Tag Archives: cult films

Saturday Matinee: Trailer Wars

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By Sam Prime

Source: Alamo Drafthouse

Unleashed from the vaults of Austin’s American Genre Film Archive, we present a meticulously-curated selection of the best, strangest, and most amazing coming attraction trailers in the world! Most have never been available in any home format, and all are presented in TRAILER WAR!

From the high flying, explosive metal mayhem of STUNT ROCK to THUNDER COPS’ disembodied flying head chaos, each 3 minute masterpiece is like a beckoning portal to another, more exciting dimension. It’s a crippling overdose of towering flames, mechanized destruction, lurking fear, poor sexual choices and spiritual devastation on an apocalyptic scale. You might want to have a cornea donor standing by just in case…because THIS IS GOING TO BURN!

Presented in collaboration with the American Genre Film Archive, with additional support from Drafthouse Films, we look forward to sharing this evening of eye-popping, gut-punching glory with you!

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Watch Trailer War on Hoopla here: https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/15503471

Saturday Matinee: The Guest

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The Guest review: A super-sleeper of a black-comedy thriller

By Tara Brady

Source: The Irish Times

Film Title: The Guest

Director: Adam Wingard

Starring: Dan Stevens, Maika Monroe, Brendan Meyer, Lance Reddick

Genre: Crime

Running Time: 99 min

Blue-eyed soldier boy David (Dan Stevens) arrives in a small New Mexican town to visit the family of a fallen comrade. The grieving mom (Sheila Kelley) notices that the young Iraq War veteran has appeared, as if from nowhere, but David’s “yes ma’am” manners soon put her at ease. The family are not in great emotional shape: dad has hit the bottle, teenager Luke is sullen and withdrawn, and his older goth sister Anna (Maika Monroe) stays in her room making mix-tapes.

Might their new guest allow the healing to begin? Perhaps. David soon makes himself useful by tackling Luke’s schoolyard tormentors, hanging out the household washing and carrying kegs around a party Anna attends. But Anna continues to suspect that David is not all that he seems to be.

She has no idea.

Adam Wingard is the mumblegore horror hotshot behind the better bits of the V/H/S portmanteau horror and the 2011 cult favourite You’re Next. The latter’s hefty profit margin – $25 million back from six figures – has allowed the hyphenate director, editor, cinematographer and writer to move up divisions with a budget of more than $1 million.

Being accustomed to producing his earlier, murkier movies for $20,000 or so, Mr Wingard knows well how to get more bang for your buck. Armed with something approaching a real budget, he now puts on one hell of a show. The Guest, a thriller that becomes a horror that transitions into a hilarious truncation of every 1980s action picture and back again, is as extravagant and ambitious a film as you’ll see all year. Picture Commando as a psychological thriller. Imagine Halloween as a theme park ride. Think Drive as a comedy.

A cleverly picked constellation of TV favourites – Downton Abbey’s Dan Stevens, LA Law’s Sheila Kelley, Fringe’s Lance Reddick – add some star wattage to an outrageous and outrageously entertaining hybrid.

Stevens keeps a poker-straight face as he delivers some of the year’s funniest lines. Maika Monroe’s screen magnetism is enough to keep Scar-Jo and J-Law awake during the long winter nights.

If Luc Beeson’s Lucy has left you jonesing for something that stands apart from the superheroes and straight-world toughs that populate the movieverse, then The Guest is a most welcome imposition.

 

Watch the film on Hoopla here: https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/13703180

Saturday Matinee: Massacre at Central High

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Though its unfortunate title makes it sound like a standard slasher film, Rene Daalder’s “Massacre at Central High” (1976) (aka “Blackboard Massacre” or “Massaker in Klasse 13”) is actually a clever political allegory in a high school setting. When new student David observes the degree to which the student body is dominated by a small clique of thugs, he sets out to liberate the school from its oppressors. Though he succeeds, conflicts soon arise among various factions to fill the power vacuum. Losing patience with everyone, David begins planning the destruction of the entire high school. The film is dated in terms of fashions and soundtrack and hamstrung by a low budget and occasionally stilted dialogue, but its message is timeless and problems it addresses such as bullying and high school violence are even more relevant today. Massacre at Central High is likely an inspiration for the later cult film “Heathers” (1988).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKvHDgL96U0

Saturday Matinee: The Holy Mountain

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There was once a time when seeking out cult movies was a challenge, involving a combination of dedicated effort and luck to hear about them and to actually be able to see them. Even learning what exactly is a cult film was not so common. Today, with internet communities that thrive on niche interests and novelty, most of us have an idea of what they are. For those who don’t there’s always wikipedia, but it used to be knowledge gained mostly through word of mouth or books discovered in stores or libraries like Midnight Movies by Stuart Samuels and Cult Movies by Danny Peary. To watch such films one had to be lucky enough to live near video stores or independent theaters managed by the right kinds of people (weirdos) or be able to visit such places on trips. Obscure or pirated videotapes could sometimes be ordered by mail through catalogs and magazines or found at comic conventions. Sometimes college campuses would also have small screenings organized by student film societies. Once in a blue moon, some of these films would even air on late night network or cable television.

To do my small part to carry on the cult movie tradition I will feature old and new examples of such films every Saturday that can be viewed in their entirety on YouTube. The first is “The Holy Mountain”, which is appropriate because the director, Alejandro Jodorowsky also created “El Topo”, one of the early acknowledged cult classics.