Recent Viewings, Part 2

[Dr. Whom]

The Quatermass Xperiment (1955)

An experimental rocket ship crashes back to Earth. There is one survivor of the original crew, and he carries a deadly space parasite. Can Professor Bernard Quatermass stop it before it spreads?

This is a movie version of a legendary TV series of the fifties, and, as I far as I am concerned, it lives up to its reputation. One of the clever things is that, although it is technically science fiction, having rocket ships and space parasites, it is really a thriller. It is the story of a team trying to outwit and capture what is in effect a serial killer. As such it relies more on suspense than on special effect set pieces, and brings the story close to home.
It also provided the template for most of the Third Doctor's adventures, with an abrasive genius aided by a government organisation taking on unknown threats.

[M.10rda]

PRELUDE (1927):
A dapper dude falls asleep in his easy chair with a cocktail and cigarette in one hand and a copy of Poe's "Premature Burial" in the other. Predictably he has a pretty creepy dream about suffering that short story's eponymous fate. This seven-minute silent is nicely done and definitely stylistically similar to (though not quite as effective as) a major setpiece in Dreyer's VAMPYR, released 5 years later.

The highlight of PRELUDE, however, is the final shot, which - yet another potentially unnecessary SPOILER? - delivers what I automatically decided was Cinema's first jump scare. It only took me about 60 seconds to then recall I'd just seen what essentially could be termed a "jump scare" in the much-earlier MISTLETOE BOUGH (1904) a day or so previously... and of course Georges Melies was always doing shock jump-cuts of moonmen or fiends or something appearing in a puff of smoke to terrorize his characters. However, I maintain that the jump scare at the end of PRELUDE actually closely resembles the prototypical climactic jump scares from the end of CARRIE and FRIDAY THE 13TH and so on, rather than just the random jumping-from-darkness of some creeper or another to yell "booga booga", which probably was always a fixture of genre films and naturally still is.

3.5/5
I also wondered if this freaked out audiences in 1927. It had been decades since they ran screaming out of theaters from an apparently-oncoming train, but then again UN CHIEN ANDALOU prompted literal riots a couple years after PRELUDE, so I guess viewers were still pretty delicate.......

[M.10rda]

SECRETS OF A SOUL (1926):
This full-length feature from G.W. (Lisa Frankenstein's favorite) Pabst is almost mathematically a 2.5/5 but I know he meant well and was clearly a talented visual artist so I'm reviewing it here instead of in the other Board. The first half, where a stuffy older husband begins having CALIGARI-esque nightmares about his hottt younger wife, is a genuine delight full of puzzling moments in waking life and wildly stylistic, gonzo surrealism in the dream world, all of which the viewer can more or less piece together and make sense of intuitively if not explicitly... maybe just because we're alive n 2025 and not 1926 and thus (unlike the film's contemporary audience) we enjoy the benefits of deciphering 99 years of cryptic art, but I won't complain. Alas, in the second half the husband goes to a psycho-analyst to describe his dreams, and then the head-shrinker explains what every last element in the film's first half means... which, of course, kills all the joyous mysterious SECRETS of this film's SOUL.......

In his already-classic monograph on creativity Catching The Big Fish, David Lynch related the sole occasion where he visited a professional analyst. After the analyst described the professional services that he could provide to Lynch, the filmmaker asked whether it was possible that psycho-analysis could in any way inhibit Lynch's ability to create art. Commendably, the analyst acknowledged that this was entirely possible, so Lynch thanked the man and saw himself to the door. Pabst's SECRETS OF A SOUL is an excellent demonstration of what Lynch was concerned about. I know this isn't a universal opinion, but from my perspective I think great artists and storytellers should introduce provocative questions to their patrons but only answer those questions selectively and with discretion. Please serve the viewer a nourishing meal, but don't chew the food and then digest it for us!

3/5 ...Though I suppose you can just stop this film when the husband walks into the analyst's office and Live With The Mystery.

[lester1/2jr]

Clash Of The Titans (1981) - I heard some titans were having a clash so I decided to check it out. I actually saw this in the initial theatrical run. The thing I remembered most was Medusa, but I guess it's The Kraken that has lived on in popular culture. Medusa didn't disappoint the second time around. I loved especially the Medusa shadow on the wall as the first thing you see. It's like an awesome video game moment like "oh maaaaaaan".

Okay: not having Harry Hamlin talk a lot was a good idea, but he could have used some different facial expressions. Also, The mechanical owl is cool looking, but is also a pathetic R2D2 imitation. Outside of that, its a great movie with real tension, an easy to follow plot, and of course awesome claymation by Harry whats his name.

4.75/ 5