{"id":3471,"date":"2013-10-11T00:00:58","date_gmt":"2013-10-11T04:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/smugfilm.com\/?p=3471"},"modified":"2014-12-04T02:28:58","modified_gmt":"2014-12-04T07:28:58","slug":"advice-column-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/advice-column-11\/","title":{"rendered":"Advice Column #11 (10\/11\/13)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"eyes\"
\nI’d really like to see a truly scary, yet beautifully put together movie with psychological elements and plausibility, but maybe some surrealism as well. Something like Eyes Without a Face<\/a> or Suspiria<\/a>. Where the fear is more from the vibe than from the definable foe and allures me so that I can’t look away from it even while it’s unsettling. \u2014 Chloe P.<\/b><\/p>\n

Editor’s Note (12\/4\/14): We no longer answer movie questions through our advice column. We answer them in the mailbag segment of our podcast<\/a>. Send them to Cody@SmugFilm.com<\/a> and we will answer on the show!<\/em>
\n
\nCody Clarke<\/b>: Just saw The Lords of Salem<\/a> last night, and dear god that thing is wonderful, and definitely fits what you\u2019re looking for. I haven\u2019t liked a Rob Zombie movie before this one, although I haven\u2019t seen Halloween II<\/a>, which I hear is actually quite good. I\u2019ll have to check that one out soon. But man, The Lords of Salem is a fucking beast. It\u2019s kinda like the Spring Breakers<\/a> of horror movies in a bunch of ways that aren\u2019t worth me describing because you should just go watch the thing and have an organic experience with it. And actually, now that I think of it, Spring Breakers definitely fits what you\u2019re looking for too. It’s not technically<\/i> a horror movie, but one could definitely call it that, so watch that one too if you haven\u2019t already.<\/p>\n

Alright, now that I\u2019ve recommended two that fit exactly<\/i> what you want, I\u2019m gonna recommend two that don\u2019t necessarily fit, but that you\u2019ll probably still enjoy. Definitely check out The Seventh Continent<\/a>, which has an extremely unsettling can\u2019t-look-away vibe, and is very psychological, and very plausible as well, as it\u2019s based on a true story. The director, Michael Haneke, is quite well-regarded and fairly well-known nowadays, but few have explored his filmography beyond Funny Games<\/a>, Cach\u00e9<\/a>, The White Ribbon<\/a>, and Amour<\/a>. This is a shame, because all his other movies are good. Watch \u2018em all eventually, but Seventh Continent certainly fits what you\u2019re looking for the most out of any of them.<\/p>\n

Another one you should check out is The Gift<\/a>, which Sam Raimi directed and which nobody seems to care about for some reason. Damn shame, because everyone\u2019s acting in it is incredible, including, gasp, Katie Holmes and Keanu Reeves. Keanu seriously gives the best performance of his life. I urge anyone who thinks he \u2018can\u2019t act\u2019 to watch him in this. He gives a very well-rounded performance in a very well-rounded movie that transcends its simple as hell premise and balances cheese with seriousness better than any of Raimi’s other films. Don’t get me wrong, he’s made way better films, but this is the only one I can think of where the balance between those two elements is just right.<\/p>\n

Oh fuck I forgot to recommend the best thing ever. You gotta watch this movie Riding the Bullet<\/a> that I saw like last week. It’s fucking brilliant. I picked it up at Book Off<\/a> for $3.00, blind buy, because on the cover it said it was Stephen King’s favorite movie adaptation of his work or whatever. And I love all sorts of cheesy adaptations of his stuff like Thinner<\/a> and Silver Bullet<\/a>, so I knew that even if it was bad I’d probably still like it. It’s fucking incredible<\/em> though. It’s very psychological and fits everything you want. I dunno why I didn’t think of it earlier. And it really is one of the very best Stephen King adaptations. The director really fucking gets King. Arguably more so than Darabont even. You’ll see what I mean, movie is dope.<\/p>\n

John D’Amico:\u00a0<\/strong>You\u2019re asking for what I\u2019ve seen described as \u201cnightmare films.\u201d Not quite a genre, more a characteristic\u2014the sense of something \u201coff,\u201d like the world of the film is skewed slightly out of phase with our own. I am also constantly on the hunt for such films.<\/p>\n

One of the first and best of this breed is Carl Th. Dreyer\u2019s unstoppable\u00a0Vampyr<\/a>. Dreyer\u2019s film, inspired by the works of Goya, the shattered faces of the first World War, and the same obsessive spiritual heartbreak that informed his Joan of Arc<\/a> film, was created with the stated goal of capturing the feeling of suddenly realizing there\u2019s a dead body in the room with you, and god does it ever. There\u2019s a haunted unease to the whole thing; it feels like a product from another world. His later\u00a0Ordet<\/a>, though not a horror film, also captures this disquiet in the face of the unearthly. Along these more surrealist lines be sure to check out Jean Cocteau\u2019s\u00a0Beauty and the Beast<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Blood of a Poet<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One of the highest profile and best of these films is\u00a0Carnival of Souls<\/a>, a true masterpiece of American independent film. It has the spiritual awe\/terror of Dreyer\u2019s work but with a distinctly American brand of banal loneliness, that Edward Hopper feeling of being embalmed in a sterile, tamed, and expansive landscape. Now read those sentences again verbatim but swap the words ‘Carnival of Souls’ for Roman Polanski’s\u00a0Repulsion<\/a>.\u00a0The deeply underrated director Curtis Harrington, prot\u00e9g\u00e9 of the great Maya Deren, also hit this mood a few times with his\u00a0Night Tide<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Queen of Blood<\/a>. Both are low budget and sorta grimy, and that contributes a lot.\u00a0Queen of Blood takes some settling in, but if you let it wash over you there\u2019s a sense of constant menace and inscrutability that you rarely see anywhere else.<\/p>\n

The \u201870s thrived on this kind of thing. Try\u00a0Lemora: A Child\u2019s Tale of the Supernatural<\/a>,\u00a0Ganja and Hess<\/a>,\u00a0The Signalman<\/a>, The Grapes of Death<\/a>, and\u00a0Valerie and Her Week of Wonders<\/a>.\u00a0All hypnotic, chilling, technically perfect, slow, subtle, mysterious, and unlike just about anything made outside of that era. I\u2019ve already pimped\u00a0Messiah of Evil<\/a> here in my 10 Audacious Zombie Movies<\/a> article. I think it\u2019s the best of the \u201870s spate of nightmare films.<\/p>\n

Jan Svankmeyer and The Brothers Quay each ran a clinic on how to do this with stop motion animation. Try out the unforgettable\u00a0Alice<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Street of Crocodiles<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This is one area where short films reign supreme. One of my favorites is Ed Emschwiller\u2019s\u00a0Thanatopsis<\/a>,\u00a0based obliquely on the William Cullen Bryant poem of the same name (\u201ceach shall take his chamber in the silent halls of death\u201d). Raoul Servais\u2019s\u00a0Harpya<\/a>\u00a0is also essential.<\/p>\n

And if all else fails just watch E. Elias Merhige\u2019s so-unsettling-it-should-be-fucking-illegal\u00a0Begotten<\/a>. I don\u2019t even like to\u00a0talk\u00a0<\/i>about that one. (See?<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"eyes\"
\nI’d really like to see a truly scary, yet beautifully put together movie with psychological elements and plausibility, but maybe some surrealism as well. Something like Eyes Without a Face<\/a> or Suspiria<\/a>. Where the fear is more from the vibe than from the definable foe and allures me so that I can’t look away from it even while it’s unsettling. \u2014 Chloe P.<\/b><\/p>\n

Editor’s Note (12\/4\/14): We no longer answer movie questions through our advice column. We answer them in the mailbag segment of our podcast<\/a>. Send them to Cody@SmugFilm.com<\/a> and we will answer on the show!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[631,25],"tags":[2966,2967,469,2965,2951,2977,2952,2941,2970,1649,2947,742,32,2958,2976,2971,2955,2933,568,816,2961,2949,2937,2878,2975,2969,2953,813,95,2939,1623,2960,2959,1130,472,2957,2945,2946,2950,2934,2935,2936,2929,2930,2931,2956,2974,1489,2940,2082,2954,2688,2942,104,185,2353,2944,2968,2927,2928,2926,2932,2972,2662,2963,2069,2938,2962,468,2943,2964,2948,2973,1090],"class_list":["post-3471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advice","category-allposts","tag-10-zombie-movies","tag-alice","tag-amour","tag-audacious-zombie-movies","tag-beauty-and-the-beast","tag-begotten","tag-blood-of-a-poet","tag-book-off","tag-brothers-quay","tag-cache","tag-carl-th-dreyer","tag-carnival-of-souls","tag-cody-clarke","tag-curtis-harrington","tag-e-elias-merhige","tag-ed-emschwiller","tag-edward-hopper","tag-eyes-without-a-face","tag-frank-darabont","tag-funny-games","tag-ganja-and-hess","tag-goya","tag-halloween-2","tag-halloween-ii","tag-harpya","tag-jan-svankmeyer","tag-jean-cocteau","tag-joan-of-arc","tag-john-damico","tag-katie-holmes","tag-keanu-reeves","tag-lemora-a-childs-tale-of-the-supernatural","tag-maya-deren","tag-messiah-of-evil","tag-michael-haneke","tag-night-tide","tag-nightmare-films","tag-nightmare-movies","tag-ordet","tag-plausible-horror","tag-plausible-horror-films","tag-plausible-horror-movies","tag-psychological-horror","tag-psychological-horror-films","tag-psychological-horror-movies","tag-queen-of-blood","tag-raoul-servais","tag-repulsion","tag-riding-the-bullet","tag-rob-zombie","tag-roman-polanski","tag-sam-raimi","tag-silver-bullet","tag-smug-film-2","tag-smugfilm","tag-spring-breakers","tag-stephen-king","tag-street-of-crocodiles","tag-surreal-horror","tag-surreal-horror-films","tag-surreal-horror-movies","tag-suspiria","tag-thanatopsis","tag-the-gift","tag-the-grapes-of-death","tag-the-lords-of-salem","tag-the-seventh-continent","tag-the-signalman","tag-the-white-ribbon","tag-thinner","tag-valerie-and-her-week-of-wonders","tag-vampyr","tag-william-cullen-bryant","tag-zombie-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3471"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5749,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3471\/revisions\/5749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}