The Eurocult Film Thread

craner

craner

Beast of Burden
I watched Umberto Lenzi's Eyeball, which was a waste of time. A bit better than Spasmo, a bit worse than Seven Blood Stained Orchids (which I may review soon). Only redeemed by some of the girls and by Bruno Nicolai's fabulous score, as good as his Case of the Bloody Iris and Eugenie...the Story of Her Journey Into Perversion music.
 
craner

craner

Beast of Burden
kristel_2372468b.jpg


RIP Sylvia Kristel.

She wasn't my favourite, but, then, Emmanuelle 2...what a film. Bruno will be sad.
 
craner

craner

Beast of Burden
Mark Gatiss's Horror Europa, quick, before it disappears:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01nmsw7/Horror_Europa_with_Mark_Gatiss/

It was fine, I suppose. A cheap thrill to see Mario Bava on British TV, even if Gatiss didn't quite do him justice. I don't understand why he opened with and lingered on Daughters of Darkness, which is an elegant, sexy and sinister film, but certianly not the masterpiece he seemed to suggest. Far too long on two decent and influential French films which otherwise substitute for a largely missing Gallic horror tradition (and if you are going to talk about French horror, you really should not avoid mentioning Jean Rollin). Also, there was a long and slightly pointless section on Spanish horror, which could have been cut if not excised.

This lasted for an hour and a half. I think it should have been divided thus:

-- 15 minutes on German Expressionist horror and Krimi.
-- 15 minutes on Hammer and British horror.
-- 60 minutes on Italian horror.
-- Passing nod to Spain.
-- Fuck the French.

It was amazing that Fulci and Deodato only merited one singular derogatory mention each. Also, apart from Daughters which looked like it was the Blue Underground restoration, a lot of the clips seem to have been ripped from bad VHS-quality sources. This was notably so during the Bava and Argento sections. Gatiss rhapsodised about the baroque beauty and extreme colour tones of these films over washed-out, murky prints. Anybody who had not seem them before must have thought he was over-egging. A few of us felt slightly mortified. "No, no, you really do have to watch these films properly, honestly..."

Applause and gratitude to Gatiss, though, for having the imagination and panache to produce this documentary at all. If only they would show some of the actual films now.

Edit: I suppose that ought to be hats off to the commissioning editor.
 
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M

mister matthew

Active member
agreed with all of that, but worth pointing out that the absence of any Brit stuff was likely due to him having covered it in the History of Horror series that aired a couple of years ago. Hammer, Amicus and the other usual suspects (Wicker Man etc) got a full episode in that. Bava was shoehorned into it too, via Babs Steele in Black Sunday.
 
craner

craner

Beast of Burden
Fair point, I didn't think of that. That's alright, though...it leaves 15 more minutes in my schedule for Italians. That could be a section on Joe D'amato.
 
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stephenk

Well-known member
just saw daughters of darkness last night after reading that post and loved it. but the ending left me cold.
 
craner

craner

Beast of Burden
Disappointing endings are a common feature of these films and it's something you have to get used to or get over. You can either see 'em coming from a mile off, or they come out of nowhere and make no sense.

I am trying to think of some counter-examples, where the ending is part of the fabric of the film and yet still knocks you for six and/or exceeds the build-up. House With Laughing Windows, of course. Cannibal Holocaust. Mario Bava does neat endings, although they do tend to be cynical punchlines which can undermine the atmosphere and mystery. Fernando di Leo does great melodramatic blow-outs at the end of his films (i.e. Milano Calibro 9, La Mala Ordina) and these are emotionally satisfying but not very clever (with the exception of To Be Twenty which is a shocker).
 
S

stephenk

Well-known member
i don't really mind the hitchcock-style "revealing" conclusions in a lot of giallos/euro-horror. if the film is suitably ridiculous then i'm pretty accustomed to a ridiculous ending as well.
+ would definitely agree with house of laughing windows as having a solid finale. i'll check some of those others.

daughters of darkness's just seemed tacked on, and totally ruined the countess's mystique. it very abruptly snaps out of the ostend dream-state and into a reality i wasn't applying to her at all.

i really enjoyed the rest of it though - the policeman only appearing as a kind of gesture was interesting.
 
craner

craner

Beast of Burden
I don't mind the daft or far-fetched giallo endings, either. They rarely ruin the entire film. Some of them are great, particularly the convoluted but structurally precise Ernesto Gastaldi denouements, like in The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh.

What Have You Done to Solange? has a fantastic ending that alters and deepens the entire tone and meaning of the film. One of the most disappointing is the "compromise" resolution forced on Fulci for Lizard in a Woman's Skin, a decent enough Freudian/Agatha Christie intrigue that hardly lives up to the wild imagery, violent propulsion and moral decadence of the rest of the film.

Rich, I hope you enjoy Le Orme. I am a big fan. Even if you think it's a lot of empty, prententious nonsense, you can still enjoy a super-stylish and bonkers Florinda Bolkan and the gorgeous/austere Storaro cinematography.
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
I enjoyed that a lot. Much colder and more low-key than most giallos - which suits me fine as I'm not a huge fan of the genre. That ending was totally inexplicable appropriately enough. What does Le Orme mean anyway? Reminds me of the band but I've never known what it means in that context either.


I can't say that I remember the end of What Have You Done To Solange or Lizard in a Woman's Skin for what it's worth.
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
Le Orme also reminded me of Daughters of Darkness in that the majority of it took place in something like a dream in an out of season holiday resort. Lots of differences after that of course and I probably wouldn't have made the link if I hadn't been reading people talking about D of D above.
Just read one guy on IMDB who compares it to Picnic at Hanging Rock and Last Year at Marienbad - which is going a bit far in my opinion, but there were scenes in it that were obviously a homage to Marienbad, I noticed that at the time.
 
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IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
I went to see Dr Jekyll and Miss Osbourne yesterday as part of the Borowczyk season at the BFI. Udo Kier stars (always a good sign) as a Jekyll who turns himself into a gigantically endowed serial-rapist with the help of a chemical bath. All the action takes place on one night at a party to celebrate the engagement of Jekyll and Osbourne (Robert Louis Stevenson's fiance in real life) and the guests are killed off one by one as if in a twisted Agatha Christie story. The cinematography is claustrophobic and giddying as the camera flies around with seemingly little in the way of guidance from the director and the colour is cold and dark yet somehow sumptuous and beautiful, to me at least.
Allegedly Stevenson's first draft of the novel was obscene and was destroyeed by Fanny Osbourne but Borowczyk claimed that he'd found a copy in the Oxford University library whilst there for a conference. This of course wasn't true but he maintained that the film was true to the spirit of what Stevenson had originally intended. The ending certainly puts a different and genuinely anarchic spin on the story though it's anyone's guess if that's what the author had planned. Either way, to get there you have to watch a strange melange of a film that isn't really erotica or horror or comedy or anything other than surreal and ultimately quite unhinged, not to say gratuitously nasty. I loved it of course.
Oh yeah, and the music is by Parmegianni and it's really amazing.
 
craner

craner

Beast of Burden
Special Mission Lady Chaplin - superior Italo-spy caper, a genre which is the temporal link between Peplum/Gothic Horror and Spaghetti Westerns/gialli. Impossible not to enjoy this goofy pleasure. Amazing music, locations, women. Opening three minutes are immense.

 
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