日本黒社会 LEY LINES (Nihon Kuroshakai Rei Rainzu, lit. Japan Underworld: Ley Lines) [Ley Lines] (1999)

Takashi Miike’s Black Society Trilogy was probably one of the weirder choices for my “series project” in the end. I think it’s the only set I’ve been watching that’s linked thematically rather than as a narrative of some kind. This isn’t a bad thing of course, but it’s a little nudge against the comfortable familiarity […]

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)

Of the three big slashers of the 1980s—that is, the ones that went on to seemingly endless sequels—A Nightmare on Elm Street was, for a long time, the only one that held any interest to me. After all, it was inherently tied to the supernatural and the fantastic, which was able to wrestle with my youthful […]

Novecento (lit. 900, taken as “20th Century”) [1900] (1976)

Ah, the greater-than-three-hour movie: always a puzzle on when the hell you’re going to watch such a thing—maybe even “how”. I was set up for a long vacation, which I’m about to end, and I decided it was the perfect time to find a day where I felt up to the long sit (though I […]

Night of the Demon (1957) [Pre-Release/Long Version]

The cover of Carlos Clarens’s An Illustrated History of the Horror Film is ingrained upon my brain: it’s the lone horror film book that sat on my father’s shelf of movie books in my childhood home. I had no earthly idea what the horned, open-mouthed creature was or where it came from, but at some […]

猫の恩返し (Neko no Ongaeshi, lit. The Cat’s Repayment) [The Cat Returns] (2002)

I gathered a boatload of Studio Ghibli films in acquiescence to the reputation of Miyazaki and the studio as a whole, though I had not been so bowled over by Princess Mononoke as others were. Granted, this is something I would later come to blame far more on English dubs, which I don’t enjoy for […]

Нелюбовь (Nelyubov, lit. “dislike” or “anti-love”) [Loveless] (2017)

As I did yesterday, I randomly drew a film off on of my shelves, with no idea what I’d find in my hand after reaching without looking. I saw that it was a Sony Pictures Classics release, the cover, and the title, and thought, “Well, this should be depressing.” I didn’t even know what language […]

楢山節考 (Narayama-bushi Kō) [Ballad of Narayama] (1958)

I believe this film popped up as a film club choice because I thought I was starting to neglect foreign language films of any kind, or perhaps because of the volume of Japanese-language films I own, but in the end because I was going to run with a (now-unrealized, as the club disintegrated) plan to […]

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985)

There’s probably something weird in the fact that I watched the 4 hour Never Sleep Again documentary despite only really watching A Nightmare on Elm Street and Wes Craven’s New Nightmare end-to-end (barring a youthful observance of Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare that was too much for me at the time). I’ve got plenty that’s […]

No profanar el sueño de los muertos (lit. Do Not Profane the Sleep of the Dead) [The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue aka Let Sleeping Corpses Lie] (1974)

What started me after this one? I sincerely can’t recall. It was either some article about forgotten, underrated, or “other” horror movies–maybe even specifically zombie movies–or it was, more simply, that Liverpudlian death metal band Carcass named a track on their new EP (which I pre-ordered months ago and then quite unplanned received in the […]

নায়ক (Nayak) [The Hero] (1966)

So, I’ve heard of Satyajit Ray, as the sort of person who peruses The Criterion Collection. I’d certainly heard of the glories of The Apu Trilogy, which I later purchased. I found a copy of this film used, however, and I prioritize those ostensibly to prepare for errors I find in the discs (though, of […]