cinema history class: walpurgisnacht

In honor of Walpurgisnacht, the eve of May Day, Keith chose four films about demons, witches, werewolves and vampires.

Reaction and Other Folderol:

The third and fourth movies were much more to my liking than the first two. Demon Witch Child tells the story of a teenage girl possessed by a demon. It borrows heavily from The Exorcist and, if I recall correctly, Keith said that it has been called the Spanish Exorcist. The elements that it borrows are hard to miss. But, in some ways, it exceeds The Exorcist in that it's much more expansive. In Vampire's Night Orgy, stranded travelers are stuck in a little mystery town. Everything seems fine, at first, but eventually things turn south. It borrows heavily from Night of the Living Dead. The ending -- practically an epilogue -- reminded me of 2000 Maniacs! -- though Blair pointed out to me that that's a common trope. I guess I need to see more movies, since I don't recall seeing the device elsewhere. Damn, was it creepy!

The first two movies in this session were good films for what they are, but neither one really grabbed me. Strange Love of the Vampires had a lot of good elements, and it was a good, original take on the vampire legend. But it was another vampires-in-castles movie, and I've kind of had overload on those. Curse of the Devil stars Paul Naschy as a werewolf. Where have I seen that before? Others in the class love Paul Naschy, but I just haven't been able to get into him. These two were good movies, but just not my thing. And my ratings for them reflect that.

The Trailers:

Strange Love of the Vampires (1975)

Curse of the Devil (1973)

Demon Witch Child (1974)

Note: I don't think this is an actual trailer. But it's what I could find.

Vampire's Night Orgy (1973)

cinema history class: monsters in the snow

To say a group goodbye to winter, Keith decided we should screen four films set in the wintery cold. Films to make us feel as if we were still freezing.

Reaction and Other Folderol:
In some ways this seemed like two distinct mini-sessions to me. The first two films were distinctly out of my wheelhouse. The Werewolf and the Yeti was a Spanish Production starring Paul Naschy. While Naschy is a favorite of some -- often ranking right up there with Peter Cushing or Lon Chaney Jr. -- I have never really warmed up to him. And this, a story about a Yeti expedition gone awry, just kind of left me cold. The Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas was a much better film. And it benefitted from starring Peter Cushing and (pre F-Troop) Forest Tucker. It could almost have been called a buddy movie as the mismatched pair lead an expedition into the Himalayas. It's better thought out than the first film, though the anti-Western message hits with all the subtlety of a flying mallet. It was a very well-done movie even though it was, in many ways, not my cup of tea. I gave it a reasonably high grade on that basis.

The last two weeks were much more along the lines of what I like -- American-made (admittedly, one was Canadian, but in this realm, that's largely the same) horror from the '70s and '80s. I saw The Brood some (ten?) years ago at an all-night horror festival. It's a deeply creepy story with mutant kids running amok. It really gets under the skin. And, surprisingly, it kind of all makes sense by the end. But my favorite of the session was The Thing, a remake of a 1951 classic. It tells the story of researchers in the Antarctic trying to survive with a shape-shifting space alien on the loose. That was really good stuff, and it allowed this session to end on a high note.

The Trailers:

The Werewolf and The Yeti (1976)

The Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas (1957)

The Brood (1979)

The Thing (1982)

cinema history class: they're not horror films, but they may as well be

 For this session, Keith chose four movies that weren't technically horror films, but that may have been. These all told stories that were miserable, depressing, and/or scary. They were, effectively, horror-adjacent.

Reaction and Other Folderol
This may have been the best session Keith has ever put together. There's usually one movie that I doesn't really catch me. But this? Wow! I could easily have justified rating any or all of these a 10. And yet I likely would never have heard of any of these movies if Keith hadn't chosen them for us.

The movies were all very different from each other, both in subject matter and feel. But there are some elements they all share in common. All four films involve people caught up in a hellish nightmare scenario beyond their control. All four films are at that stage of being almost-epics; They have, in some ways, almost the feel of an epic, but don't quite get there. And, of course, all four build that edge-of your seat tension that can leave you breathless. Which, of course, is why Keith said they may as well be horror films.

The Music Lovers is a sort-of biopic of famed composer, Peter Tchaikovsky. It focuses on sexuality -- specifically his homosexuality and his unhappy marriage to asexual enthusiast. There's glorious music playing in counterpoint to the scenes of abject misery and no one escapes happy. I don't know how much of the presentation is established fact, how much is consensus, and how much is simply purely speculative fiction. And, honestly, I don't care.

Fraulein Doktor was also based (loosely, I presume) on true-life events. This one, a joint Italian/Yugoslavian production, was about the exploits of German spy, Elsbeth Schragmuller, during World War I. This was an excellent blending of spy thriller, war film and caper movie. Not a whole lot is known about Schragmuller, so a lot of the movie is necesarilly speculative. I will note that there were some breathtaking battlefront scenes, including horrifying visualizations of combat with mustard gas. The cathartic, tensive-reducing ending was perfect.

Sorcerer tells the story of four men trying to stay alive while driving trucks of nitroglycerine through the jungles of South America. The movie starts with four vignettes, each telling the backstory of one of the men. After that, it turns to their existence in South America before signing up for their dangerous mission. Throughout, there are great visuals, and tension. It is a little long, clocking in at two hours. But it never feels slow. There were times, especially midway through the film, that I had trouble following certain specifics, but ultimately that didn't matter.

Wake in Fright is an Australian production, telling the story of a seemingly mild-mannered teacher who, goes on vacation and finds himself stuck in an outback town (admittedly, he teaches in what seems to be too small and rural to be called an outback town) where life seems to center on beer and violence. So much of this movie portrayed events that were both inconsequential and fascinating. It was exciting and horrifying. I kept guessing at what would happen, and I kept being wrong, which was good.

In the end, I only rated one of these movies a ten, but the fact is that, had I been in a slightly different mood, I could have rated any or all of them as 10's. It's not the purpose of the class to just watch great movies -- Keith has shown us things like Snuff, Blood Freak and Russ Myers' Vixen!. But I have to acknowledge how greatb it is when a session involves four absolute gems -- especially when they're gems that I never would have heard of if not for the class.

Trailers

The Music Lovers

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Fraulein Doktor

Sorcerer

Wake In Fright

cinema history class: allan kupfer spaghetti western tribute month

 By tradition, the first session of the year consists of Spaghetti Westerns (or some movies connected in some way to them). This year, Keith decided to open with Spaghetti Westerns, but made his choices based on his memories of his long-time friend, Allan Kupfer, who passed away late last year.

Reaction and Other Folderol:

The selections puzzled me at first; it would be hard to argue that these are the best Spaghetti Westerns, and I would be surprised to learn that they were Allan's favorites. Keith explained to me that he wasn't trying to show Allan's favorites. Rather, he chose movies that he thinks of in connection with Allan, given the many conversations they had on the topic and their abortive attempt to write a book about Spaghetti Westerns.

I feel kind of bad about the first movie, Comin' At Ya! (which Keith presented in 3-D). The image seemed off, which hampered my appreciation of the film. Only afterwards, when we were discussing it, did it come to light that I was probably wearing them backwaards. And there was a lot of humor that I missed. The 3-D effects were used a lot, often for comedic effect (for example, in one scene where a gunslinger is playing with a yo-yo). But somehow I didn't recognize the humorous intent and just got annoyed by a lot of it. Which was my loss.

Other than that, this session inluded a good deal of humor mixed in with the cruelty that marks so many Spaghetti Westerns. At times, especially during The Grand Duel (which starred a notably aging Lee Van Cleef), I was reminded of Keith having told us about how the Spaghetti Western genre had come to embrace comedy.

On the other hand, these were serious entries in the genre, even if none of them reached the heights of the Leone- or Corbucci-directed classics. Notably, Ringo: The Face of Revenge seemed like an attempt to reproduce the magic of Leone's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. It even reproduced the plot element of enemies having to work together because each one had half of a map. But, while it tried to be an epic, it fell short. It was a good movie in its own right, but it suffered for inviting comparisons to an obviously superior production.

The Trailers:

Comin' At Ya!

The Grand Duel

Fast Hand is Still My Name

Ringo: The Face of Revenge

tuli, rip

I hate to write obituaries for our cats. And it's especially painful when the cat dies young. Very young.

We got Tuli for Asher last summer after Eighteen died. He was born last April, so he was only about ten months old when he passed. Based on our conversation with the vet, Tuli probably had a heart attack in his sleep, and passed away without suffering. So at least there's that.

Tuli was a charmer. He was always curious about whoever came through the door, and I don't recall anyone being immune to his charms. Alla, the lay who comes to clean once a week would tell me about how Tuli was her little buddy, following her around the house as she went about her cleaning. And, as much as he kept himself busty with his cat activities, he always made sure to do them in a room where he could be near his people, keeping an eye on them and making sure to be a part of the pack.

But he gave his most ardent devotion to Asher. He had his special chair in Asher's room, where he would sit for hours watching Asher sleep, or do stuff on his computer.

We will miss Tuli.