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Teen Movie Hell: The movies in the book
The only movie missing are: The Making of Bikini School 3 Daddies' Girls
Movies that we have watched on B&S About Movies part 2
Movies that we've reviewed at B and S About Movies
Movies we've reviewed on the B&S About Movies podcast
Reviews
November (2017)
November
Based on Andrus Kivirähk's novel Rehepapp ehk November (Old Barny aka November), November takes place in 19th century Estonia. It begins with a kratt appearing. The kratt is kind of like the Warbound in D&D, as its a collection of hay and old household implements powered by the Devil (Jaan Tooming) and three drops of blood. The kratt steals a cow for a villager named Raak (Arvo Kukumägi), who has tricked Satan by giving him three drops of dark berries instead of the blood that is part of his soul.
There's so much going on in this village, like the Plague descending as a young woman and then a pig, who makes a deal with Sander, an elder, to allow Liina (Rea Lest-Liik) and Hans (Jörgen Liik) to live. But then the pig is killed while swearing on a Bible. Liina is in love with Hans but has basically been sold in a drunken deal with the pig farmer Edsel, while Hans is obsessed with a sleepwalking Baroness (Jette Loona Hermanis). Liina - also a werewolf - gets a magical arrow from a witch, as she wants to kill the rich girl to win over Hans, but can't bring herself to do it.
The supernatural becomes a way for nearly everyone to attempt to find their doomed love and make it true. Hans sells his soul for a kratt that regales him with stories of love before melting down into the snow, leaving behind a ring that he uses to propose to the Baroness, who turns out to be Liina in disguise. As for the Baroness, she's sleepwalked to her death. As the kratt melts away, the Devil returns to snap Hans' neck. Now, two funeral processions make their way through the village.
Liina drowns herself in the river, bringing gold to all of the villagers, who leave her a necklace, the perfect gift for a virgin bride. Before she passes on, she kisses Hans one more time and says, "Oh, yes. Just what a virgin bride dreams of."
Director and writer Rainer Sarnet has created a black and white world where the rich mock the poor with their manor homes and gold altars, as the put upon hire a witch (Klara Eighorn) to do their bidding. The villagers are able to trick the devils that befoul them once or twice - like wearing their pants on their heads - but the next time, the next person, well they're not so lucky. No one wants to work and their kratts fulfill their labors, but they're secretly deadly or unlucky to everyone.
Even though this is a magical realism film set in another world, I couldn't help but see so much of real life here.
Nang Nak (1999)
Nang Nak
As the All the Haunts Be Ours Volume 2 set takes us throughout not just the world of folk horror but our world itself, it lands in Thailand with Nang Nak, which is based on the legend of Mae Nak Phra Khanong.
A gorgeous woman named Nak once lived on the banks of the Phra Khanong canal with her husband Mak. As he went to battle in the Kengtung Wars, she died giving birth to their child. When he returned from the battles that he barely survived, he found her waiting for him as a ghost. Despite the warnings of others, he lived with her until learning the truth, running in fear as she attacked the villagers who she felt drove him away.
In some versions of this story, the monk Somdet Phra Phutthachan defeats Nak by confining her spirit in the bone of her forehead, which he keeps on his waistband. The Thai royal family was said to still own this magical relic and Admiral Prince Abhakara Kiartivongse, Prince of Chumphon and the father of the Thai navy, also claimed that he had this occult object in his possession.
Directed by Nonzee Nimibutr, this is the thirteenth and by no means the final adaption of this legend. It moves the story forward in time, as Mak (Winai Kraibutr) fights in the Siamese-Vietnamese War, so it takes place in the 1830s. When he returns, he lives with Nak (Intira Jaroenpura) and their child, as the villagers never told him that she died.
Anyone that tries to tell Mak the truth dies at the spectral hands of her ghost. Mak discovers the truth as she drops a comb and her ghostly arm extends longer than it should (the legend often claims this happens when she drops a piece of fruit). Even after her home is exorcised and burnt, Nak still rages.
Buddhist monk Somdej Toh - the most sainted monk in Thailand's history - finally convinces her to stop and that she will be reunited in the afterlife with her husband and child. He then cuts the center of the forehead of her corpse open, allowing her spirit to leave, and creates a talisman from it that ends up being in the possession of Prince Chumbhorn Ketudomsak, just as the royal man claimed.
As I have gone from spirit land to spirit land through this set, I have seen how many civilizations have tried to make sense of the unknown, which would be love and death. This story sets forth the notion that one of these does not always stop the other.
Sundelbolong (1981)
Sundelbolong
The title of this movie means "prostitute with a hole in her" and comes from Indonesian myth. It refers to a dead sex worker who has either given birth inside her grave or had a child that was born through a hole in her back that is concealed by her long black hair. Wearing a long white gown, this vengeful spirit castrates men and takes children to replace the one that she has lost.
Directed by Sisworo Gautama Putra, this stars Suzzanna, the Queen of Indonesian Horror. She plays Alisa, who learns during her wedding reception that her new husband Hendarto (Barry Prima!) must go out to sea. As she waits alone, she decides to take a job as a model for a clothing store. To her horror, she learns that it's really from her old boss - back when she was a call girl - Mami (Ruth Pelupessi) and Rudy (Rudy Salam), the scummy owner of the store who attempts to assault her.
As she runs from this, she's forced off the road as a stationwagon is broken down in the middle of it. Four thugs and Rudy soon emerge to attack her, raping her multiple times. She gets no justice from the courts and a doctor refuses her when she tries to get an abortion, so when she tries to do it herself, she ends up dying, as her maid Bi Ijah (Marlia Hardi) finds her in a pool of blood, along with a fetus.
When her husband returns home, he puts flowers on her grave that mysteriously appear on her bed. He also meets her near-twin, Shinta, who is truly her and able to transform into a cat. Now comes revenge.
The revenge! Trees falling on men, a scumbag impaled by the tombstone of the woman he put on this path, even hands emerging from a wall to kill someone.
How classic is this movie and its lead? When it was remade in 2018, it - and the main character - were retitled Suzzanna: Bernapas dalam Kubur in tribute.
You will believe a ghost can eat all the food and drink all the soup in a restaurant before everything she has consumed drains from the hole in her back. You will hear "Night on Bald Mountain" many times. And your mind will be destroyed in all the best of ways.
Sadly, this is a film that perhaps speaks just as much to our world today as it did when it was made, across the world and forty years ago. A woman cannot get justice in any traditional way, much less rid herself of a child born through sexual assault. Only the supernatural and the other world can give her what she deserves.
Suzzanna: The Queen of Black Magic (2024)
A whole new world
Nearly unknown in the United States, Suzzanna Martha Frederika van Osch - better known as Suzzanna - was crowned the queen of Indonesian horror.
The youngest of six Javanese-Minahasan-Sundanese-German-Dutch children born to singer Johanna Bojoh and actor Willem Van Osch, Suzanna started acting in 1958, winning a contest to appear in Usmar Ismail's Asrama Dara. By the end of the 1960s, she was married to actor Dicky Suprapto - who this film gets into, as he left her and would not grant a divorce - and then, by 1972, she was the most popular actress in the country. Her film Bernafas dalam Lumpur had a frank depiction of sexuality that was incendiary in its home country, leading to it being banned.
Suzanna's real fame came from her horror films. With long black hair and a terrifying stare - sort of like an Indonesian Barbara Steele - Suzzanna played frightening villains in a series of movies that thrilled and also frightened audiences. She also kept the appearances of magic up in the stories of her personal life, as some claimed that she prayed to a "lady of the sea" and that she drank jasmine flowers to remain young. Or that story that when she made Nyi Blorong that the wig of snakes that was placed on her head was calm whenever it was near her.
Her death - said to be from diabetes complications - in 2008 was just as mysterious as the life that she led, to the point that some claimed she was murdered.
What she leaves behind is a career filled with many movies playing women done wrong. That's apparent in nearly every actress' career. Where she differs is that once the act has been done to her, she returns and gets her comeuppance. Sure, her back may be leaking and leeches could be pouring out of them. But then she'd affix that stare at her enemies and found a dignity that many women done wrong in cinema never attain.
Directed by David Gregory, this documentary combines clips of her most famous films with interviews with family members, colleagues, filmmakers and historians. What emerges is exactly what should from a film like this: a burning desire to seek out all of Suzzanna's films and devour them with the magical appetite she used to chow down on 200 satay sticks and an entire vat of soup in Sundelbolong.
Panna a netvor (1978)
Monstrous
Known in its native Czech language as Panna a netvor (The Virgin and the Monster), this was directed by Juraj Herz, who also made The Cremator, Morgiana, The Ninth Heart and Ferat Vampire.
Julie (Zdena Studenková) is the youngest of three daughters born to a widower (Václav Voska). Riding by horseback and looking for a flower for her, he falls asleep and awakens in front of the horrific castle of Netvor (Vlastimil Harapes), a half-man, half-falcon creature that condemns him to death for picking one of his flowers unless one of his daughter's sacrifices herself to live forever with him. He should be worried. After all, his horse has already died, forcing him to walk and he's also found the body of a dead woman. So when he asks his daughters to save him, the already married and wealthy Gábinka (Jana Brejchová) and Málinka (Zuzana Kocúriková) refuse, but Julie saves her father just as her beauty will soon rescue the beast.
Yes, just like a Disney film, this is based on La Belle et la Bête by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont. Unlike that animated tale, this has no dancing table service. Instead, it's a gothic and frightening movie, a film that Herz didn't want to make as he saw the Jean Cocteau film as unapproachable in its perfection. Yet he does the same here, turning nearly every frame into a painting and having an otherworldly beast that is at once terrifying and sexual, with human eyes calling out from behind a bird's face.
Sayyedat al-Bahr (2019)
Scales
On an island in the middle of the ocean, the fishermen ensure that everyone has enough to eat by giving the gods their daughters, throwing them into the sea. All of them do this except for Muthana (Al Farhan), who saves Hayat (Hajjar), making her an outcast.
Twelve years later, as her mother becomes pregnant again, there's a chance she can become part of the village and her family, but a boy is born. She's taken to the water again and yet escapes, ending up a fisherman herself on the boat sailed by Amer (Ashraf Barhoum).
The older sailor doesn't know what to make of the woman with scales on one foot; what are we to make of the villagers who have been eating mermaids, the very daughters they tossed into the ocean, reborn?
Directed by Shahad Ameen, this black and white Saudi film is bleak. But isn't the world getting darker for women over just the last few weeks? The men are free to sail the open waters while the women hide indoors, praying that their child may either feed the village as part of their death or that their next child be a man. I'll think about this film for many days to come.
Iodo (1977)
Io Island
Kim Ki-young made horror films after studying to be a dentist and making propaganda movies. His 1960 movie, The Housemaid, is considered to be one of the best Korean films ever. Today, filmmakers like Im Sang-soo, Bong Joon-ho and Park Chan-wook proclaim his films like Woman of Fire, Insect Woman, Woman Chasing the Butterfly of Death and this movie. When Youn Yuh-jung won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Minari, she brought up Kim Ki-young in her speech and said that he was a genius.
There's an island in legend called Parang where the men die after they reproduce, leaving behind a country of women. Marketing manager Seon Woo-hyeon (Kim Chung-chui) has named a new resort after this place and plans a boat trip to the island that inspired it for the media but journalist Cheon Nam-seok (Choi Yun-seok) refuses to go as he believes that Parang is real. After the two go for a drink, Cheon Nam-seok disappears and Seon Woo-hyeon is blamed for his death. To clear his name, he goes to Parang to discover what it's really like.
Imagine what happens when he finds a pagan society that is run by women, all of them the widows of men lost to the sea. Chun's past is strange, as his father disappeared after first seeing the island, his mother committed suicide after being taken advantage of by an exorcist and the exorcist's daughter stole money so he could escape the island, if not his deadly destiny. As for her, she was tied to rocks on the beach and left to die.
There's so much mystery in this that the central murder no longer matters. There's a strange shaman, women desperate to be with child, a water demon, pollution, necrophilia and so much more. This isn't a sit back and relax movie. It must be devoured and explored.
Born of Fire (1987)
Born of Fire
I've often discussed waiting to see a movie until the time is perfect.
That's what I had done with this film, a movie in which musician Paul Bergson (Peter Firth) searches for the Master Flautist (Orla Pederson), a supernatural creature who is planning to destroy our planet.
Directed by Jamil Dehlavi, this was amazingly released on home video by Vidmark, and I can't even imagine people who just picked it up at the video store making their way through it without preparation.
During a concert, Peter has visions of the end of the world. At the time time, an astronomer (Suzan Crowley) discovers patterns on the surface of the sun caused by a volcano in Turkey, which is where Peter came from. He goes back and discovers that his mother was stoned when he was a child and that he has a mute, deformed brother (Nabil Shaban) who is still alive, and is brought to civility by the woman, just in time for the fire breathing djinn who is the Master Flautist to possess her and have her sexually assault Peter. And oh yeah, she goes and spawns in a hot spring, spewing forth blood and fish eggs. Later, she buries a moth and as it is born, she dies in Paul's brother's arms as he breaks his silence and screams.
The brothers do what they must: they perform a flute and baritone concert that floods the caves and kills the Master Flautist.
Can you imagine the folks who rented this five movies for five nights for five dollars? Blood in the water, a skull eclipsing the moon, Islamic demons, full frontal male and female nudity, passages from the Koran...I don't know if I've ever seen a movie like this, a nearly wordless film with images that break your mind and one of the heroes has osteogenesis imperfecta and would go on to play Sil on Doctor Who.
It starts with this quote from Jelaleddin Rumi: "In the rhythm of music a secret is hidden; If I were to divulge it, it would overturn the world." Rumi also wrote, "Do not feel lonely, the entire universe is inside you." and "Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself."
Allow this movie into your life sooner than I did.
SGaawaay K'uuna (2018)
Another place
Haida is the language of the Haida people, which is spoken only in the Haida Gwaii archipelago off the coast of Canada and on Prince of Wales Island in Alaska. This endangered language, which once had 15,000 speakers, has just 24 today. Today, nearly all Haida people use English, but there are efforts to revitalize this language before its too late.
Edge of the Knife was made with input from Haida Gwaii residents and University of British Columbia professor Leonie Sandercock with the goal of preserving and teaching the language. The budget was raised with the help of the Council of the Haida Nation, the Canada Media Fund and Telefilm Canada and this was created primarily by indigenous people, including the co-directors, a mostly amateur crew and the Haida cast, who were taught to speak Haida at a two-week training camp, as none of them could have a conversation in the language before making this.
There's nothing like this movie, which is at once an educational lesson that will preserve and teach Haida to future generations, but also a film shot with a small budget in a rough location, using words that have never been filmed before. That alone requires a watch. That it's a well-made movie with an interesting legend in its soul makes it worth telling others about.
The Enchanted (1984)
The Enchanted
The Enchanted is a Florida regional film that mainly played the South but still found its way to the CBS Late Movie. It was self-released on DVD by its filmmakers but the first blu ray release is on the new Severin All the Haunts Be Ours Volume 2 box set.
This doe shave quite a budget for a regional film - supposedly over a million - and was made between 1979 and 1983. Why this was sold to TV and not to the video market - which was making big money at the time and was begging for product, much less horror and horror-adjacent movies - is a mystery.
Booker T. Robertson (Julius Harris) and his dog Pete are walked the swamps of the Everglades when they come upon a trailer filled with people. Seeing as how Booker knows everyone, the idea that strangers are her is a bit frightening to him. On the way back home, he runs into the son of one of his dead friends, Royce Hagen (Will Sennett), who has decided to leave the world behind and move back home.
Royce is fixing up the family farm and has hired a family new to the area, the Perdys - Pa (John Hallock), Ma (Helen Blanton) and their children - who provide him with cheap labor as well as romance, as he's fallen for their daughter Twyla (Cassey Blanton). Booker isn't so sure about them, but his warnings go unheard.
That's because Booker knows that in the woods there are two worlds, one for the living and the other for the dead, along with a "Hole In the Wall" where spirits can move back and forth. Once Twyla moves into Royce's bed, Booker washes his hands of this.
The Perdys are all vegetarians and Twyla is quite strange. She's somehow a virgin despite being past thirty, paints nature murals all day and is deathly afraid of cats. Meanwhile, as love blossoms, animals are being killed all over town by wolves.
Writer Elizabeth Coatsworth created the story this is based on, starting with The Enchanted: An Incredible Tale and telling the Perdy story across four books. The family feels vaguely hippy and by 1979 when this was made, hippy meant Manson Family. Who faints when they see a chicken being served for dinner? But the twist - given away super early - is pretty great and I love the issues that everyone talks about in reviews as downsides. I see them as upsides: amateur acting, long glimpses of nature and animals instead of storytelling, odd editing choices. Add in Phil Sawyer's synth score and you get a singular movie that presents the unknown within the known, the mystery and magic of a part of America gone unexplored and often forgotten.
The Legend of Hillbilly John (1972)
AMAZING!
Manly Wade Wellman worked in so many genres - historical fiction, detective tales, Western stories, juvenile fiction, comic books, non-fiction, science fiction and fantasy - and had his stories become episodes of The Twilight Zone and Monsters but he's best known for the fantasy and horror stories set in the Appalachian Mountains near the North Carolina he loved so much.
Perhaps his most beloved character is Silver John or John the Balladeer. He may be a simple country man who has just returned from Korean, where he was a sharpshooter, but he has a high degree of knowledge, mostly of the occult. He carries John George Hohman's Long Lost Friend, a book Pennsylvania Dutch spells, talismans and remedies. Most importantly, he also has a guitar with strings of pure silver. There's also some spiritual link between him and John the Baptist.
Beyond these stories being filled with the legends of the Carolinas, the songs that John sings throughout are all true. I love this quote about these tales: "Whereas Tolkien integrated Northern mythology into his mythos, and C. S. Lewis the European Fairy Tales of yore, Wellman's stories are drenched in the folktales and songs of old Americana; the haunting stories of the slaves and the tall tales of the Revolution, strange beasts, witch-women and dark apparitions."
Based on two of the Silver John adventures, "The Desrick on Yandro" and "O Ugly Bird," this is nearly a portmanteau of John John (Hedges Capers), as well as information on all manner of legends, including dowser Mr. Marduke (Severn Darden) explaining how important the devil is to Appalachian culture. Oh yes - a dowser is someone who uses a diving rod to find water, minerals or gold underground.
We also learn how John gets his silver stringed guitar from his grandfather (Denver Pyle) who decides to sing against the Defy, who is the devil around these parts. Their battle is so brutal that is literally breaks the film and ends with the devil triumphant, as American silver is not as pure as the money of the past.
Before John can outsing the dark one, he goes to a mountain where he meets Zebulon Yandro (Harris Yulin), whose grandfather once turned against a witch that he had been given gold by. He told her he'd be her lover for a year but took the treasure and ran to become an undertaker. Now that she still lives on the mountain and looks like a young, gorgeous girl (Susan Strasberg) but Yandro doesn't get the good end of this deal. John does, as he's pointed to the next stage in his quest, Hark Mountain, which is being mined by warlock O. J. Onselm (Alfred Ryder), followed by a sharecropper named Captain Lajoie H. Desplaines IV (Percy Rodrigues). Luckily, he has the help of Uncle Anansi (Chester Jones), who is related to the West African spider god.
Why does John help people who would sooner be afraid of him? Well, that's just what he does. He'd probably be happier living with his woman, Lily (Sharon Henesy), sleeping in the warmth of the fire instead of outside in the mountains, getting to spend time with her and his dog Honor Hound. But heroes don't get to make choices for themselves.
Directed by John Newland (who directed 96 episodes of One Step Beyond and the TV movies Don't Be Afraid of the Dark and Crawlspace) and written by Melvin Levy, this takes a departure from the books by having John younger and way less sure of himself. It does have the benefit of "The Devil," sung by Hoyt Axton, and that Hedges Capers was such a good singer himself. More for hippies than perhaps the audience for the books, this is still such a unique film, one I'd wanted to see for so long and quite pleased that it's as magnificent as it is.
To Fire You Come at Last (2023)
To Fire
In rural 17th century England, Squire Marlow (Mark Carlisle) offers several men double their normal wages if they carry his son's coffin to the graveyard by night. The group includes best friend of the dead man Holt (Harry Roebuck), the drunken Ransley (James Swanton), the servant Pike (Richard Rowden) and the Squire, who wants to say goodbye to his son.
Despite the warnings and superstitions, they undertake the walk and begin to argue, as both Holt and Ransley had wronged the Squire's son, who promises revenge. As it grows darker, they begin to see an ominous dog and spectres surrounding them.
I never heard of a corpse road before this. As England grew and churches became closer together, ministers had these highways created to connect faraway locations and mother churches with the main church having the burial rights. That means that poorer people had to transport the dead many miles through dangerous terrain. Unless they were a wealthy family, that meany that pallbearers would shoulder them by hand the whole way.
These roads were left unplowed and sometimes went near and even through homes, as changing the route was bad luck. This is also where the legends of corpse candles or fires started, as they were lights that would enlighten the pathway to the grave.
While a bit talkative and like a stage play, this was a great start to the All the Haunts Be Ours Volume Two set. Now I need to watch Sean Hogan's other films. I'd seen his part in Little Deaths, but now I want to track down The Devil's Business and Lie Still, as well as the fan films he made, The Thing: 27,000 Hours and Halloween:H33. I haven't had the benefit of watching much 1970s British TV horror and I've read how scary it can be.
As always, I have so much homework to do.
The Creature Wasn't Nice (1981)
Something
Also known as Naked Space and Spaceship, The Creature Wasn't Nice was directed and written by Bruce Kimmel, who is probably best known for his other movie, The First Nudie Musical, as well as his acting career. He's also worked on numerous stage plays, written twenty-five books and even put on production of a musical, Levi, that was based on the story of Levi Strauss with a book by Larry Cohen and a score by the Sherman Brothers. He also came up with the idea for The Faculty.
Kimmel's director's cut was only seen twice before producers cut it to pieces. Kimmel loved the old science fiction movies but thought that slashers were evil and despicable.
Beyond Leslie Nielsen - which explains the Spaceship and Naked Space titles being named after Airplane! And The Naked Gun - this has a great cast with Cindy Williams, Gerrit Graham and Patrick Macnee, all of whom seem to be having a wonderful time. Along with Kimmel, they make up the five-person crew of the Vertigo, which is looking for new life when they must land on a planet.
Soon, a goopy red alien is on board and singing "I Want To Eat Your Face" and there's also a series of parodies, like a cooking show and an elderly Dirty Harry. There's also footage from This Island Earth and Spectreman, as well as a talking computer that was supposed to be played by Broderick Crawford.
It's all over the place and frequently falls apart, but Cindy Williams is so plucky and Leslie Nielsen is always funny even in sub-zero parody films and this doesn't reach those lows.
This feels like if no one on Dark Star smoked grass.
Botan-dôrô (1968)
Peony Lantern
Also known as Peony Lantern and by its Japanese title, Botan doro, The Bride from Hades starts at the Obon lantern festival, which is when spirits return to visit their relatives and the newly dead go to the afterlife. A man named Shinzaburo (Kojiro Hongo) meets a gorgeous woman there, Otsuyu (Miyoko Akaza), as well as her maid Oyone (Michiko Otsuka).
After the death of her samurai father, Otsuyu has had to become a sex worker to pay off the debts of her family. Shinzaburo falls in love with her, even though he has an arranged marriage planned by his family. Before she goes into the brothel for life, she wants to lose her virginity to him and does, yet his servant Banzo (Ko Nishimura) notes that she has no feet and therefore, must be a ghost. He uses symbols to close the home from the undead, but when his wife begs him to take the money they have offered, the spirit returns for one more night, taking his master to the grave.
The truth is that unless Otsuya makes love on this night, she will be alone for eternity. While a ghost story, this is just as much as romantic film. Director Satsuo Yamamoto makes this a serious film, more than the 1972 remake Hellish Love, which was part of Nikkatsu's Roman Porno series and concentrates more on the sex than the ghosts. In this take, love seems to triumph even when an entire village shows up to chant a specter out of having sex with you.
Tôkaidô Yotsuya kaidan (1959)
Ghost
Director Nobuo Nakagawa is known for his takes on Japanese folk horror, including Kaidan hebi-onna, Jigoku, Onna Kyuketsuki and Borei Kaibyo Yashiki. This is his adaption of the kabuki play Yotsuya Kaidan.
Umbrella maker and would-be samurai Iemon Tamiya (Shigeru Amachi) wants to marry Oiwa (Katsuko Wakasugi) and stands outside the home of her father Samon, beginning for her hand in marriage. He wants nothing to do with the boy, so he insults him, earning enough of his ire that he and his companion Sato are both killed by the samurai.
Naosuke (Shuntaro Emi) watched the whole thing and agrees to be quite if Iemon tells Oiwa and her sister Sode that their father was murdered by a criminal named Usaburo. He also asks for the samurai's help in throwing Sode's fiance, Yomoshichi (Ryuzaburo Nakamura) to his death.
A year finds Iemon and Oiwa married, as well as her sister and Naosuke. Iemon is already tired of her and wants to move on in both beauty and status, so he hires a masseuse named Takuetsu (Jun Otomo) to seduce his wife, hoping she will give in and he can legally kill her as the result of adultery. Takuetsu fails, but she's already taken the poison he brought, as her face breaks out in horrible blisters. She tries to kill him but only slashes herself, yet when Iemon returns, he kills the massage man and nails both of the victims to wood and sets it down the river.
That night, Iemon marries Ume (Junko Ikeuchi), the daughter of a rich nobleman. Just as quickly, the ghosts of Oiwa and Takuetsu appear. She finally attacks Iemon, who fights back with his sword, killing his wife and her parents. Hiding in a temple, he's soon joined by Naosuke, who has also seen the ghosts. Oiwa tells her sister that Yomoschichi lives and together, they plan on revenge.
Iemon takes some of that by killing Naosuke, but when Yomoschichi and Sode arrive, the ghosts have so haunted him that he can't defend himself. The movie ends on an image of Oiwa holding a child in the afterlife.
This has been filmed many times, but many say that this is the definitive version. It's certainly bloodier and moodier than you'd expect for a movie made all the way back in 1959.
Banditi a Orgosolo (1961)
Interesting
Michel (Michele Cossu) is a shepherd in Sardinia who has been wrongly accused of stealing livestock and killing a policeman. He runs into the hills with his brother Peppeddu (Peppeddu Cossu) and their flock, which they are still paying for. Losing the sheep would be too much to bear for his family, but that's what happens as they are chased by the authorities. Then, facing a trial, he decides to be what he has been charged with: a criminal.
Directed by Vittorio De Seta, who wrote the script with Vera Gherarducci, this has a documentary feel, as those are the movies that De Seta started his career with. This is the story of a poor man who only has his job to sustain him, living within some of the most remote areas of the world, just trying to earn a living when the rest of the universe seems to conspire against him. There is no mastering nature just as there is often no way out when your back is against the rocks.
This is a gorgeous, if dismal, film and while set in the 20th century, it could have been set at any time, as the world that it comes from has remained the same since we counted time.
Choueki juhachi-nen (1967)
Eighteen Years
Trying to survive post-war Japan, Kawada (Noboru Ando) and Tsukada (Asao Koike) are caught by the military stealing copper wire. While Kawada is arrested and goes to prison, Tsukada escapes and starts a gang with the money he's made. As he suffers the cruel attention of Warden Hannya (Tomisaburo Wakayama), Kawada dreams of getting out of prison and the revenge he must take.
Directed by Tai Kato, this was followed in the same year by a sequel, Choeki juhachi-nen: Kari shutsugoku. Noburo Ando volunteered for a suicide frogmen unit during World War II, but that ended before he could give his life. In 1952, he formed his own Yakuza family, the Ando-gumi, which had three hundred members at one point. He was sent to jail for six years after sending a hitman to kill a rival and when he got out, he dissolved the gang and went into acting.
He said, "In Japanese, the only difference between yakuza and yakusha - an actor - is one hiragana character. All yakuza have to be actors to survive." He was also a singer and played himself in movies about his life, but American audiences probably know him best for New Battles Without Honor and Humanity and Graveyard of Honor.
As Kawada comes to terms with what the war has made him do, he rises to the defense of the underdog in jail life, all while Tsukada is the opposite, now firmly embracing power and ruthlessness.
Art imitates life, as Kawada also feels that he must atone for sending the brother of Hisako (Hiroko Sakuramachi) on a suicide mission during the war. Noburo Ando left prison to meet with the mother of the man he had killed and asked for forgiveness. In this movie, he tries for the same by attempting to mentor her brother Shuichi (Masaomi Kondo) when he is placed in the same cell.
When Kawada learns that his former partner hasn't opened a market to help people but instead a brothel - and caused the suicide of a former lover - he must leave behind prison and the mentorship of the Yakuza elder Osugi (Michitaro Mizushima).
This is a movie that shows just how bad Japan was at the close of the war and how it had to both forgive itself and find a new path, even if it was one person doing so.
Kutsukake Tokijiro - yukyo ippiki (1966)
Lonely Yakuza
Tokijiro (Kinnosuke Nakamura) has left behind being a killer and instead is wandering in search of freedom. That's impossible, as he still has obligations, including one to a gang boss which forces him to kill a man named Mutsuda no Sanzo (Chiyonosuke Azuma). Seeking absolution, he listens to the man's dying wish and vows to take care of his victim's widow Okinu (Junko Ikeuchi) and her young son. That doesn't matter to the Yakuza, who now want the entire family killed.
Directed by Tai Kato, whose Eighteen Years In Prison was also released by Radiance, this takes the novel Kutsukake Tokijiro by Shin Hasegawa and creates a gangster film that's set in the Muromachi period. Tokijiro may be the deadliest of all swordsmen, but he has a code of honor that he must follow no matter what, even when it goes against his moral code. Complicated, yes. That said, he leads a violent, bloody and often depressing existence in which he must follow duty to the end.
Even those who kill for a living have to believe in something. Can someone ever wash their hands of all that murder? And for a movie that asks these questions, it isn't afraid to present up close and gritty battles filled with blood.
Viva la muerte (1971)
Long Live
Filmed in Algeria, France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Brazil, Philippines, Morocco and Tunisia, Long Live Death! Is directed and written by Fernando Arrabal, who co-founded the Panic Movement with Alejandro Jodorowsky and Roland Topor.
He based much of the movie on his own experiences growing up during the Spanish Civil War. The main character is Fando (Mahdi Chaouch), whose mother (Nuria Espert) turns his father in to the authorities as a suspected communist. She tells her son that he was executed but in truth, he's only been placed in jail. As a result, his son wonders if he's even alive and what happened to him.
That's a basic explanation of a movie that is a hallucination of violence with shocking moments in almost every frame. Arrabal's father was captured by the Spanish Army, was supposed to spend thirty years in prison and then escaped after entering a mental hospital, disappearing into the snow. He was never seen again.
This movie feels like him trying to work that out. What emerges is a movie filled with real surgical footage and no shortage of animal violence. It's near Italian in its slaughter so beware if you're upset when that happens in movies. Humans are also destroyed in this, as a man is buried and has horses step on his exposed head, while a priest has his balls cut off and then fed to him.
Pure shock and not for shock's sake. This is filmmaking and presents an unfiltered look at a world that no ten year old should have been put through.
Mute Witness (1995)
Wow!
The debut movie of Anthony Waller, who would go on to make An American Werewolf In Paris, Mute Witness is the story of Billy Hughes (Marina Zudina), a make-up artist working on a slasher movie in Moscow that is directed by Andy Clark (Evan Richards). She knows him, as he's the boyfriend of her sister Karen (Fay Ripley).
What she does not know is that there's also an adult movie being shot on the same set at night and it's not just a pornographic film, it's also a snuff movie.
She's chased by the killer, Arkadi (Igor Volkov) and the director, Lyosha (Sergei Karlenkov), forcing her to jump out a window. Her sister arrives to save her and Lyosha acts like he happened on this accident.
After the police arrive, Billy is able to communicate that she's seen a killing. They use her special effects to tell the authorities that it was all for a movie. Meanwhile, Arkadi is disposing of the woman's body in an incinerator and a man known only as The Reaper (referred to as a special guest, we'll get to that soon) shows up to make sure everything has proceeded properly.
Luckily for Billy, she's protected by Detective Aleksander Larsen (Oleg Yankovsky), a Moscow cop who has been after this snuff film crew. Not that Billy can't protect herself, as she throws a hairdryer into a bathtub to take out the director. But can Larsen be trusted? And why does The reaper think she has a disk that has all the information the police need to stop him?
Roger Ebert compared this movie to Halloween and Blood Simple. That's how good it is. I wish it's director didn't get stuck with such a bad movie to make once he got to Hollywood.
As for The Reaper, that's Alec Guinness. His cameo was filmed nearly a decade before this movie, as Waller worked with him on a commercial. The actor asked for no money, which ended up being one of his final roles. All that he asked was that he not be credited in the film and there be no press surrounding his involvement in it. That's why The Reaper is played by Mystery Guest Star.
Dogura magura (1988)
Weird!
A man named Kure Ichiro (Yoji Matsuda) wakes in an asylum with no memory and is told by Dr. Wakabayashi (Hideo Murota) and Dr. Masaki (Shijaku Katsura) that he's blocking the past as he killed his bride on his wedding day. However, his treatment begins to confuse fantasy and reality, especially a manuscript called Dogra Magra.
Based on the novel by Kyusaku Yumeno and the last film of director Toshio Matsumoto, Dogra Magra is a movie that features a hospital filled with pickled punk babies in jars, doctors who try and convince a man that he's a character in a novel, rotten corpses and a reality that may or may not be true. One of the doctors might now even be alive.
This is a film with no easy answers and maybe the best way to watch it is just to let it wash over you and try to figure it all out on the tenth rewatch.
Otogiriso (2001)
Wild!
Otogiriso wasn't marketed as a video game but instead a sound novel, today called a visual novel. Koichi Nakamura conceived the title after showing his work on the Dragon Quest games to a girl he was dating. She didn't understand the game or why people would want to play it, so he decided to make a video game "for people who haven't played games before."
Obviously, his work was inspired by another video game that led to a series of better-known games (and movies), Sweet Home. Nakamura said, "The thing that was really interesting about Sweet Home was that it so scary that you didn't want to continue playing. I wanted to create an experience where the user would be too afraid to press the button to continue the story, too."
It's less of a game and more of a Choose Your Own Adventure novel where you make choices at different point as you and your girlfriend Nami survive a car accident and arrive at a mansion. Nobody answers when they ring the bell, so of course they go inside.
If you play emulated games, you can try it out here in English.
Nami Kaizawa (Megumi Okina) has inherited her family's money and gigantic home, which holds bad memories as her father, who abandoned her. Deciding that she should explore it, she takes her ex-boyfriend Kohei Matsudaira (Yoichiro Saito), who is a fan of her father's sinister paintings. He has already decided that the house would be perfect for a new video game that he is working on with Nami, so he brings a web camera and sends back footage to his friends and fellow designers Toko Ozeki (Reiko Matsuo) and Soichi Kaizawa (Reiko Matsuo).
The film is not just a video game movie, but literally like a Twitch channel, as we see the designers drawing maps of the house as Nami and Kohei make their way through the secret rooms and keys that you would expect to look for in a game just like this.
Directed by Shimoyama Ten, this has strange multihued visuals that are very 2001, but that's the joy of it to me. It plays with the idea of what is real and what is the game - like eXistenZ - and has creepy dolls, a frightening caretaker, a heroine with memory lapses and plenty of gore. As I got into other reviews, I couldn't believe so many people didn't like it as much as me. Maybe I watching other people enjoy games?
Tales from the Crypt: Two for the Show (1993)
TRACI!
Andy (David Paymer) and Emma (Traci Lords) are having the same dinner and the same conversation about work and finally, Emma has enough and tells her husband she wants passion, so she's running away. He chokes her and as she tries to fight back, he stabs her, leaving her for dead.
"I tell you, ladies and germs, that ghoul-friend of mine makes me so crazy. She told me she thought she'd look good in something long and flowing, so I threw her in the Mississippi! Hmm. And how about that Ernest Hemingway, always shooting his mouth Oh. Hello? Anybody? I know you're out there, folks. I can hear you bleeding! Is this on? Hmm. I know what this crowd wants. A little slay on words! Maybe a couple of nasty fright gags? Something along the lines of tonight's nasty nugget? It's a little tale about marriage, or if you prefer, about wife and death. I call it: "Two for the Show.""
He's soon being questioned by Officer Fine (Vincent Spano) about what has happened to Emma. Afterward, as he loads a box with her body in it on a train for Chicago, Andy has to get on board, as Office Fine asks what's in the trunk. He says that he's going to meet his wife, which means he must take the train and sit next to the cop, who keeps asking him about killing his wife. After all, Fine has a wife he'd like to murder.
What would the odds be if their wives were having an affair with one another?
Directed by Kevin Hooks (Passenger 57) and written by Gilbert Adler and AL Katz, this has some good twists and turns. And you knew I'd like it just because Traci Lords is in the cast.
"Two for the Show" is based on a story in Crime SuspenStories #17 that was written by Al Feldstein and William Gaines and drawn by Jack Kamen. Actually, that story works alongside another story in the same issue, "One for the Money," as the corpse in that story pays off this one.
Guang Dong liang zai yu (1982)
Silly but good
Luo Yihu (Hwang Jang-Lee), the master of the Northern Legs Clan, has killed the master - Mr. Zhang (Yen Shi-Kwan) - of two young students - He Jiayu (Wong Yu) and Wu Dezhi (Chiang Kam) before letting them know that they're next. They're also idiots who would rather argue and prank one another than get better at fighter, so this will not be easy.
Directed by Hsu Hsia, Kid from Kwangtung, this takes its time to get to that fight, as it spends so much of the running time having He Jiayu and Wu Dezhi dress like roosters and a centipede to do costumed battle. You also get incense as a weapon, hopping vampires, an appearance of some of the synth effects from Flash Gordon, lots of blood and more silliness than ultra serious Shaw Brothers lovers may want. As for me, I had a blast, as this movie jumps from scene to scene and is devoted to entertaining you and making you laugh. What else can you ask for?
South Korean martial artist Hwang Jang-Lee was only in two Shaw Brothers movies, this film and Ghosts Galore. He's also in Drunken Master, Snuff Bottle Connection, Bruce Lee Fights Back from the Grave, Millionaire's Express and many more. He was scheduled to direct a film for Shaw Brothers but disagreements with actor Wong Yu led to him ending his contract.
Isola: Tajuu jinkaku shôjo (2000)
Weirdness
Directed by Toshiyuki Mizutani, who wrote it with Mugita Kinosita, this takes place after the 1995 Great Hanshin earthquake, which saw at least 5,000 deaths. Yukari (Yoshino Kimura) has come to the city of Kobe to help with the rescue efforts.
As a psychic, Yukari can feel the thoughts of others. This isn't always good, as the violent urges of people disturb her. She meets Chiharo (Yû Kurosawa), who has thirteen different personalities, and who is a loner after her classmates bullied her, blaming her for the drowning - in a toilet! - of a fellow student. When a gym teacher throws her down the steps, putting her in the hospital, Chiharo is still to blame when that man kills himself.
Why does Chiharo have these voices fighting inside her? Is it the abuse of her uncle Tatsurô (Kazuhiro Yamaji)? Or is the out of body experiences that she was forced to undertake from scientist Yayoi Takano (Makiko Watanabe)? Maybe both?
There is a thirteenth personality no one has seen yet, one behind the pain that Chiharo unleashes. That is Isola and she is starting to break through. I've always wanted to get into a sensory deprivation tank but after this, maybe I should reconsider.