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We'll see how long I can keep this up.

December

  1. Vampire Journals (1997), dir. Ted Nicolaou. Full Moon vampire film. Getting a lot of Interview With A Vampire from it. A spin-off of the Subspecies series (which I've seen none of). Low budget, distracting soundtrack, but looks kinda nice. Moody and romantic in a trashy way. Melodramatic. Found it on youtube after seeing talk of it online.

November

  1. The Peripheral (2022) eps 5 & 6. Starting to really wonder how much of this was invented for the TV show. Must re-read the book soon.
  2. Witching Time (1980), dir. Don Leaver. As presented by Elvira. Played in the background while doing some other work. Patricia Quinn is great in this as the witch Lucinda.
  3. The Peripheral (2022) eps 3 & 4. Continuation of below.
  4. The Peripheral (2022) eps 1 & 2. Adaptation of William Gibson's novel of the same name. I'm cautiously optimistic. A lot of things feel like they've been exaggerated or "punched up" from what they were in the book. (In particular I don't remember any major action sequences in the first hundred or so pages). Will continue watching it, of course. (I'm a huge Gibson fan).
  5. Penda's Fen (1974), dir. Alan Clarke. Watched on youtube. Finely crafted & complex portrait of a young man's awakening, sexual and otherwise. Really good, really dense. Inspiring. Another movie discussed and recommended by Live At The Death Factory.

October

  1. Horror Of Dracula (1958), dir. Terence Fisher. Fell asleep while watching on Halloween. Perhaps a new tradition? Anyway love this Hammer film in particular, it's so comfortable. Cushing & Lee are great of course, as is just about everyone else here. I love how vibrant and colorful the movie looks, and how stiff and uptight the characters are. A classic.
  2. Hellraiser (1987), dir. Clive Barker. Rewatch. Deeply horny and weird. These aren't new observations but: This is a doomed romance, Frank is the real villain, it's very gothic (big spooky old house), etc. .
  3. Night Of The Living Dead (1968), dir. George Romero. Rewatch. Great movie. Still scares me. How do you watch Night Of The Living Dead in 2022? On youtube with vtuber commentary.
  4. Red Lips (1995), dir. Donald Farmer. Watched a VHS rip found... somewhere? It's also on youtube. SOV lesbian vampire film. Sleazy (a lot of nudity here) & bloody. New York. One of the movies discussed on Live At The Death Factory. Don't have too much to say about it right now other than: Ghetty Chasun is really really good as the lead, the teeth are gnarly (a good thing), and I liked it a lot more than I expected to.

August

  1. Tampopo (1985), dir. Juzo Itami. Group watch. Referential, funny, amusingly perverse. Laughed at most of it (which maybe says something about me). Could do without the turtle scene.
  2. Noroi: The Curse (2005), dir. Kōji Shiraishi. Rewatch. Immensely frightening. The mystery, the way it all interlocks and unfolds, is so impressive. A story of the Lovecraftian protagonist investigator / researcher messing with forces far beyond their control (with disasterous results). Somehow gets more scary on repeat viewings.
  3. Occult (2009), dir. Kōji Shiraishi. My second Shiraishi (after Noroi). Cosmic, Lovecraftian horror. Like Noroi this slowly develops or unravels into something really frightening. Uneasy, stressful, anxiety inducing. Did not go where I was expecting it to. Some sketchy but mostly effective CG effects. Incredible soundtrack by Hair Stylistics, it makes the whole movie feel much more dangerous. Awesome move to have Kiyoshi Kurosawa deliver a bunch of exposition. Both really great and also pretty uncomfortable.
  4. Tomie: Rebirth (2001), dir. Takashi Shimizu (famous for the Ju-On movies). Some good uncanny and unsettling stuff in this. I generally like slow movies, and I like the pace maintained here, but this felt too long by the end. I've seen it said elsewhere that Tomie films work better with a female protagonist and I agree with that.
  5. Tomie: Replay (2000), dir. Fujiro Mitsuishi. More horror than the previous two films I've seen in this series. Has a faded green look to it & some cool images. Good soundtrack. I like the first one more, I think, but this one's definitely worth watching. The whole Tomie premise is kind of complex, I'm not sure how I interpret or read it myself yet.

June

  1. F For Fake (1973), dir. Orson Welles. Rewatch, seen it many times. Art, fraud, and lies. Reality and fiction blended. Always leaves me feeling hopeful, inspired. One of the best movies ever made, I think.
  2. Rebecca (1940), dir. Alfred Hitchcock. Rewatch. "Portrait of a lampshade upside-down to represent a soul in torment". Really excellent. Script, pacing, cinematography, sets & locations, performances all brilliant. Been meaning to read the book for ages, even started it a few times.
  3. Brick (2005), dir. Rian Johnson.
  4. Max Headroom: 20 Minutes Into The Future (1985), dir. Annabel Jankel & Rocky Morton.

May

  1. Phantasm (1979). dir. Don Coscarelli. Still one of my favorite horror movies.
  2. Evil Dead Trap (1988), dir. Toshiharu Ikeda. A much better movie than I expected. An odd giallo / slasher / body horror hybrid. Gnarly (read: gory, sexual assault), a bit over the line for me, but the cinematography, production design, and performances make up for it. Might write more about this one soon.
  3. The Perilous Internet Ring (2020), dir. Norio Tsuruta. Watched a fansub that recently appeared on reddit. This is not a very good horror movie, but interesting as a message film or social problem film. Spoilers from here on. At the end a police investigator references the Blue Whale Challenge; that appears to be the inspiration for the story and the reason for the movie's existence (and the book it's based on, I assume). There's also a vague warning about "net addiction" and, more generally, the dangers of the internet. The plot bends over backwards in order to reach this conclusion, unfortunately. There were some spooky ghosts though, which I always like. I had more fun thinking about the movie than I did watching it.
  4. Reincarnation (2005), dir. Takashi Shimizu. Felt to me like a fine ghost story that mixes up a bunch of pretty standard elements (creepy dolls, past lives, spooky kids). It's a bit meta - it's about actors in a horror film - but doesn't pursue that angle very far. Was executed well & I liked how eerie and reality-bending it was. Kenji Kawai's soundtrack is good. Will have to watch it again.

April

  1. Predator (1987), dir. John McTiernan. I wonder: how many more of these actors can we elect to positions in government?
  2. Fatal Frame (2014), dir. Mari Asato. AKA Gekijōban Zero. Watched on youtube, not great video quality. Spooky ghosts! This was very very good. Time and space completely out of joint, full dream logic, nods to many past horror films. Beautiful movie to look at. Also very queer.
  3. Tattoo (2011), dir. Bill Paxton. Paxton came up in a conversation today, found this short film directed by him on Youtube. Well-made & looks great. Love James Hong as the old tattoo artist.
  4. Clouds Of Sils Maria (2014), dir. Olivier Assayas. Complicated. Layered. Loved the performances, found the movie a little anxiety-inducing. Will need to see it again.
  5. Dredd (2012), dir. Pete Travis. "You know how often we get a Judge up in Peach Trees?"
  6. Tomie: Another Face (1999), dir. Toshirô Inomata. Made for TV (I assume, from the look of it) anthology film of three Tomie stories. Either intentionally or unintentionally comedic, not sure which. Middle segment does a Twin Peaks thing. There's what sounds like a riff on Teardrop by Massive Attack on the soundtrack. A lot of voiceover narration. Not the vibe I'm looking for.

March

  1. Battle Girl: The Living Dead In Tokyo Bay (1991), dir. Kazuo ‘Gaira’ Komizu.
  2. Tomie (1998? 99?), dir. Ataru Oikawa. Indie electronic Tomie. Slow & kind of hypnotic; dreamlike. Very late-90s early '00s. I have once again not read the comic. Enjoyed this immensely; might write about it in more detail later.
  3. Demonlover (2002), dir. Olivier Assayas. Messy. Nasty. Prescient? Anxiety-inducing. Complex in a way I'm not equipped to process at the moment. The only Assayas movie I had heard of before listening to the discussion of Personal Shopper in LatDF's feed. Didn't like it as much as Shopper, but that might be because Shopper is a more "kind" movie.
  4. Footwear Repairs By Craftsmen At Competitive Prices, 1998, various directors.
  5. Personal Shopper (2016), dir. Olivier Assayas. Another movie discussed on Live At The Death Factory. Loved it. Loved watching it, still love thinking about it after. One of the hosts of LatDF, Astrid if I remember correctly, compared it to William Gibson's Blue Ant trilogy and I think that's apt.
  6. Vampire Clay (2017), dir. Sôichi Umezawa. Creature feature, haunted object movie, body horror. A little gory & gross. A small class of art students find (and reanimate) a chunk of monsterous clay. Really fun practical effects. (Claymation!) Much of the middle of this is watching likable teenagers die off and that wasn't grabbing me today.
  7. Richard Laymon's In The Dark (2000), dir. Clifton Holmes. Really great and creepy shot-on-video horror. Good script, a lot of smart decisions, and an excellent central performance. Does a lot with what looks like very little money. Heard about it thru Live At The Death Factory #10.
  8. Eko Eko Azarak IV: Awakening, dir. Kôsuke Suzuki. Doesn't feel like an Eko Eko Azarak movie until the last 20 minutes. Most of this is more of a drama and commentary on the media. Mass hysteria. I wonder if I'm missing something here, some context. An origin story in the sense that it's about somebody becoming the Misa Kuroi character. I enjoy thinking about it more than I enjoyed watching it, I think.
  9. The End Of Evangelion (1997). Great. Miserable. Apocalyptic. The imagery is still really striking, though some of it doesn't hold up as well as I remember (thinking of Rei's face on the nine mass produced Evangelion units). But that's a minor complaint.

February

  1. Good night, DeFrag [.df] (2022), power_of_heavy_metal
  2. Neon Genesis Evangelion: Death (97/98).
  3. Neon Genesis Evangelion (TV, 1996). Re-watched over the last week or so. Classic. Still holds up, still a banger. Giant robots & psychological trauma.
  4. Eko Eko Azarak III: Misa The Dark Angel (1998), dir. Katsuhito Ueno
  5. Eko Eko Azarak II: Birth Of The Wizard (1996), dir. Shimako Satō