Executive Koala?

Drunk on locos and laughing my fucking ass off

Carnival of Souls (1962)

It's funny how Romero gets so much credit for taking horror out of it's gothic-age, and adding a real grittiness to it, with Night of the Living Dead, when a film like Carnival of Souls came out 7 years prior. Also, what about all of the 1950's mutation flicks? They may not have the grit of NoTLD or CoS, but they certainly aren't "gothic" - arguably even less-so than either film.

Maybe it's because Carnival of Souls went unnoticed during it's original run, and Night of the Living Dead hit it big initially? Oh well, I guess it doesn't matter - seeing as they're both widely considered classics now. But Night of the Living Dead was obviously strongly influenced by Carnival of Souls for many of the traits it is so heavily praised for.

Carnival of Souls creeps the hell out of me though, which, ironically, very few films actually do. The cinematography is stunning, and obviously inspired by early German expressionist horror like Dr. Caligari and Nosferatu (I still have yet to see Vampyr). It also feels uncannily modern at times, given all the fluid camera movements.

Has anyone ever seen the atrocious 1998 remake produced by Wes Craven? What a disaster that is. Yuck!

haha i thought this movie was entertaining. i didn't expect any less considering who's in it.

thought it was excellent.

 

kind of like inception with dream machines, sharing dreams n sttuff. pretty cool. I'd recommend it.

as you are well aware, Craven is pretty much my favorite director. Yet I've stayed almost completely away from the movies he's produced. They're usually just ... yeah. SO I skipped Carnival altogether.

meshes of the afternoon - 9/10

Has anyone seen Dogtooth?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFtDz...layer_embedded

^Yeah. It was pretty average.

duck season - 7/10
paper chase - 9/10

Dogtooth sucks

i don't know a lot about horror flicks or their history but the thing that got most of my attention in NoTLD was that the main character was a brother rather than the usual whitey. this is probably the only non-token black character in horror films outside of Blackula. of course at the end (surprise!!!) he gets shot by a bunch of rednecks. i find weird that nobody ever discusses this movie within its civil-rights era context. it was 1968 for fucks sakes. anyway, yeah.

oh yeah cause this like 2 weeks ago.

Dood takes drug then gets 4 digit IQ. Cool premesis but everything else was boring.

Ha! I just wrote an essay on this a week ago. The funny thing about it is that Romero didn't even initially plan to create that subtext. It just so happened that the best man for the part was black. His filmography is full of lucky accidents.

ah ha ha-- cool!

maybe the guy was the best actor but i can't believe that he wasn't aware of what he was doing once he started.

also-- hey, i just read the wikipedia article. sez he was inspired by "revolution" so i suspect this was in the back of his head even if he wasn't aware of it. all that LSD in circulation wasn't for nothing.

Perhaps. But he's said it was a complete accident in multiple interviews that I've read. I think he just likes to paint himself as some sort of revolutionary political artist these days, since his last few movies were turds.

I do have a lot of respect for the guy though. Night of the Living Dead, Creepshow, and Martin are all-time favorites of mine.

hm... i've never seen the other two i think. will check them out-- thanks!

Hopefully you like 'em! :)

Interesting your points about Carnival of Souls but I'm really hard pressed to think of any impact it had on the genre. It stands out primarily because to this day there's really nothing else like it. In that sense, I put it in the same category as something like The Wicker Man or Eraserhead or moving out of horror, Repo Man. Films that have a massive culf following but which've never had much influence on other filmmakers.

And yeah, Carnival creeps me out too. Big time. Jacobs Ladder with quiffs.

Haha, I was just having a conversation with someone where I was telling them I have a real irrational hatred of that movie. I have total respect for it for its importance but it just irritates the fuck out of me.

I've heard him say that and really think it's a total fabrication on Romero's part. He may not have had the civil rights subtext in mind to begin with, but he'd be pretty naive, given the script, to think audiences wouldn't start making those connections with a black lead actor in place. I just don't think, in 1968, having a black actor was just something he did, like deciding between a blonde and a brunette.

haaa haaa haaa demoño good to see you back. i thought for a moment that this meant jacobs ladder with queefs, which would be a hilarious movie-- not that i have seen jacobs ladder but the mention of queefs on the same day i was thinking of them (is there a day i don't think about queefs, i wonder?) in the context of a horror movie was comical. but if i really think about queefs daily then this is nothing new and i just surprised myself due to my ability to forget.

it's like funes el memorioso, but the other way

anyway, good to see you back in this awesome cesspool.

A couple neat shots here and there, but... meh.

I'm gonna have to respectfully disagree.

Carnival of Souls (1962) -

Night of the Living Dead (1969) -


Carnival of Souls (1962) -


Night of the Living Dead (1969) -


SEE NEXT POST...

Carnival of Souls (1962) -


The Twilight Zone (1963) -

Hot Tub Time Machine- cool cast, mediocre flick
Empire Records - decent movie, I like watching it every now and then.
My Name is Bruce - much better than The Man With The Screaming Brain, at least.



A beloved classic. Showed it to my friend yesterday, it was the first time he had ever seen it. It blew his mind.



One of my personal favorites. As good as many of the classic crime thrillers.

Hey apa-niemi, would you mind sharing some thoughts on the last 5 flicks you just posted? Particularly the Bresson titles, and the Bunuel flick.

Thanks a bunch!

Doc Eug, yr right on

No problem, though I'm no good with words.

First, I hadn't seen any of those before. Can't really figure out why. Anyway I wanted to see some films by Bresson as I just read from one Finnish book of films of Aki Kaurismäki, that he loves Bresson (also Buñuel). And as you might now, Kaurismäki divides the Finnish public to two parts: most of them don't like (or hate) his work and the rest worship him. Or something like that.
Yeah, Bresson. I loved Pickpocket and I thought that at times Michel was quite similar character as Rahikainen in Kaurismäkis Crime and Punishment. Mouchette was also rather good, though from these two I prefer Pickpocket.
I think I've to watch it again. There's something very beautiful in both of those films. More than pictures, pacing or amateur actors but I really can't say what it is. At least not yet. All the same, I think everybody should watch Picpocket.

Los Olvidados was the first Buñuel film I've seen besides Un Chien Andalou. I'd say it's at least as fine a film as Pickpocket. One of the best films I've seen in a while. It was quite bleak and grey, but still very beautiful at the same time. The dream sequence was absolutely fantastic. I think I'm going to see a whole lot of other films by Buñuel.

Citizen Kane was good, but for some reason I can't wholly understand why some people say it's the greatest film ever made.

Yeah, I know I didn't really say a thing. Gonna sleep now.

Oh, just watched this: