Film
The Beyond Tonight
I was just about to post about the fact that the Museum of Art and Design in New York is playing Lucio Fulci’s amazing zombie flick The Beyond (discussed here) tonight, when it occurred to me that I live on the West Coast, and the East Coast is three hours ahead. So it’s already started. They started the film at 7pm. And you really don’t want to miss the beginning.
I’m an idiot. The Museum of Art and Design is showing a bunch of Italian zombie films, though, in their ZOMBO ITALIANO series. And tomorrow night, they will play the third film in Fulci’s Gates of Hell trilogy. (Which I would’ve maybe mentioned a couple of days ago when the first film played if I wasn’t, you know, an idiot.) Check out the rest of the schedule here. Possibly our friend magick mike can comment on the relative merits of the upcoming films. Know the movies, mike?
And now, everybody point at Matthew and say “Knucklehead!”
One…two…three!
Tags: lucio fulci, matthew is an idiot
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remove the tailing quote from.
the scene with the shark in Zombie 2 is rad.
Stray quotation mark in the html. See? See? I’m a fucking idiot!
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I went to a special screening of Bava’s Demons at a brewpub theater a few months ago. The Beyond and Cemetery Man are two of my favorite movies.
the link isn’t working.
remove the tailing quote from.
the scene with the shark in Zombie 2 is rad.
Stray quotation mark in the html. See? See? I’m a fucking idiot!
html”giant”.”com”
I went to a special screening of Bava’s Demons at a brewpub theater a few months ago. The Beyond and Cemetery Man are two of my favorite movies.
I just realized that lately when people ask I always say that “I don’t like zombie movies,” but after realizing I actually like everything that’s on this program, I realized it’s actually just “I don’t like american zombies,” or something. Here’s what’s left.
House by the Cemetery
This lacks the completely power of The Beyond, but in terms of cinematic narratives, I think this succeeds on a higher level than City of the Living Dead, if only because the terror is more abjectly ridiculous. If you can make it through a screening without someone in the audience proving to their girlfriends that they understand “camp” then this is really just pleasant weirdness.
Cemetery Man
Michele Soavi was/is (he hasn’t done anything noteworthy for a while) one of the few Italian directors who was successfully carrying the torch of Italian horror after Fulci died and Argento started making unbelievable bullshit (post-Opera, let’s say?). This is ostensibly his more “intellectual” attempt at a film, but some how, despite his juvenile existential musings, it’s also his most generic undertaking. The zombies are still zombies, in a very post-Return of the Living Dead way (though without running), and the plot is arguably unique, but what really saves it for me is that amount of sexuality that’s allowed to seep through the entire movie, once again despite the subject matter (which, in the case of this film, isn’t just zombies). It’s good, but perhaps a little heavy handed, and the ending, as opposed to the ending of The Beyond (which I think this bears comparison to), feels a little over-wrought.
Demons
Demons 2
I don’t think I’ve ever watched these not back-to-back, so I will say: one of these takes place in a movie theater and features some slight meta-textual interplay akin to Bigas Lunas Anguish, but in a way that is totally more fun and hilarious, while the other takes place in a hotel I think? I actually prefer Lamberto Bava to Mario Bava due to the latter’s complete inability to ever figure out pacing through his entire career. Also, the younger Bava’s films are much more visceral and fun. These are like heavy metal opuses to gore, but American heavy metal as co-opted by Italians who do a lot of coke and cry themselves to sleep because Axl Rose is not offering them Oral Sex. Does that make sense?
Pigsty
This is part of Pasolini’s unofficial trilogy that includes my three favorite of his films: this, Teorema, and Salo. It’s really only a trilogy thematically, unlike his trilogy of life which is intentional. This is kind of obtuse, but really fantastic in the way that Pasolini was at this point in his life. I don’t remember any zombies, so I’m not sure why this is here, but there is cannibalism and beastiality.
mike, have you seen “the living dead at manchester morgue?” otherwise known as “let sleeping corpses lie.” it’s fantastic, builds slowly–an early entry in the “environmental-horror film” genre.
I just realized that lately when people ask I always say that “I don’t like zombie movies,” but after realizing I actually like everything that’s on this program, I realized it’s actually just “I don’t like american zombies,” or something. Here’s what’s left.
House by the Cemetery
This lacks the completely power of The Beyond, but in terms of cinematic narratives, I think this succeeds on a higher level than City of the Living Dead, if only because the terror is more abjectly ridiculous. If you can make it through a screening without someone in the audience proving to their girlfriends that they understand “camp” then this is really just pleasant weirdness.
Cemetery Man
Michele Soavi was/is (he hasn’t done anything noteworthy for a while) one of the few Italian directors who was successfully carrying the torch of Italian horror after Fulci died and Argento started making unbelievable bullshit (post-Opera, let’s say?). This is ostensibly his more “intellectual” attempt at a film, but some how, despite his juvenile existential musings, it’s also his most generic undertaking. The zombies are still zombies, in a very post-Return of the Living Dead way (though without running), and the plot is arguably unique, but what really saves it for me is that amount of sexuality that’s allowed to seep through the entire movie, once again despite the subject matter (which, in the case of this film, isn’t just zombies). It’s good, but perhaps a little heavy handed, and the ending, as opposed to the ending of The Beyond (which I think this bears comparison to), feels a little over-wrought.
Demons
Demons 2
I don’t think I’ve ever watched these not back-to-back, so I will say: one of these takes place in a movie theater and features some slight meta-textual interplay akin to Bigas Lunas Anguish, but in a way that is totally more fun and hilarious, while the other takes place in a hotel I think? I actually prefer Lamberto Bava to Mario Bava due to the latter’s complete inability to ever figure out pacing through his entire career. Also, the younger Bava’s films are much more visceral and fun. These are like heavy metal opuses to gore, but American heavy metal as co-opted by Italians who do a lot of coke and cry themselves to sleep because Axl Rose is not offering them Oral Sex. Does that make sense?
Pigsty
This is part of Pasolini’s unofficial trilogy that includes my three favorite of his films: this, Teorema, and Salo. It’s really only a trilogy thematically, unlike his trilogy of life which is intentional. This is kind of obtuse, but really fantastic in the way that Pasolini was at this point in his life. I don’t remember any zombies, so I’m not sure why this is here, but there is cannibalism and beastiality.
mike, have you seen “the living dead at manchester morgue?” otherwise known as “let sleeping corpses lie.” it’s fantastic, builds slowly–an early entry in the “environmental-horror film” genre.