The Eurocult Film Thread

IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
I watched Venus In Furs yesterday, the German one, not the Jess Franco film of the same name. Thought the film was fairly forgettable but I did like the music a lot, a composer called Reverberi apparently about whom I know nothing. The main theme was a fairly tough kind of ye-ye thing and there was a nice sitar track as well. Can't see anything about it coming out on vinyl anywhere (maybe came out on a library?) but there is a cd reissue thing along with a couple of other films that he scored. Anyone know anything about him?
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Is it just me, or does this chick look a lot like the young Elvis?

oliver craner said:
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Also, lol @ SPASMO.
 
C

craner

Beast of Burden
Also, lol @ SPASMO.

That's a work of art, right there. I don't mean the film. The film's a disaster.
 
B

BareBones

wheezy
haha, i didn't really - she was merely in the same room, just surfing the net. In fairness to her, it was bloody awful, and not in a good way. Not sure what i was expecting really.
 
C

craner

Beast of Burden
Ah, yes, that's what I was looking for. Anyone remember the day that this was front cover of The Daily Express?

Barebones, yor a sicko!
 
B

BareBones

wheezy
ermmm, i was watching it for research, honest!

gotta love the express.

funnily enough i watched I Spit On Your Grave recently, too... some people regard that as a feminist film, apparently
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
Dunno if this is the right kind of thing for this thread but it is European - has anyone seen La Cabina? Think it's a pretty famous and well recognised short film and it's really good.
 
C

craner

Beast of Burden
Actually, I desperately want to see Death Laid an Egg, but you try finding a copy. It's a rare one. There was a Japanese release that cost £40. Well, no. Not that desperate. Same director as Django Kill!, however. So I'm guessing it's great, bonkers, twisted, gorgeous, awful, magnificent...
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
I was actually quite disappointed by it. Possibly partly 'cause I had quite a dodgy copy that kept jumping but I think that in general it had been built up too much (not sure that you will want it but I could pass it on if you're interested). That review is bollocks though, it's not an "art" film, although it does have elements to it that recall art films. The thing that some people find interesting about it is the tension between this artiness and the rules of the giallo genre - and also the mutatnt chickens with no feathers or heads.
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
Can I borrow it Rich?
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Yeah, no probs, like I say it kept jumping around on my dvd player but it might be better than yours and even if it does it it's probably worth having until a better copy comes along.
One of my friends has it but I should get it back this week - pm me your address and I'll send it over when I get it back.
I watched Death Smiles at Murder (or however it's translated, tends to vary I think) the other day also with Ewa Aulin (and Klaus Kinski) and I found that similarly weird but I enjoyed it more. Have you seen that?
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
No, a couple of people I know from vinylvulture just sent me a package of about ten films and they were both amongst them.
 
C

craner

Beast of Burden
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Watched Death Laid an Egg and Death Smiled at Murder. (Thanks, Rich!)


I definitely enjoyed looking at Death Laid an Egg. I mean, this would've been a dour-paced and rather hollow thriller had Giulio Questi not spliced the screen with attractive, garish Pop Art strokes, or made the central conceit a silly absurdist stunt (an unethical proto-battery hen farm) that provides many attractive photo ops and over-spilling metaphors. No Django Kill!, to be sure, but still skittish and seedy enough to distinguish itself, and enriched by the 60s-deluxe cinematography and cut-to-measure soundtrack (Morricone avant-slasher atonality and a Stelvio Cipriani Easy Listening breeze...).

Death Laid an Egg starlet Ewa Aulin links it to Death Smiled at Murder, and she steals both (first from Jean-Louis Trintignant and then Klaus Kinski, a double coup de grace). I fell madly in love with this piece of Joe D'amato crap: a gory and ludicrous and alluring Hammer-style romp that is one of a tiny fistful of his films I'd recommend to friends. Ewa is Greta, a rootless and sexually incontinent waif with an obscure, tragic past. She dies and is re-animated by Mad Dr Sturges –- that is, Mad Dr. Kinski, flailing around in mock anguish and thwarted desire -- so that she can go and kill some totally deserving creeps, psychos and suckers (that is, the rest of the cast).

I'm not really giving away plot details here because there is no plot to speak of and the film makes less sense than your normal Eurosleaze abomination. In the end, it's largely about Ewa's face: those big saucer-sized, cocaine-rush (probably literally) eyes, that keep and reveal secrets simultaneously, a rare sexual ability -- or am I actually talking about the acute and credible slippage from addled, wild nymph to gruesome Death Mask, crushing Eurolez clasp to face-fucking ghoul?? She nails this role, her second-to-last film, without actually trying anything spectacular, so this vivid erotic malice is miraculous. (Who knows what happened next? You suspect sensible Swedish decline into marital harmony, domestic bliss, with curious lacuna regarding past cinematic glory.)

It's an unhinged thing as always: thick with atmosphere, punctured by dumb shocks, like that Tenebrae knife stabbing wildly at white linen. When the Greta Ghoul throws a rabied cat into the face of her Rhys Ifans-a-like stalking ex-lover, and it scratches his eyeballs out in obscene bloody detail - well, you can only sit back and applaud this sordid and soulful scene of mad cruelty. (Jess Franco would envy this delight, and it's certain he saw it. They all watched and worked with each other, these auteurs: D'amato shot big parts of ...Solange?, for example; or Fulci and Bava on the 60s Peplum; or, say, a letter Sergio Leone wrote to Ruggero Deodato after Cannibal Holocaust: "Dear Ruggero, what a movie! The second part is a masterpiece of cinematographic realism, but everything seems so real that I think you will get in trouble with all the world!")

When the police inspector finally admits, "I begin to doubt I will ever solve this mystery. Somehow it just doesn't add up" – you are screaming at the screen: "Of course it doesn't add up! You're in the savage, senseless world of Joe D'amato, you gormless fool!! Do you even know where you are?"
 
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