Best Horror Film of 1973 (part 21 of a series)

If The Exorcist takes it, it'll only be because Don't Look Now and The Wicker Man split voters.

Wow, what a great year, even among the paltry percentage of this list that I've seen. Tempted to vote for The Asphyx, which is basically an overlong Twilight Zone episode, but has fun, eerie premise and a great Man-With-Xray-Eyes-"I can still see!"-style payoff that it's worth every second.

Wouldn't be so sure about The Exorcist. Wicker Man is much beloved 'round these parts.

xp

Reminds me I need to watch Warhol's Frankenstein again. I think it's streaming on Netflix. Udo Kier is so amazing -- "To understand life, you have to fuck it in the gall bladder!"

you have to fuck DEATH in the gall bladder!

I've only ever seen Warhol's Dracula, which is ... something.

"Don't Look Now" and "The Wicker Man" definitely split the batshit not quite horror vote, that's for sure.

every1 shd def see flesh of frankenstein

oh man

maybe the crazies?

After this series of polls runs its course, I'd be interested in seeing the results of a poll for 'best year for horror movie titles', 'cause clearly '73 is coming up strong on that front.

Would probably vote for Wicker Man or Exorcist, of the ones I've seen.

yeah this is a pretty killer year all told

btw if i havent said this already, i love love love these polls and they are among my favorite things ever on ilx, so thx darin

i've had this pet theory for a while that you need to have some kind of religious background - nothing extreme, just grow up w/some churchiness - to find the Exorcist scary. it always bored the heck outta me.

yeah i am actually completely with you there - never got it at all

i mean well done movie but yeah doesnt do it for me

BINGO--coming into direct contact with the devil was about my #1 fear as a child. The very idea of this movie was too scary for me to deal with until I was in my teens.

wow I've only seen three of these (Theater of Blood, Wicker Man, and Excorcist)

I used to think that too, re: religiousity & Exorcist, but the last time I watched it, it seemed to be making a specific appeal through atheism as the given (i.e. Ellen Burstyn's offended reaction to someone putting a cross under her daughter's pillow).

i mean well done movie but yeah doesnt do it for me

yep totally agree as well. It's a good movie, but the supposedly horrifying aspects of it all seem kinda silly to me. Biskind OTM that it's all about fear of women/female sexuality

wow, a lot of good stuff here

Legend of Hell House is pretty damn good, marred only by a laughable 'shocker' ending. Non-stop creepy atmosphere up to that point.

http://roarvis.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/legend_of_hell_house21.jpg

the thing I always found kind of laughable about the Exorcist is that the Devil seems like kind of a pussy. Like, really, all he can do is sort of transform this teenage girl, hurl some furniture around, and get one guy to kill himself? pretty weak sauce, Satan!

lol

I'll point out once more that I saw warhol's frankenstein in 3D and wait here for the tsunami of your jealousy to flow over me

i voted for Sisters btw

the thing I always found kind of laughable about the Exorcist is that the Devil seems like kind of a pussy. Like, really, all he can do is sort of transform this teenage girl, hurl some furniture around, and get one guy to kill himself? pretty weak sauce, Satan!

And murder Burke Dennings.

Anyway, I grew up with little-to-no religious exposure -- my dad was a non-practicing Jew and my mom was some-or-other mainline Protestant denomination -- but The Exorcist, first as a novel, then as a movie, scared the ever-loving shit out of me. In many of the same ways as Cronenberg's body horror stuff does, and for the same reasons, involving the rather disgusting attributes of the human body, its transformations, and your helplessness to do anything about it. (The scene in which the housekeeper and the priest view the words "Help Me" appear on the skin of a sleeping Regan, as if she's literally trapped in there, is just hair-raising to me.)

Anyway, the movie itself makes it clear that the point isn't how powerful the demon is or how many tricks he can do, but how effectively he can make the people around Regan question their faith in both God and/or the value of human beings.

Anyway.

these run the gamut from interesting to classic, hopefully hal jam will make an appearance

Andy Warhol's Frankenstein
The Asphyx
The Crazies
Don't Look Now
The Exorcist
Ganja & Hess
Lemora: A Child's Tale of the Supernatural
The Legend of Hell House
Raw Meat
Sisters
Theater of Blood
Tenderness of the Wolves
The Wicker Man

how effectively he can make the people around Regan question their faith in both God and/or the value of human beings.

yeah see this just doesn't work for me, given that there's plenty of mundane, every-day horrifying-level shit that can make people do this ("why does God allow suffering" etc)

After a dying Voodoo queen, Mama Loa, chooses an adopted apprentice, Lisa Fortier (Pam Grier) as her successor, her true heir, Willis, (Richard Lawson) is outraged. Seeking revenge, he buys the bones of Blacula the vampire from the former shaman of the voodoo cult, and uses voodoo to bring the vampire back to do his bidding. In turn, Blacula turns him into a vampire and makes him his slave. Meanwhile, Justin, a police officer with a large collection of African antiques and an interest in the occult, investigates the murders caused by Blacula and his vampire horde. Justin meets Mamuwalde, Blacula's previous name when he was prince of an African nation, at a party he is hosting. Mamuwalde meets Lisa at the party and they talk about voodoo. Mamuwalde later in the movie asks Lisa for help to take the curse of the vampire off him using a voodoo doll that looks like the prince. Justin pulls together other cops to go to the Mamuwalde residence to investigate the recent deaths. While she is performing the ritual, Justin interrupts with other cops performing a raid on the house. Lisa refuses to help Mamuwalde after she sees him kill the other police in the house. In his anger Blacula is about to bite Justin when Lisa stabs Mamuwalde's voodoo doll killing Mamuwalde and forever destroying Blacula.

waht

many great films on this, it's hard not to vote for The Wicker Man but -- Ganja and Hess is a film that just will not leave my head, it's just got too much going on in it, and I've watched it more times, so the vote goes there

http://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC35folder/ganja-Hess.html

xpost haven't seen Blacula, I hear it's pretty rough

btw if i havent said this already, i love love love these polls and they are among my favorite things ever on ilx, so thx darin

thanks man! I worry every now and then that these might polls might be a bit exhaustive, so I'm glad people are still into them.

might have to rep for lemora

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQNmu4Cw72s

xpost still going off on ganja & hess

that article, apart from the first few paragraphs, is definitely one for people who've already seen the film. but all of the links I found have spoilers

I don't know, the whole film is just crammed in with all these incredibly real moments, the interactions between black and white, the nina simone concert program laying on the desk table of the bourgeois museum director, the suicidal artist hanging out in a tree, the self-conscious way the prostitute takes off her wig, the street scenes, the pentacostal choir

the amazing moment when the 'African Vampire Queen' character in full headgear wanders across the field and we all realized she looks familiar and then my friend Laura went "Holy shit, that's Mabel King, the mom from 'What's Happening'" and we all had our minds blown -- that won't mean as much for some people, but to know that this film is woven into that context was, at that moment, an essential connection back to the real world because this film is way, way out there

http://www.stomptokyo.com/otf/Ganja-Hess/Ganja-Hess.htm

/pentecostal! ha. one of the links I was just looking at had a pentagram, I hope that was what forced that inexcusable spelling error

a bunch of these are streaming btw - Lemora, Raw Meat, Blacula, Theater of Blood, The Crazies

avoid the lemora streaming on netflix! awful pan n scan transfer

from a print that was apparently run over by a truck

and dragged 50 feet into a blazing barn

where it was reassembled by blind dwarfs with metal pins for fingers

hopefully that gives you some inkling of how horrible it is

It's been a while since I saw Don't Look Now; didn't care much for it at the time, though I might feel differently today. The Exorcist vs. The Wicker Man is a difficult choice. The Wicker Man is easily the more thoughtful, serious film. But just as pure sensory experience, I still think that The Exorcist on first viewing is the most frightening film ever made. (Unless you think it's laughably silly and it makes you giggle--if you're so inclined, I think that's a perfectly valid response.) I saw it the year of its release at a Florida drive-in--my cousin and I were 12, and our moms took us to the drive-in. She was a great mom! I'm guessing she didn't realize just how intense it would be. (I've always wanted to see Ganja & Hess on a big screen, but I don't think I've ever gotten the chance.)

The Pyx is kind of creepy--that used to play on Canadian TV constantly. I believe you see some skin from Karen Black, so teenage me would never miss it. Didn't care for Sisters the one time I watched it. I think that was a Robin Wood favourite. Theatre of Blood is fun.

have always loved the title "Sssssss" but have never had the guts to actually watch it

haven't seen to many of these, actually. but this thread is making me queue things up like a madman. yeah, these threads are definitely some of my faves on ilx as well.

Mark of the Devil 5: Return of the Blind Dead

this is one of the tombs of the blind dead movies, right? I find the films a bit dull but horror monster design doesn't get much more perfect than this:

http://horrornews.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/tomb_of_blind_Dead_4.jpg

I remember watching "Sssssss" on network tv when I was around 6 years old. Guy slowly turns into a snake. Terrible make up. Wasn't Lee Major or someone like that in it?

At first I thought Baby Yaga was a typo but that is indeed how the Italian flick Baba Yaga was retitled for the anglosphere. Anyway that's a really good and weird one, based on erotic graphic novels. I liked Sugar Cookies, too - that's basically Mary Woronov playing mind games. Hard not to vote for Don't Look Now, though.

Don't Look Now is one of the most overrated films ever, imo. Pretty good sex scene and the opening scene in england is good. Other than that it's ponderous and pedestrian. And the ending is just ridiculous.

why didn't they include the spiderwalk scene when exorcist was first released?

Don't Look Now is great and it gets my vote. Felt like it did the Polanski horror thing better than most Polanski films. Sisters has a lot going for it, but it loses me about halfway-2/3 through. Happens too often for me w/ De Palma.

Voted for The Exorcist, but it was difficult not to choose The Wicker Man: two movies dealing with religion in a rather fascinating way, by the way.
Many good movies, also had a soft spot for Theater of Blood - I saw it when I was a kid, the mix of horror and comedy left me flabbergasted (I was particularly impressed by the killing of Robert Morley).

Yeah, I somehow failed to mention that when I compared those two as the best of the group: they're both about religion.

I mention Robin Wood frequently in these threads, because I read a lot by him when I studied horror films in university. He hated The Exorcist, because it did the opposite of what he thought horror films were supposed to do: The Exorcist reinforces/validates prevailing norms (religion wins out in the end) rather than undermines/destroys them, the way something like Night of the Living Dead does. I suspect Wood would have loved The Wicker Man. He was the key writer for my horror film course, but this litmus test of his was where I parted company with him: above all else, a horror film's first job is to scare you silly. The politics and all the rest is window dressing--at the margins, it might make Film A better (or at least more interesting) than Film B, but The Exorcist accomplishes the primary objective, and that's enough for me.

Yeah, the Exorcist scared the living shit out of me when i first saw it, and scares the living shit out of me still.

The Exorcist reinforces/validates prevailing norms (religion wins out in the end) rather than undermines/destroys them

That's a rather tendentious reading of the movie, I think. While Father Karras might regain his faith in his dying moments (lying on the ground, receiving his final sacraments from Fr. Dyer), it is neither faith nor God that defeats the demon. Father Merrin ends up dead of a heart attack on the bedroom floor, and Karras has to physically attack Regan and tempt the demon with a better prize than a little girl to defeat it. (And to commit suicide in the bargain. In fact, it's his willingness to commit that mortal sin that saves the day, not his faith.) Is Regan running back from the car to hug Fr. Dyer supposed to represent the triumph of religion? Blatty may have felt that the story represented some explicit endorsement of faith, but I think the movie as it stands is a bit more ambiguous than that.

I'd probably agree--and throw in the fact that the possessed Regan is very skilled (and sometimes very funny) ridiculing the pomposity and self-righteousness of Merrin and Karras. Wood could get very dogmatic when dealing with horror films (having recently come out at the time, he was deeply immersed in--and could get very strident about--radical gay politics of the day); if a film fell on the right side of his equation, he tended to embrace it wholly, and those on the wrong side were dimissed wholesale. It's been a while, so maybe I'm simplifying, but I don't remember him hedging over a lot of films. The American Nightmare is a fascinating book, and it had a big influence on me while I was taking this course, but it also used to frustrate me the way he'd discount The Exorcist, Halloween, and Cronenberg because they didn't fit his theory.

I came here to do one thing: vote for The Wicker Man.
Don't Look Now major runner-up, but not a musical, so

While loving a lot of movies in this list (Messiah of Evil is great too, it contains at least two memorable sequences), I just find The Exorcist and Wicker Man a little more of personal interest.
Albeit unknowingly, the latter is an almost verbatim illustration of René Girard's theories about violence and religious scapegoating - The Exorcist is clearly informed by Blatty's paradoxical take on Catholicism, but Friedkin injected enough evil coldness to make it even more twisted.
Also, it should be told that Robin Wood's criticisms are not really valid even in a Catholic perspective: Regan and Karras may have been saved, but there is not (and there can not be) something like a real "victory" - Blatty made this point even more clear on the Ninth Configuration.

a horror film's first job is to scare you silly. The politics and all the rest is window dressing--at the margins, it might make Film A better (or at least more interesting) than Film B

The litmus test for me is if it's still disturbing once you get past the initial shocks, if its "window dressing" still holds my fascination. "Cum for the fear, stay for the pie" type thing. The clash between human beliefs in Wicker Man are, to me, more compelling than some physical manifestation of a made-up devil.

I'd agree with that when it's the basest kind of horror film that scares you one time and one time only. (I won't name any specific examples, because anything I name will have defenders.) So let me amend that to: scares you silly the first time, and keeps scaring you every time you revisit it, like Bill Magill wrote above. But as I said, I understand why many people are completely unconvinced by The Exorcist.

I'd agree with Marco, tho, that Friedkin's jagged take on the material is what's kept me coming back to it even as I move further and further away from religious beliefs.

And The Wicker Man's fantatic--possibly the most disturbing ending of any horror film I can think of (Freaks, Night of the Living Dead...there are other contenders).

"Fantastic."

http://media.nerdblerp.com/uploaded/2011/01/1294958946_fanta.jpgTIC!

the stories about friedkin making the exorcist in easy riders and raging bulls are hilar

iirc the priest who comforts the dying karras was a priest irl, friedkin slapped him in the face to enhance his performance which totally freaked out the crew

When you guys are finished debating The Exorcist, I wanta Fanta.

"The Exorcist" is just such a visceral, relentless, exhausting, shocking movie, which in some ways puts it in the same cultural continuum as "Last House on the Left" and "Texas Chainsaw," however much it's been treated with slightly more highbrow reverence. There's something to be said for the age and/or background of the viewer, I agree. Surely when I first saw it I was young and went for the shocks (the same way I watched Romero for the viscera), but when I saw the reissue a few (10? more?) years ago, I was impressed by how heavy the movie really is. Sure, there were kids in the screening with us, treating it like funny camp, but about halfway through I turned around and told them to shut the fuck up and they had no problem staying silent after that. It's one of those movies that's so intense you almost have to crack wise to get beyond the actual, almost unspeakable horror of it.

That said, "The Crazies" is to me a flawless and endlessly intriguing concept that doesn't quite sell its ideas as well as it should - that panic and madness are interchangeable, especially catalyzed under martial law - while "The Wicker Man" is just such a strange, exotic film that goes just where you expect it to go yet someone succeeds despite its occasionally plodding inevitability. "Don't Look Now" is more a virtuoso work, on a technical level, but I do find its denouement silly, certainly silly enough to appreciate all the jokes at its expense scattered through "In Bruges."

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

almost sat this one out; found it hard to muster the enthusiasm to write about the likes of Godmonster of Indian Flats and The Devil's Wedding Night. but there are some v. notable also-rans here: The Killing Kind, Love Me Deadly, Lemora, Messiah of Evil (which got my vote, by coin-toss and sentimental preference), Night Watch, Raw Meat, Theatre of Blood, Tenderness of the Wolves.

this thread was def missing a mr hal jam round-up, maybe you can do a postmortem

yeah. sorry to disappoint the faithful. i won't lie. the sheer futility of toppling Colossi like The Wicker Man and The Exorcist (not a fan) has paralyzed my pen. i've started and abandoned so many round-up posts since this poll went up. but i'll see what i can do, even if only for the handful of titles i cited above.

like, I've never even heard of messiah of evil... intrigued

I watched "Raw Meat" recently on Netflix and wish I had liked it better. Donald Pleasance and Norm Rossington were great, and it seemed to want to get into some British class-issues stuff while riffing on the Sawney Bean story, but I found it entirely ungratifying.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

huh

ILX prefers smug Pagans to frightened Catholics.

or rather, I suppose, most enjoys a film with BOTH!

MHJ, you're a fan of neither Wicker and Exorcist or just not the latter?

Not a Catholic boy, so Friedkin's The Exorcist amounts to just so much mouldy cheese (as the NYT TV listings put it) and histrionic theological hand-wringing, for me. Don't even own a copy. I do sorta like the sequels, and both versions of the prequel. Enjoyed Legion, the book, and have all the time in the world for The Ninth Configuration (and TTKK), so i guess i have no issue with W. P. Blatty. I've just never gotten much out of the first film - other than a fair share of yawns and "oh, please!" eye-rolls.

TWM is an impeccably constructed chiller. Not unhappy to see that so many agree. DLN is more problematic but still a ripping good film.

Who else voted for Messiah? I kiss you!!!

ok, gonna come clean, i kinda hate the wicker man and think its dumb and silly.

'don't look now' is almost perfect but i have to confess i find the ending kinda way too silly considering what preceded it.

ok, gonna come clean, i kinda hate the wicker man and think its dumb and silly.

― The Band Perry is the drummer for Gay Dad (jjjusten), Wednesday, 20 April 2011 00:30 (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

i feel the same way. i don't understand what is scary about it, it's just stupid & boring.

it's exactly none of those things, but okay.

la lechera is going to rain hellfire upon all you wicker man haters

I am saddened by any Wicker Man hate. Is it the "not a horror movie" horror movie thing?

I had practically no reaction whatsoever to Wicker Man. I sometimes consider re-watching it, but it's rare that second viewings change my opinion of horror films.

wtf is wrong with you ppl
you're stupid and boring

I will say that The Severed Arm was robbed.

ok so

first things first, i didnt get around to the wicker man until like 5 years ago, and im willing to say that i might have been a bit oversaturated with praise prior to actually seeing it.

however, i think its a complete fucking mess. and rarely do i think that one scene can destroy a whole film, but the music number where they bone through the wall is one of the most take me out of the movie/never let me back in moments ive had in cinema. its irretrievable from there on out in a lot of ways.

I also went for the Messiah of Evil - glad it did so well, I was expecting just my vote. Painter studios make great horror film sets.http://i758.photobucket.com/albums/xx224/JohnEdmond/HuyckMessiahofEvil2.jpg
http://i758.photobucket.com/albums/xx224/JohnEdmond/HuyckMessiahofEvil1.jpg

JJJ - I really think you were disappointed/revolted because you were expecting the movie to be something else, and then it wasn't. By itself, the scene is poignant because you know that Howie is too pious to save his own life. Any sex scene can be larfed away (esp when there are slugs and butt slapping involved), but she was trying to give him a chance to save himself...and he did not. At the very least, you can admit that in many (most?) horror movies having sex = u dead. With the Wicker Man, having sex would have saved our hero.

I knew virtually nothing about it when I saw it, and I know that contributed to my affection. I also love the music, no shame there. Anyway, it is not a mess. It's weird, but a mess, no.

also this is totally it The clash between human beliefs in Wicker Man are, to me, more compelling than some physical manifestation of a made-up devil.
Know what's scary? People are scary all by themselves.

Yeah but I don't like either wicker man or the exorcist, so I am def not choosing scary devil beliefs over scary people beliefs - and I def am not taking the "not a horror movie" tack here, I am sure that twm is fully and intentionally a horror movie, I just think it undercuts itself with some terrible and dated moments that take me out of the movie, and even at the time would have ruined what little horror currency the film really has.

It kinda feels like a police procedural with a layer of hysterical manson reactionary fear of hippie cult nonsense layed over it. Like not to go all political crit here, but my first reaction was that it's a deeply dumb conservative (in a us sense) film.

The Exorcist is a beautiful, well-crafted movie. Being atheist/non-catholic doesn't seem to be a hindrance to me, and I don't see why it would be for anyone else.

It's ok not to like TWM. Lots of my favorite people don't like it. I just blame situational prejudice rather than the movie sucking.
I don't really get what you mean about it being conservative...
It's not hippie cult nonsense -- it's a prior way of being that Howie fails to recognize as valid. In some ways, it really seems like a reaction against "conservative" (US) thinking. Your deity will not and cannot save you from pure evil human nature.

Plus, if he wasn't so in the tank for God, he would not have died and would've gotten probably the best lay of his life.

I definitely wouldn't take The Wicker Man to be a conservative film. Stodgy old Edward Woodward tries to uphold virtue and goodness as he plods along solving the case; all the hedonists laugh at him, play mind games with him, then burn him alive.

Yeah, but where do your sympathies lie at the end, stodgy burned alive dude or crazy pagan not burned alive hippies?

I'm cool with burning up a pious asshole ( ... who was trying to save a girl he thought was kidnapped).

Your sympathy may be with Woodward (or may not be; he's kind of annoying), but I always figure the director's sympathies are with whoever gets to have the most fun.

Just saw Lemora and it is another excellent horror movie from probably the best year ever for horror movies - I'm also curious about The Killing Kind.

About The Wicker Man: I love it and, as I wrote upthread, I think it works (probably unintentionally, but maybe not) almost as an essai on scapegoating. It is all about ritual sacrifice and its consequences: the heathens live a carefree, phisically satisfying life, in apparent harmony with nature and themselves - but there's a darkness behind all of this, the necessity of blood and death to perpetuate the natural cycle, and next time they will have to burn one of them.

Woodward is a Christian and Christianity (at least in a Nietzsche/ Girad perspective) overtakes the pagan pattern of conflict and sacrifice through a rejection/sublimation of the scapegoating practice (there's a key scene in the movie with Woodward taking communion). The price you pay for this is resentment and inhibition.

I understand why the movie can be seen as conservative, but I think it is pretty much a honest and slightly bleak observation on how humanity deals with violence and nature.

Yeah, but where do your sympathies lie at the end, stodgy burned alive dude or crazy pagan not burned alive hippies?

sure, lord summerisle is an evil heathen, but he's contrasted with a constipated, tortured saint. our sympathies are w/ woodward only to the extent we experience the movie from his perspective. he's not a sympathetic character, and the film doesn't go to pains to humanize him. he's portrayed as a haughty dick, a caricature of heroism, and ultimately, a fool. the pagans are creepy murderers, but they're having fun and are running the show beginning to end.

that said, I really like marco's take on it. one of the film's strengths is in not taking a side, or as portraying both sides as unlikeable.

I totally agree -- we're all repulsive. It's part of what I like best about the movie. Sgt Howie is totally a haughty dick, and a fool -- he doesn't know, or doesn't want to see, what's best for him (what kind of God wants him to be that miserable?) Also, would like to add that Ingrid Pitt's character is powerful (as an educator), Willow is powerful (as an...educator), and Lord Summerisle is powerful (not moral, but powerful) -- Howie is a pawn and a weakling who is being entrusted to a powerful position.

messiah of evil not available from netflix ;_;

from the stills and clips I've seen, it appears to have the same kind of monsters-in-broad-daylight feel as carnival of souls or let's scare jessica to death. which I love.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/messiah06.jpg

This scene (and its build-up) is incredible: very simple, subdued and effective.
Also there's another zombie attack filmed in a movie theater that is truly great.

(comparisons with jessica are totally apt).

oooh i love let's scare jessica and carnival of souls!
will have to check out messiah of evil

man I hated carnival of souls.

John D. Hancock (Jessica)--he went on to do Bang the Drum Slowly and Baby Blue Marine. From what I remember, Jessica's strange and creepy.

I like Carnival a lot.

I watched Jessica by myself at 4 in the morning coming off of an acid trip and it scared the hell out of me.

why would it do that

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gis3QnFGDfc

truth be told I had a very similar experience lol college

channel surfing into the scene you just posted, age 13, 1 AM -- jessica and emily go boating

yikes

slightly longer youtube clip including the scene of emily rising, + DVD clip not VHS transfer (had no idea how beautiful this film looked before getting the DVD)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jySks3pgvBw

guess we should save all this jessica gabbing for 1971

Now there's an overrated '70s horror movie!

eh, jessica's somewhat obscure ime and generally loved by ppl who stumbled across it at 2am

it's not like some classic of the horror pantheon

These results equal:

TS: girl masturbating with crucifix vs. woman having sex with a door

prefer either to having sex w/ donald sutherland tbh so ilx otm

oh man you did not just say that about donald sutherland
i love that guy!

I love him too. just not that way.

I hope he understands

more 70s donald sutherland for me
he's my 70s husband

well yes, he is 75

he wasn't 75 then!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prT1E_S__jM

I was the third Messiah of Evil voter. Here's what I wrote about it a few years ago (no spoilers...not really a spoilers type of flick):

OMG! I just saw Messiah of Evil and loved it! Very artsy fartsy horror flick from 1973. Sometimes called DEAD PEOPLE. Starts with a prologue featuring two characters you never see again (that I could determine). Then we get three different voiceovers from three different time periods. A woman drives to visit her artist father whose increasingly bizarre letters have recently stopped. She pulls into a gas station where she finds the attendant firing off a gun into the adjacent forest/darkness. This latter action doesn't seem to phase the heroine that much. And thus, for a looong time, the shots tend to collapse in on themselves. Images fire off in a dream-like irreducibility, e.g. a wacky, unmotivated shot of two Mobil signs in an arty, zig-zag composition. Character motivation is shady. A creepy albino (are there any other kind in cinema?) rolls up in a pickup truck. The attendant sees dead bodies in the back but proceeds to ask if the albino wants stamps.

The heroine makes it to her father's pad. Turns out dad is a Robert Longo-ish artist who has populated the walls with all sorts of trompe l'oeil imagery. These will repeatedly figure in more arty compositions with the "real" actors: characters look as if they're part of a jury or just stepping off an escalator.

She hooks up with a swingin trio (one guy, two gals). The guy's looking for dad too. He shares with the heroine a sort of upper class somnambulism - stilted, overly careful speech and movement a la MARIENBAD. The two swinger chicks are more crass - they burp and laugh at dad's art. One splits and runs into the truck driving albino. He gives her a lift (dead bodies now propped up in the
back), plays Wagner (which he pronounces like Mr. Natalie Wood's last name), and eats a rat (avec crunching sounds too). She wisely walks the rest of the way only to meet her end in a deserted supermarket...deserted save for raw meat eating townsfolk.

Eventually we learn that the entire town has become zombies. They get swinger chick #2 too in a very creepy scene at a movie theatre. KISS TOMORROW GOODBYE is on the marquee. But the Sammy Davis Jr. Western GONE WITH THE WEST is playing (which is odd because IMDb lists it at 1975 whereas MESSIAH is 1973).

Dad shows up too. Immediately after triggering a flashback (from 100 years ago!), he flays red paint onto the walls and douses his face in blue making for ever more arty (Antonioni-esque?) compositions. Soon it looks like he's staging an Otto Muehl happening.

A masterpiece? No. But winningly godforsaken. And made by the folks who brought us AMERICAN GRAFFITI and, um, HOWARD THE DUCK (which I should probably take in now [NOTE TO 2011 SELF: still haven't taken it in).

And the cast! Joy Bang (swinger chick #2) brings sssssssteam heat as does the stunning Anitra Ford. Royal Dano (!) is dad. Elisha Cook Jr. (!!) as a wino is first scary then lovable. And best of all is the great Michael Greer in a rare heterosexual role (well, nominally het).

How the hell do movies like this get made?

Also repping for the uber-creepy Tenderness of the Wolves, Ulli Lommel's film about Fritz Haarmann, the Butcher/Vampire of Hanover (the partial inspiration behind Fritz Lang's M). Produced and edited by Fassbinder (who also plays a small role).

La Lechera OTM about The Wicker Man and Donald Sutherland.

Thanks, KJB. Saves me a heap of trouble. I'll scribble something about TKK and LMD when i can.

Donald Sutherland is a dreamy gentle-yet-strong fuzzy haired kind-eyed 70s man -- what's not to love?! Clip not representative, criticism invalid. Love him.

tokyo rosemary otm about me being otm

I saw "Scream, Blacula, Scream!" on Sunday and am now convinced it should have won this poll

re-watched the Wicker Man last weekend. so many lolz. love it.

I feel that someone should reprazent for "The Creeping Flesh", a classic in which Peter Cushing plays a Victorian scientist who discovers a mysterious ancient skeleton and Christopher Lee plays his brother, the director of the local lunatic asylum. If you like Hammer-style horror, it is a total classic.

Rose of Iron aka The Iron Rose was on tcm underground -- wasnt scary imo but i liked it, v unique & beautifully shot

http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/382629%7C443272/The-Iron-Rose.html

the baby is streaming on netflix now. the end sequence was sorta genuninely frightening but it def takes a real level of comittment to see it thru 2 there. idk it also gets pts in my book for being so bound to its (ridiculous) premise

Messiah Of Evil is on YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA-Qj1uegiY

I hadn't seen it before, but it's Something...

messiah of evil's got some great scope compositions, so watching a cropped version with that terrible song at the beginning (forced by producers, removed by director when it was released on DVD) might not be the best intro. it fell into the public domain so there are lots of crappy versions floating around, the code red DVD is worth searching out.

Yah, the YT version just caused me to track down the DVD of it.

i rly need to see The Wicker Man

I think of it more as a comedy than a horror movie

the Code Red DVD was back in print for about three minutes, about five minutes ago.

Saw Messiah of Evil on the big screen at MoMA tonight. This film, wow. I was struck by the geographical dislocation aspect of it. You can never really get your bearings on where the locations are and their relation to one other. You’re in a remote house on the beach, but it’s also on a street of stucco-faced tract houses, which is also somewhere near a supermarket and a cinema and a Main Street-style shopping area, and oh yeah there’s also a street with art galleries. And of course, IMDb indicates that all of these locations were in different Californian towns. But the effect is surreally unsettling.

And what is it about that beach house. I didn’t grow up in California but I feel I KNOW that house and I KNOW that vibe.

perfect movie

I watched the 4k restoration a few nights ago and OTM. The only bit I didn't care for was the exposition about the dark stranger toward the end--I think it dragged the pacing, and the situation was evocative enough that it didn't need explaining.