They wrote my blog for me!

Peter Nellhaus, Coffee, Coffee and More Coffee:

The set looks somewhat similar to that of the film I just wrote about! Ya gotta start checking out Thai horror movies.

Mick, Mick is thinking about...:

Is that Benny Hill I see?
Many doors behind him.
I'm sure I can see several large (breasted) protuberances coming through the
curtains.
All we need is the music....
Deeeeeeer-der-de-der-di-dum-der-de-der-di-dum-der-di-der-di-dum-dum.

My blog is shite, and merely a film diary.
I defer

Mick from Dorset

Is it Mario Bava's KILL, BABY... KILL?

Jonathan Lapper, Cinema Styles:

I couldn't think of anything to write based on the picture so I just kept staring at it. Then I started thinking, "No house on earth has a hallway like that. And no one waits twenty years to read a will. And why are so many candles missing from the overhead? And why doesn't anyone dust?" Anyway, I continued talking to myself for several minutes after this about what I had done earlier in the bathroom and how cool in would be if I had heat vision and then I started thinking, "I'm mister serious film connoisseur but my favorite genres have always been sci-fi and horror. Why the hell is that?" Then my cat distracted me so I spent a few minutes rubbing her belly. It's quite large as she is a big fan of catfood products that contain generous amounts of gluten and animal digest. Then it hit me: I love sci-fi and horror because they don't strive for realism. I like realism in small films like KES or THE LUCK OF GINGER COFFEY but I hate it in big Hollywood to-do's where John Williams goopy music drowns out every emotion we're trying to feel. To a large degree, as I stated recently in a post on plotholes on my own blog, I don't care about realism or accuracy. I want characters and situations and mood. And sci-fi and horror have always given me that.

Here's a scene I love from the 1927 version of THE CAT AND THE CANARY. There's nothing realistic about it.



First of all, the broche thief in real life would obviously show his face. He would peer through the hole to ... you know... see where in the hell he was grabbing! But they don't show his face here. Just the arm and hand. It's all about the mood, not the reality. And the jumpcut at the end to her tinted, erect screaming torso must have jolted audiences in 1927. It says a lot about why I like genre pics, as their slummingly called by intellectual dingleberry set.

And the pic of THE CAT AND THE CANARY shown says a lot too. The light, the shadows, the arches, the candles, the drapes - they all speak to a mood. And that's what I love about older drama as well. Before the seventies (which I love, don't get me wrong) dramas that weren't a part of any particular genre relied more on mood and shadows and lighting than they do since. There's very little in CITIZEN KANE that is realistic and that film made post-1970 would've been done straight-on, like a tv movie with Anthony Quinn about Ari Onassis. Non-genre dramas may have lost their sense of mood and character but horror never has. And hopefully, it never will. Even the modern slasher film relies heavily on mood and pays almost no attention to realism. By contrast, sci-fi has made attempts in the last few decades to become "realistic" and "scientific" and it bores me to tears. Bring back iguanas with plastic plates attached to their backs I say. And men living in dollhouses while their cats terrorize them. Oh that reminds me, my cat is beckoning. Gotta go.

Glad to have you... thanks, lads!