Mr Lazarescu, an elderly man who likes a tipple and lives with his cats, becomes ill but, firstly, getting an ambulance to come out to him and then getting him to a hospital that will actually provide the appropriate care for him becomes nearly impossible. This Romanian film is admirably directed by Cristi Puiu, with …
Continue reading Shocking Cinema- Day 21- The Death of Mr Lazarescu (2005)
How the hell do I describe this film? Someone who looks like Leatherface stabs themself to death in the Evil Dead cabin. After this, we witness the birth of Mother Earth and the Son of Earth who then ‘journey across a dying world’ apparently. This scungy, lo-fi work by E. Elias Merhige features unknown actors …
Actress Nikki Grace lands the lead in a Hollywood remake of an unfinished Polish film, one that may be cursed. As she slips into the role of Sue, the line between Nikki and Sue, Los Angeles and Łódź, rehearsal and nightmare, starts to fade. There are talking rabbits, a screwdriver, a woman dying on Hollywood …
Continue reading Shocking Cinema- Day 19- Inland Empire (2006)
In 1950s rural Idaho, eight-year-old Seth Dove lives at a lonely gas station with his brittle mother and withdrawn father. After a vile prank on the English widow next door, Dolphin Blue, he decides she is a vampire. Children start to vanish. Then his brother Cameron comes home from the Pacific, where he worked on …
Continue reading Shocking Cinema- Day 18- The Reflecting Skin (1990)
I remember the first time I ever saw any scenes from The Brood was in the excellent documentary, Terror in the Aisles. I then went on to see the film from start to finish in a Film Studies lecture at university. There's a sinister institution within The Brood that's called The Somafree Institute of Psychoplasmatics. …
John and Laura Baxter travel to Venice following the death of their daughter in a pond outside their home. John has taken a job there restoring a church. Whilst in a restaurant, Laura meets two sisters, one of whom is blind but has the gift of second sight and can speak with the dead. She …
Continue reading Shocking Cinema- Day 16- Don’t Look Now (1973)
A beautiful woman prowls the streets of Glasgow at night in a van, picking up men and luring them to a deadly fate. But who (or what) is she? A film about a sexy but murderous alien set in Glasgow and starring Scarlett Johansson, you say?! Sign me up. This film really did get under …
Continue reading Shocking Cinema- Day 15- Under The Skin (2013)
A scientist invents a teleportation machine. It needs some tweaks before it’s ready (we saw what happened to a poor baboon earlier in the film) but when a second baboon isn’t turned into dog food, Brundle is convinced his device is ready. He decides to prove it the ultimate way- with himself. Unfortunately, a fly …
Philip returns to his childhood home and his wicked uncle. Past traumas come to the surface here. I was surprised that I had never heard of this film made by Matthew Holness and starring Sean Harris as Philip. But, on beginning to watch it, I realised why. The BFI logo came up and I soon …
Mark Lewis is a focus puller at a film studio who tops up his wages taking glamour photographs in a room above a newsagent. By night he films women as he kills them, chasing a look of pure fear. The habit comes from a childhood spent as his scientist father’s subject. Downstairs live Helen and …
Continue reading Shocking Cinema- Day 12- Peeping Tom (1960)
