Cult Classics: November 2011

Saturday 5 November 2011

The Spiral Staircase (1945)

A mute girl becomes stalked by a serial killer.

A Gothic horror that uses the largely static lighting and camera technology at the time to successfully create a highly atmospheric chiller with an eerie style similar to a Hitchcock movie.

After finding a severed human ear in a field, a young man soon discovers a sinister underworld lying just beneath his idyllic suburban home town.

An off kilter conspiracy thriller from David Lynch and starring Twin Peaks' Kyle MacLachlan alongside a strong supporting cast including Isabella Rossellini and Dennis Hopper. The soundtrack and lighting lend it a trusting mood but Lynch uses techniques like widescreen shots in the houses to give the perspective on middle American life a distorted view. Uses tricks like slowly zooming out from extreme close ups to add intimate tension, he creates a surreal world of deception and intrigue like only David Lynch would.

Three girls come to Hollywood to make it big, but find only sex, drugs and sleaze.

For me, Russ Meyer is one of the big innovators of cult cinema. His perverse caricature of American life at the time runs through all of his movies, often revolving around attractive ladies with big boobs. But that's not to say that his films are chauvinistic, indeed many feature feminist statements that are graphically clear to the viewer. In Russ Meyer's world it's fine for the women to be powerful, as long as we can look at their bodies while they're doing it.

This film surrounds the corrupting music industry and is not actually related to Valley Of The Dolls directed by Mark Robson, other than possible inspiration for the basic idea.

Future cult icon, Pam Grier, is also to be seen in her blink and miss debut as one of the background hotties.

A working class London family go through a dramatic point in their lives.

An amazing directorial debut from world renowned character actor Gary Oldman. The cast perfectly match his script and the story is reckless, reminiscent of an Alan Clarke movie. Loosely based upon his own upbringing, Oldman paints a bleak picture which is so three dimensional that you feel like a fly on the wall throughout. It's easy to see why this film isn't everyone's cup of tea, with it's claustrophobic atmosphere and scenes featuring excessive swearing and domestic violence, however it is an absorbing and realistic portrayal of the darker side of London life, with no glamorizing or mercy for the viewer.

An alienated teenager, saddened that he has moved away from London, must find a way to deal with a dark family secret.

Tim Roth's directorial debut is an unconventional choice. Centred around the theme of incestuous pedophilia, it is a disturbing film that doesn't hold back until your mind does the horrific work for you. A subject which, in the hands of many other directors, could turn out like a dirty porn is actually treated sensitively and any nudity from the leading actress, Lara Belmont, is not displayed to turn on the viewer. Ray Winstone plays "Dad" and again proves that he is not afraid of taking on edgy roles that represent the more unsettling elements of human nature.

Professional assassin Leon reluctantly takes care of 12-year-old Mathilda and teaches her his trade.

After his small but memorable role in La Femme Nikita as "the cleaner", Jean Reno had this movie designed around him by the director Luc Besson. It feels very European despite being set in New York and features many quirks of which most assassin films fail to include in order to lift them above all the others in the action genre. Instead, Leon is primarily a love story, focusing on the relationship blossoming between the naive, childlike Leon, and the savvy, grown up Mathilda. Because of the evident and illegal age gap, various scenes were even cut from the English version as they gave the impression that the couple were getting a bit too close for the censors liking, however in context with the characters there is nothing offensive about their suggested affections.

Gary Oldman hams it up to the maximum as the drug crazed bad guy, delivering another awesome performance in every scene and relishing each line of dialogue.
I fucking love this film, not least because it introduced the world to Nathalie Portman.

Convicted felon Nikita, instead of going to jail, is given a new identity as a top secret spy.

This movie is the prototype for many Luc Besson films, featuring a rebellious female with cropped hair, people who are trained as efficient weapons and a stylish, slick atmosphere. The sexy hit-girl look has been copied many times since, even spawning a 1993 American remake with Bridget Fonda entitled The Assassin, along with countless TV adaptions. However, it is the french original which I would rate equal only to Leon as up there as top cult classics.

Hair extensions attack the women that wear them.

The mere idea of making a movie about hair extensions that attack the women that wear them was enough to get me interested in this film. If it were made by a western studio then it would have probably turned out like low budget comedy, however its Japanese creators produce a surprisingly horrific portrayal of the ultimate bad hair day. Chiaki Kuriyama from Kill Bill: Vol. 1 and Battle Royale plays the lead.

Hard-bitten Flying Squad officer Jack Regan gets embroiled in a deadly political plot when an old friend asks him to investigate the death of his girlfriend. Framed on a drunk-drive charge and suspended from the force, with his partner and best mate George Carter unable to help, Jack must rely on his wits to evade deadly government hitmen and expose the real villain of the piece.

A spin off from 1970s British television series, The Sweeney, this is truly a film of its time and to me a classic. John Thaw and Dennis Waterman have already honed their repartee, but this time we see their friendship strained to excess as Regan is compelled to clear his name.

The excellent Barry Foster, from Frenzy and Twisted Nerve, also joins the mix as the slimy bad guy, McQueen.

A corrupt police sergeant bites off more than he can chew when he attempts to assassinate a beautiful but ruthless Russian hitwoman in this no holds barred thriller.

A gripping and tense noir, Romeo Is Bleeding sees Gary Oldman leading a superb cast that also features Michael Wincott, Annabella Sciorra, Juliette Lewis, Roy Scheider, Ron Perlman and other strong supporting actors. Hungarian born Peter Medak directs the film into a darkness that gives it more bite than most Hollywood efforts at the genre and leaves it compelling viewing.

Henry Spencer tries to survive his industrial environment, his angry girlfriend, and the unbearable screams of his newly born mutant child.

David Lynch's first feature film is a low budget and retro looking horror that pays homage to black and white movies of the past whilst disfiguring the mood to prey on hidden fears. It is uniquely distorted into an originally terrifying vision straight out of the warped brain of it's writer/director.

Low-budget story of four astronauts in deep space, whose mission is to destroy unstable planets in star systems which are to be colonised.

Dark Star began as just a student film, but after being extended and released to the cinemas in 1974, it is still clear to see its imprint in science fiction. From the Alien franchise to the British sitcom Red Dwarf, the idea of a realistically dull existence on board a space ship in deep space has become almost crucial to the genre. It also premiered the idea of the ship having its own "mother" role, which allows it to turn murderous if needed, as well as giving it a calm, unemotional voice.

An "underground" artist contends with his urban existence, where various unsavory elements serve as inspiration for his drawings.

An adult animation depicting various extreme personalities that exist within the grubby streets of a 1970s American inner city. Written and directed by Ralph Bakshi, this is a hallucinogenic and experimental movie that mixes live action with Robert Crumb influenced cartoons to create a cynical parody of the lead character's life and surroundings.

Slam tells the story of Ray Joshua, an original, gifted young MC trapped in a war-zone housing project known as Dodge City. Unable to find a job, Ray copes with the despair and poverty of his neighborhood by using his wits and verbal talent.

This is a rough and ready film set in Washington, DC, which centers around the art of slamming and features acclaimed verbal stylist Saul Williams in the lead. The focus of this film is on the importance of knowledge being the key to your own wealth as opposed to the wrong track and yet the story doesn't wallow in sentimentality and become cheesy.

Raped, imprisoned, tortured and abused, female prisoner #701 lives only for two things; escape from the hellhole of a woman's prison she is incarcerated in and revenge on her former lover, who used her for his benefit and is responsible for all her misery.

This women in prison movie is a prime piece of Japanese sub culture cinema and remains an exploitation classic. It stars one of the queens of pinky violence, Meiko Kaji, who later went onto become Lady Snowblood, in a role that still bares its heavy influence many decades later, most notably in the Kill Bill series.

In futuristic Tokyo, Samurai-sword-wielding Ruka is a cop from a squad who's mission is to destroy homicidal mutant humans known as "engineers" possessing the ability to transform any injury to a weapon in and of itself.

When it comes to comic style violence, Tokyo Gore Police is one of the most entertaining viewings I've seen, depicting manga imagery as accurately in the live action form as possible on the low budget given. There is definitely a cheap quality about it, but the crazy imagination of the Japanese writers insures that there are enough funny ideas to keep it enjoyable.

A group of racist skinheads become alarmed at the way their neighbourhood is changing.

Set in Melbourne, Russell Crowe plays the tough leader of a gang of nazi skinheads, who attempt to threaten the Vietnamese immigrants out of their area by using brutal violence. Although the subject of race is primarily the source of the plot, this film also delves into the other prejudices associated with their fear of impurity and problems within their own kind.

Written and directed by Geoffrey Wright, this grimy movie features one of Crowe's most earthy performances and never fails to have impact.

A woman on the run from the mob is reluctantly accepted in a small Colorado town. In exchange, she agrees to work for them. As a search visits town, she finds out that their support has a price. Yet her dangerous secret is never far away...

This film feels very much like you're watching a play. The reverse fairy tale and flipping of characters is almost comedic, yet there is an underlying quality to its campness that allows any acts of cruelty to seem believable. After getting used to the idea that the whole film is based upon a set with only lines on the floor to represent walls, its easy to accept the levels of depravity that the villagers are willing to sink to. It also adds another aspect to the perversity when you can see neighbors within helping distance, carrying on with their normal lives outside the nonexistent barrier.

A paranoid and personally-secretive surveillance expert has a crisis of conscience when he suspects that a couple he is spying on will be murdered.

When people talk about Francis Ford Coppola, they usually mention The Godfathers or Apocalypse now, however to me The Conversation is an equal film in it's own right. There is an atmosphere captured in this film that reaches further than just another Hitchcockian thriller, and which manages to portray a realistic depiction of loneliness and suspicion in perfect timing to the plot. Gene Hackman said that he used a sinister bloke he was in the army with as inspiration for his role and he manages to nail the morally troubled paranoia of Harry Caul perfectly. Even though the supporting cast is strong, and features Harrison Ford, Robert Duvall and John Cazale in small roles, most of them under play it to leave their intentions ambiguous and Caul's imagination running wild. David Shire's solo piano score is the glue that solidifies this to me as one of my favourite films, and yet apparently the ending still remains a mystery to even Coppola and the movie's editor, Walter Murch.

Two hit men are sent to Spain to pick up a man who's been hiding there for ten years and bring him to Paris to be executed. A sort of road movie ensues, in which the hit men must face their own ineptitude and nothing goes as planned.

This is a strange little film, which leaves you unsure as to how it will pan out. Interplay between the four main cast members make up most of the scenes, with conflicting opinions and manipulation driving the story on throughout their journey. The characters each alter from how they first appear and reveal another side of their personality to what you may be expecting.

After getting into a serious car crash, a TV director discovers an underground sub-culture of victims who use accidents and the raw sexual energy they produce to try to rejuvenate his love life with his wife.

David Cronenberg delves into another obscure frame of mind for this controversial drama. Although based on a novel by J.G. Ballard, there are very few directors who would dare to make this film or even be successful in receiving financing for such an alternative pitch. Even more peculiarly than any of the movie's subject matter however, is that it was only banned from cinema's in the heart of many main British cities but perfectly acceptable else where.

An artist slowly goes insane while struggling to pay his bills, work on his paintings, and care for his two female roommates, which leads him taking to the streets of New York after dark and randomly killing derelicts with a power drill.

As the tagline on the poster for Abel Ferrera's psychological horror simply states, "There are those who kill violently!" Which is all that needs to be said about this brutal nasty.

A group of teenagers spend the night in a furniture store for a graduation party. A psycho killer starts to hunt them down and kill them off.

Although this appears to be just another 1980's teen slasher movie from the outset, Hide and Go Shriek not only delivers the necessary mullets, interesting killings, over aged actors and 20 minute rule for tits, it also tries to create an atmosphere too. That's a winning formula in my eyes and they even give a fairly elaborate reason for the ridiculous murderer going crazy. However, despite the extra thought that went into that, it's the bit where shy Annette Sinclair finally gets it all off her chest that I remember most clearly, in a scene that could only be featured in a film from the 1980's.

The Beast Must Die (1974)

One of the eight people is a werewolf, it's up to the viewer to find out which!

The Beast Must Die! is a camped up horror mystery, complete with a break at the end for the viewer to assess who they think the murderous beast really is. It's an interesting twist on the usual werewolf film and brings a new involvement for the audience to participate in. The ever excellent Peter Cushing stars in a supporting role.

England is torn in civil strife as the Royalists battle the Parliamentary Party for control. This conflict distracts people from rational thought and allows unscrupulous men to gain local power by exploiting village superstitions. One of these men is Matthew Hopkins, who tours the land offering his services as a persecutor of witches. Aided by his sadistic accomplice John Stearne, he travels from city to city and wrenches confessions from "witches" in order to line his pockets and gain sexual favors.

Vincent Price is marvelous in the sinister and creepy title role. His ruthless and calculated self preservation raises smiles from how easily he manipulates to get his wicked way, and it was apparently regarded as his own favorite horror performance. Sometimes thought of as a Hammer production, this film was actually made by Tigon and American International studios.

A coffin-dragging gunslinger enters a town caught between two feuding factions.

Django, which has spawned many sequels since, could easily have been forgotten as just another western following hot on the heels of A Fist Full Of Dollars and containing no further significance. However, this movie steps killing cowboys up to another level. Franco Nero coolly drags around a coffin with him where ever he goes, and when the time's right disposes of gangs in the dozen. It is certainly a definitive spaghetti western and one of my favourites, not least because of Luis Bacalov's sick score.

Aliens resurrect dead humans as zombies and vampires to stop human kind from creating a sun-driven bomb.

Plan 9 From Outer Space is often remarked on as being one of the worst films ever made, which is extremely unfair as they're defining it into the category of horror. Looking at it from the angle of it being a comedy, this movie is a master piece. The wooden acting and cardboard sets being taken so seriously within the ridiculous plot leave it as the pinnacle of unintentional spoofs.

Super Fly is a cocaine dealer who begins to realize that his life will soon end with either prison or his death. He decides to build an escape from the life by making his biggest deal yet, converting the coke to cash and running off to start a new life. The problem is that the Mob does not have a retirement plan and will give him a choice of staying and selling for them or dying if they find out his intentions.

This film has inspired many a Hiphop video and Curtis Mayfield's score has been sampled almost as many times as James Brown. Superfly is what it says in the title and remains one of the coolest films out there.

The Arena follows the adventures of a bevy of slave girls who, upon finding themselves thrust into the gladiator ring, mount a vicious rebellion to fight their way to freedom.

This film has all you could want from a sword and sandals exploitation movie; Poor acting, worse dubbing, a ridiculous plot that takes itself too seriously, a more frequent implementation than the twenty minute rule for tits yet scantily clad women throughout anyway, unnecessary violence, camped up rape scenes, terrible dialogue and general low quality, it even has Pam Grier in it. How the fuck is this not in any lists of the greatest films of all time?

A voluptuous black woman takes a job as a high-class prostitute in order to get revenge on the mobsters who murdered her boyfriend.

Pam Grier and Starsky and Hutch's Antonio Fargas star in this hugely enjoyable blaxploitation movie, written and directed by the same man behind Coffy, Jack Hill. Willie Hutch's score also lends a hand to make this another cult classic.

Three wild women in three fast cars take time off from stripping in clubs to go on a murder rampage. They kidnap and drug the girlfriend of one of their victims and hole up at a secluded ranch owned by a wheelchair-bound man and his two sons.

This remains Russ Meyer's most accepted art house master piece, although it originally met with warm receptions upon its release. The monochrome images are iconic, representing 1960s American exploitation cinema at its most gritty and with tough women causing the ruthless violence it also allows the movie to serve as a graphic and slightly s&m feminist statement.

A recently married scholar goes on a quest for knowledge of other people's wives, based on his philosophical differences with the Sack Monk. He encounters the Flying Thief, who agrees to help him find women, but only if he attains a penis as big as a horse's.

This is definitely not the kind of soft core porn that you would find being made by western cinema. Primarily because the story is almost complicated, but also because it features a horses dick as the key to the plot, with even enough thought gone into this scenario that our hero can't get a boner unless he sees flowing red material as the horse supposedly did.

It is the source of quite a few sequels, even spawning 3D Sex And Zen: Extreme Ecstasy in 2011, however none of them can match the obscure originality of this humorous classic.

While investigating a young nun's rape, a corrupt New York City police detective, with a serious drug and gambling addiction, tries to change his ways and find forgiveness.

Harvey Keitel gives a worryingly convincing performance in the lead role of Abel Ferrara's disturbing drama. Filled with many extreme scenes depicting the cop's escalation into madness and inner turmoil, Bad Lieutenant remains edgy and raw even today as a portrait of a corrupted soul who is struggling to repent, but who can't help but dig himself further into hell.

Not to be confused with the awful 2009 remake featuring the wooden acting of Nicholas cage, this movie is actually about someone who is really walking along the wild side, caught between right and wrong in a crisis of faith.

An aspiring DJ, from the South Bronx, and his best friend, a promoter, try to get into show business by exposing people to hip-hop music and culture.

It's refreshing to see Beat Street representing Hiphop culture in 1980s New York, before the mass marketed commercialism of gangsta rap took over its projected platform. In this film, the elements of break dancing, Mc-ing, Dj-ing and graffing are all treated with equal importance and the style is far more open. As we follow the lead characters attempts to make it out of the slums, many innovators of the culture make appearances including Afrika Bumbaataa, Kool Herc and The Rocksteady Crew among others.

The Warriors are framed for killing a gang leader who was trying to unite all of the factions in the area. With other crews gunning for them, they must get back to their home turf of Coney Island... Alive.

Despite some of the absurd costumes that the gangs use as uniforms, this film still manages to attach a tension and gritty atmosphere to its plot. It has influenced many samples, skits, songs and videos in Hiphop since and remains a cool image of cinematic urban youth in 1970s New York.

A sleazy cable-TV programmer begins to see his life and the future of media spin out of control in a very unusual fashion when he acquires a new kind of programming for his station.

Writer/ directors like David Cronenberg consistently come up with great cult movies because they like to deal with subject matter that is of the more warped imagination. They deliver clever ideas that are unconventional and sometimes tap into horror that viewers won't even know that they have a fear of. This is a classic and features much under rated actor James Woods in the lead role, with the sexy Debbie Harry from the band Blondie also starring.

In the far future, a highly sexual woman is tasked with finding and stopping the evil Durand-Durand. Along the way she encounters various unusual people.

Based on a French comic strip, Barbarella is a camp and surreal sci-fi adventure that generally centres around getting rid of Jane Fonda's pesky clothes. Although not at all a porno movie, the aim is more to tease with her body innocently and use various kitsch and humorous ways of doing so. There is a distinct 1960s free love feel about it and the costumes and sets make it appear like a slightly more x-rated Star Trek, with David Hemmings being forced to don the mustache, cape and under pants look that for some reason never caught on elsewhere. The colourful supporting cast also features legendary mime artist Marcel Marceau among others.

A Harvard scientist conducts experiments on himself with a hallucinatory drug and an isolation chamber that may be causing him to regress genetically.

An extreme bad trip of a movie from Ken Russel and starring the under rated William Hurt. Visually amazing, but mentally disturbing, this is probably not the movie to put on if you're on strong hallucinogens yourself.

A television commercial director, is in the midst of a personality crisis. A self styled guru guides him through his first trip on LSD.

Starring Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper, directed by prolific producer Roger Corman and written by Jack Nicholson, this is a truly stoned out movie that uses the drug influenced 1960s as the catalyst for a story that could only have come out of that era.

A hypocritical swinging college student cat raises hell in a satiric vision of various elements on the 1960's.

Apparently Robert Crumb despised this reworking of his creation so much that he even sued to get his name taken out of the credits. However Ralph Bakshi was probably the best bet to attempt to capture Crumb's underground comic style, judging by his later movie Heavy Traffic, and they still kept enough of his sordid humour in it to become the first animation given an x- rating.

They Live (1988)

A drifter discovers a pair of sunglasses that allow him to wake up to the fact that aliens have taken over the Earth.

John Carpenter directed and co- wrote this conceptual sci-fi horror, about a parallel world that we can't see, where our subservient race is being controlled without us even knowing. WWF wrestler, "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, stars in the lead alongside The Thing's Keith David.

A cinematic portrait of the controversial comic book writer/artist and his traumatized family.

This is an odd and often sad documentary surrounding the life of the iconic underground artist, Robert Crumb. Famed mainly for acid based comics in the 1960s and 70s, his style of perverse satire proves to be no stranger than his own reality as we find out what goes on behind the scenes.

Apparently when the film's producer needed to raise funds for the film, he encountered Terry Gilliam out of Monty Python, who he knew had worked with Robert Crumb in the late 60s. Approaching Gilliam, he asked for some help with the budget. Gilliam reached into his pocket, handed over a nickel and then walked away. Terry Gilliam sounds like a prick if you ask me.

Chopper tells the intense story of Mark "Chopper" Read, a legendary criminal who wrote his autobiography while serving a jail sentence in prison. His book, "From the Inside", upon which the film is based, was a best-seller.

Erica Bana excels as the likeable yet violent character of Chopper, and after I saw actual footage of Mark Read in the DVD extras, it's clear how well he manages to mimic his mannerisms and persona.

As the film follows various points of his life, it's unsure as to whether many of the events actually happened or whether our psychotic hero is just not "letting the truth get in the way of a good yarn". However, if even a quarter of what he's depicted getting up to is fact, then it's no surprise that he made such a name for himself in Australia. Featuring an ear scene that would make Michael Madsen wince, Chopper is brutal, funny and uses interesting techniques to tell the odd tale of an unlikely success.

A drug pusher grows increasingly desperate after a botched deal leaves him with a large debt to a ruthless drug lord.

A ballsy Danish movie, Pusher drags us into the dirty cold of Copenhagen's underworld, and has since spawned two sequels that are also worth seeing. The dialogue is snappy and similar to a film like La Haine, in that there is a punchy yet natural chemistry between the characters whilst still creating tension within the story.

Trevor is a 16 year old, sometimes-violent skinhead with no regard for authority, and would rather spend his time stealing cars than sitting in the detention centre to which he is sent. The authorities within the centre try to make Trevor conform to the norms of society, but he takes no notice, and would rather speak in a torrent of four-letter words and racial abuse.

Another fearless Alan Clarke movie, made for British television and bursting with anger. Tim Roth struts around as the cocky and ever defiant Trevor, taking his rage out on anything and everything that he feels like. He has no care for the system that he was raised in and refuses to conform to any rules, leaving the film as a distinctly anarchic classic.

A depiction of a series of violent killings in Northern Ireland with no clue as to exactly who is responsible.

This is a short movie filmed for television and directed by Alan Clarke, the man behind Scum and other no nonsense dramas. He delivers yet another hard hitting semi documentary as we journey around with various Terrorists and victims on an endless campaign of murder in Northern Ireland. Very simple, yet the experience of watching it forces the viewer to feel the same emotion as if they were looking at the country's mindless violence from the inside; you want it to stop.

Frenzy (1972)

A serial killer is murdering London women with a necktie. Can the police catch him before he strikes again...

Alfred Hitchcock's movies always managed to walk a fine line between commercial and cult, pressing on issues that distanced them from the pure mainstream. Although he clearly wanted to entertain, the subject matter that he chose was often slightly obscure and featured twists and perversions which pushed censorship boundaries for the time. Where as a film like North By North West may easily be considered a Hollywood blockbuster, Frenzy is more of an exploitation flick and features tits, rape, black comedy and a more realistic cast that lack the traditional glamor found in his bigger productions.

Apparently Barry Foster was selected for the film after Hitchcock saw him in Twisted Nerve, along with Billie Whitelaw.

Based on the true life serial killer, Henry Lee Lucas.

This is a difficult film to try and recommend someone. The name, Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer, clearly suggests an intense biopic about the grim life of a murderer, bleak and realistic. From the outset, as the first scene of a butchered woman is displayed under warped 80s music, it's hard to see beyond watching just another two hours of crime scenes stills. However, to me this movie is a clever use of disturbing drama mixed with very, very black comedy.

Originally funded as a low brow horror film, the producers were appalled with what they received and it was left on the shelves with problems from the censors until 1990. Although it definitely has that budget feel about it, there is a tidiness and compact structure which holds it together skillfully and Michael Rooker is all encompassed as the chilling lead.

Saturday 5 November 2011

Friday 4 November 2011