arms, no legs and no sight) "taken care of" by his sadistic wife. It starts in a dark place and gets much, much worse.
Just the thing for Halloween.
2:10pm - 4:00pm
Cemetery Man or Dellamorte Dellamore
And now for something a lot lighter. A zombie film. A funny zombie film, directed by Michele Saovi (a protege of Dario Argento's) and starring Rupert Graves. Possibly the only zombie film to carry tributes to Rene Magritte - this should be a palate cleanser before:
4:00pm - 5:40pm
In the Mouth of Madness
Every list seems to have a Carpenter film and this is my favourite one. It's also based (without attribution) on one of my favourite books Land of Laughs by Jonathon Carroll. Not so dead authors and a not so sane Sam Neil mixed up with Elder Gods and end of the world shenanigans. Lots of fun and it has the added bonus of making your head really hurt at the end.
5:40pm - 7:20pm
The Fly
Just in time for dinner (make sure you order pizza!) Cronenberg's great love story / entomological study / cancer/aids analogy. Starring Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis as you've never seen them before - as a couple in love. No other film better defines the "...for worse" part of the marriage vow. This film left a Fulci-loving friend of mine in shock.
7:30pm - 9:30pm
Kairo / Pulse
Let's make the horror a little less personal and a little more ontological shall we? Kiyoshi Kurosawa's masterpiece is one of the most frightening films I've ever seen - not just for what it shows, but also for what it means. If this one doesn't scare you - well maybe you need the much less subtle frights of:
9:30pm - 11:05pm
Deliria / Stage Fright
Michele Soavi (there's that man again) directed this superior slasher film cribbing everything he could from Argento. It's short, brutal and completely merciless. You don't know who's going to die next, you don't know how they're going to die, you just wish they could find their fucking way out of the theatre.
11:05pm - 12:05am
Baby - episode of Beasts
Well this sure scared the shit out of me when I saw this on television. Standard setup - young couple move into haunted farmhouse, the wife is pregnant and the house has a history of causing - I think you can pretty much work out where this is going. Did I mention it was written by Nigel Kneale? He'll be showing up again too.
12:05 - 1:35am
Carnival of Souls
The other influential living-dead infused independent film of the sixties. Just past midnight may be the perfect time to see it as it possesses a liminal, oneiric quality quite unlike other films of the era
1:35am - 2:00am
The Mascot
And whilst we're still in the half world - why not one of the scariest animated films ever made all about a cute stuffed dog who has to recover his ball. Unfortunately the ball bounces all the way to hell... (Fans of Millennium will recognise part of this from the episode "The Curse of Frank Black".)
2:00am - 3:40am
The Descent
I love the remorselessness of this film. A caving expedition goes terribly, terribly wrong as the all female team find themselves with no other choice than to descend as far as they can. The caving sequences alone are chilling, but when they find they're not alone...
3:40am - 6:00am
Lost Highway
And who does nightmares better than David Lynch? Nobody, that's who...
6:00am - 7:30am
Kill Baby Kill
Except maybe Mario Bava. I really haven't seen enough of his films, but this one has that suffocating nightmarish quality that works so well after a night of no sleep. As does...
7:30am - 8:45am
Next Door
Two girls move next door to a man who's recently lost his girlfriend. However, this is not porn, it's pretty much the opposite. A nightmare from Norway that sears into the memory.
8:45am - 10:30am
The Nameless
As the sun rises higher in the sky - something more to darken the light and the mood. Jaume Balaguero's adaption of Ramsey Campbell's novel captures the dissonant and disturbing nature of his prose effectively. And, unlike many other adaptions, the movie improves on the ending of the book, something Campbell himself has recognised. A mother grieves for her dead child, only to receive a call from her six years later - her daughter had been taken by a cult so secret neither it nor its members have a name.
10:30am - 12pm
The Stone Tape
And to bring our proceedings to a close - the most frightening television movie ever made. I remember catching NIgel Kneale's masterpiece as an episode of Stuart Wagstaff's World Playhouse and being chilled to the bone. 30 years later I managed to see it again, and none of its impact is lost. A team of scientists and recording engineers are checking the recording properties of stone in a haunted house. They want a new medium - what they get is much worse.
And there you have it (finally) my very own picks for the 24hourhorrorpeople project.
Coming up next - links to everyone else's.
Happy Halloween!
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My favourite Rollin movie is The Iron Rose, but it's even less like a conventional horror movie than his other stuff. I also loved his recent Two Orphan Vampires.