A scary thing happened on the way to the Movie Forums - Horrorcrammers

By my count there are only 8 films of his on the channel that I haven't seen yet. But great call on Lean--I've totally loved two of his films and enjoyed the third.

He's who I was leaning toward. I even started Gods of the Plague last night before realizing I was not in a focused enough mood for a film with subtitles. Thanks for the recommendation! Any particular favorites of his?

Can't really go past his major titles, obviously, but there are a few of his B-tier films that I have a fondness for. This is what a loose top ten would look like...

The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant
World on a Wire
Ali: Fear Eats the Soul
Fox and his Friends
In a Year With 13 Moons
The Marriage of Maria Braun
Veronika Voss
Querelle
The Third Generation
Martha

Of course, feel free to swap out anything that's not available. He's not really a filmmaker who makes out-and-out bad films, just flawed ones.

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Fassbinder Top 10


Ali
Merchant of Four Season
Beware of A Holy Whore
Fox and His Friends
Gods of the Plague
Berlin Alexanderplatz
In a Year With 13 Moons (contains a lengthy slaughterhouse scene, so be forewarned)
I Only Want You to Love Me
World on a Wire
Fear of Fear


I've also recently started Eight Hours Don't Make a Day, which is likely the friendliest of his films I've seen, and if it maintains its goodness, would def be Top 10 material


I also really like Kaurismaki, but Fassbinder is the man.

Thanks!

I noticed that Criterion has Eight Hours Don't Make a Day, broken into five parts (because it was technically a miniseries?).

Yes, Eight Hours, Berlin Alexanderplatz and I think World on a Wire were all episodic television productions

And for the record Lola, Veronica Voss, Marriage of Maria Braun and Bitter Tears would all have been worthy of being on that list, but I just slightly prefer some of his earlier films, probably due to a less polished aesthetic.

Seeing as nobody else is going to bat for Rohmer, I will say that his Moral Tales are great and easily digestible. I haven't seen too much else from him, but suspect it would be pretty easy to get through ten of his films.



Also, I heard most of Agnes Varda's filmography is on there? If so,* she gets my endorsement. There's enough stylistic and thematic variety in what I've seen from her that it should be easy to get through her stuff without finding it repetitive.

I've seen about ten Rohmers and they've all mostly been very good.

Whoa, a TON of her films are on there! I didn't catch her when I was looking at their director collections.

I've seen the below. The top 4-5 are great, but the rest are worth seeing as well. I think I've seen a handful of other shorts from her as well but can't remember which ones and apparently didn't log them on Letterboxd.


Cleo from 5 to 7
Vagabond
Mur Murs
Documenteur
The Gleaners and I
Le Bonheur
Black Panthers
Far From Vietnam (she contributed to this - I remember only Godard's section being unwatchable, the rest ranged between interesting and very moving)
Uncle Yanco
Lions Love

Regarding Varda, I'll also give a shout out to Faces Places. Regarding her documentaries, I've only seen that one and The Gleaners and I. I like the latter a decent bit more, but the former is also a solid doc.

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Yeah, I won't argue with Varda. There are easily at least ten thoroughly worthwhile features in her filmography.

Madhouse -

A mashup of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and This is Your Life, Madhouse stars Vincent Price, who plays a fictional version of himself named Paul Toombes. Dr. Death, his most popular character, has come to life and is murdering those closest to him and the cast of his new TV series. All in all, it's a pretty good love letter to Vincent Price's career in horror and an exploration of the value and meaning of the genre. There are scenes that celebrate Toombes' career and one where he's on a talk show, and as a bonus, they feature clips of actual Vincent Price movies like The Raven and The Masque of the Red Death. Speaking of the talk show, Toombes provides one of the best explanations of why horror is appealing that I've ever heard. It's also nice to have frequent Price collaborator Peter Cushing along for the ride as Toombes' longtime writer and the mystery the movie builds as to Dr. Death's identity had me guessing until the end. Regardless, even though I've mentioned Vincent Price in almost every sentence of this review, this movie would not be the first one I would recommend to someone who is new to his work. First, Toombes is a thinly drawn character and not all that interesting. While Price plays the part as well as he can, it only lets him do a smidgeon of what he's capable of, which is not really what you want in a movie that's partly a tribute to him. Also, the entertainment in "meta" movies like this one often seems secondhand, i.e. not nearly as entertaining as what it's referencing - which is truly the case given the clips of other, better movies - and this one is no exception. Vincent Price is one of the great horror actors, and while this is not his best movie, it has enough going for it to make it worth seeing. Thankfully, we got a much better tribute to his career in the preceding year's Theater of Blood.

I enjoyed this one, though I would not hold it up too high either. I thought it worked fine for what it was and I enjoyed Price's work quite a bit.

So I was trying to watch The Beyond but was feeling very distracted and I somehow got about an hour in and only retained some melted heads and displaced eyeballs.

But somehow I get the feeling that might also be The Beyond? Like, is there much story, or is it all melting heads and poked out eyeballs?

Yes and no.


It's hard to explain it without it just being nothing much more than that...but it's also the faulty storytelling and lack of logic that moves you from one melted head to another. In a good way. But, that said, Fulci is very very much not for everyone.

I've seen Don't Torture a Duckling, Aenigma, and Cat in the Brain and Lizard in a Woman's Skin.

But The Beyond was feeling . . . extra sparse. But maybe it just has less dialogue and I was having a hard time focusing on the screen and thus missing the visual connective tissue between the scenes.

Those other movies are a lot more literal or rigorous in their storytelling than The Beyond, which leans a lot more dreamlike. Fulci is trying to combine the implicit horror stylings of someone like Val Lewton (who he's cited as an influence) with ultraviolent imagery, so that each gore gag doesn't just have an impact in the moment but builds towards a greater sense of terror. City of the Living Dead is a more extreme expression of that idea, although I prefer The Beyond as it looks nicer and has a richer sense of atmosphere. I also see these two dismissed for their allegedly sloppy storytelling, but I think the contrast with those other films (and even Zombie and The Black Cat, which he did at around the same time as these) proves how deliberate Fulci was in taking this approach. The sparse, nonsensical quality is a feature, not a bug.



Now, explaining that may not actually help you enjoy the movie more, but I would suggest revisiting it when you are more in the mood for overlooking gaps in logic and the like.

Fulci once, shame on me. Fulci twice...can't get fooled again.

I think you mean "can't get Fulci'd again."

It seems I was the Ful(ci) all along.