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Debbie Does Dagon posted:
That's a great write up Deb! Thank you for sharing it. I really enjoyed the movie as well, and loved how it's constructed. The courtroom scene as you mentioned is great and I really liked a lot of the boating scenes, there's a neat, almoststage play quality to them. That said, I plan to vote for City of the Living Dead. It was one of my first Fulci films (I can't honestly remember if it was Zombi or this but I watched them either the same day or within a day of each other), and it played a big role in getting me into Italian horror. I also happen to think it's a top tier zombie movie with some wonderful effects. For the other one, I thought more about it than expected and I'm going with Jack. Von Trier is just doing a whole of cinematic self reflection and I really respect what how critiques and defends himself in the piece. Plus Matt Dillon's performance is just incredible. E: wanted to include Debs super dope post
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May 18, 2021 21:59
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4. Lucio Fulci’s City of the Living Dead vs. 5. (Debbie Does Dagon’s Queer as in gently caress You) Bertrand Mandico’s Les garçons sauvages aka The Wild Boys City of the Living Dead (1980) Directed by Lucio Fulci The gates of Hell are open, the dead are walking around being very rude, and the world is going to end in a few days. Despite all this, there's a weird lack of urgency to everything. Peter: "According to your theory, we have less than 48 hours before this, uh, All Saints' Day." Mary: "We should go check out the local cuisine." It's occasionally unnerving and often gory, but it might be the most lackadaisical apocalypse ever. The Wild Boys (2017) Directed by Bertrand Mandico The Wild Boys is a visually mesmerizing film that I think is about external forces dictating gender roles. Five terrible boys commit an unforgivable act of sexual violence and are sentenced to be tamed by a strange sea captain. The idea presented in the story is that he knows a way to make them more timid by feminizing them. After a harrowing sea voyage, the captain and the boys arrive on a mysterious island. There are so many beautiful sequences in The Wild Boys, along with many that seem to be built to make audiences squirm in their seats. The swaps between color and black and white are very striking. The scenes on the boat have an especially dreamlike quality to them. This film contains more messages than I think I will ever be able to unpack. The opening scenes convinced me that it was going to try to coast on shock value, but there’s a lot more to it. It’s actually very thought-provoking and well done. I'm not sure which way I'm going to go here, but I wanted to share my quick thoughts on The Wild Boys, along with the short review I did for City of the Living Dead back in March.
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May 19, 2021 14:57
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Its Wednesday. Blah blah. Everything hurts. Vote or change your vote until 3 AM EST May 21st (or when I wake up)
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May 19, 2021 19:47
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I ended up voting for The House That Jack Built, but I was going back and forth on it all week. I just feel like it's the more accomplished and thought provoking film in a bunch of areas, even though Sightseers is more traditionally entertaining in the way you'd expect for a black comedy. Of course, I easily could've voted for The Wild Boys for similar reasons but the power of nostalgia for 80's gore and spooky graveyards won my vote on that one.
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May 20, 2021 14:58
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I voted for The House that Jack Built and The Wild Boys but I thought all four films this week are pretty good at minimum.
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May 20, 2021 15:54
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Yeah it was a solid week
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May 20, 2021 16:07
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Forgive me if this week’s update is a little mailed in or messy. I’ve been hurting bad the last few days and only barely remembered I had this to do with enough time to get it finished. And then rewrites tonight because stuff got dramatic and impactful. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGb5IweiYG8 Ok, lets see if I can see through the fog to see who won.   We have a tie! Wild Boys had this the whole week but as more and more votes came in Fulci kept chipping away at that lead forcing me to stay alert all night and rewrite this paragraph I so painstakingly put together in a 100+ degree fever fog without getting too much of the sweat on the laptop. In the end Fucli draws even and the Italian horror legend lives to fight another round and surpasses his second round elimination last year. For Deb’s Queer as in gently caress You it keeps the early favorite pick rolling and builds their point total to pass Andrzej Żuławski (and some other guy) for 3rd over all. But on the other side of things Lars von Trier follows his Team Vulgaer partner in winning and making me regret certain life choices with a decisive victory over Sightseers. The 3rd win of the tourney over Tarnop’s Brutal Brits puts the team back in first place overall for points over Tarnop’s Predation. That feels personal. Oh ALSO Fulci’s second victory moves him into second overall for the directors behind only Gasper Noe. For Marshall and Wheatley its their tournament and first time out, but if they want another go next year they’re either gonna have make more movies or find a 3rd Uncomfortable UKer. But for us it sets up a massive 3 way dance in the Sweet Sixteen against Deb’s QaiFY, the Godfather of Gore Fulci, and the current kings of this tournament in Fran’s Team Vulgaer. That’s gonna be a very uncomfortable blood bath that I deeply, deeply dread. Ok, time for this week. 3. (Irony or Death’s Team David) David Cronenberg’s Scanners vs. 11. (STAC Goat’s Team Universal) Jack Arnold’s Creature From The Black Lagoon  Team David kept their momentum strong from last year and just bowled over Don Coscarelli’s John Dies At The End last round, although they where helped a bit by some backlash to that film but it probably wouldn’t have made a difference with Lynch’s classic Eraserhead going. The round Cronenberg gets the call and he gets one of his more well known films although maybe not one of his best? On the flip side Jack Arnold upset Rob Zombie on the strength of The Incredible Shrinking Man, which despite some backlash of its own was one of the strongest performing films of the first round although it fell out of the Top 5 stats by round end. Arnold’s got a chance to propel himself back into the stats though with the film he’s most known for a true classic. In paper this might seem like the recipe for Arnold’s second straight upset but Creature’s strengths of feeling like a modern blockbuster might work against it with this crowd and Cronenberg’s offbeat, weird, not entirely appreciated but visually memorable film might be enough to upset one of horror’s most iconic classics. Only one way to find out. Scanners is on HBOMax and DirecTV in the US. Creature from the Black Lagoon 2. Shinya Tsukamoto’s Nightmare Detective vs. 7. (STAC Goat’s Creature Features) Guillermo del Toro’s Hellboy  Neither of these two really had the toughest competition in the first round with Tsukamoto taking down Jean Rollin’s Demoniacs and André Øvredal taking down Herschell Gordon Lewis’ A Taste of Blood, although that one had its “trash” fans and came fairly close to an upset. Neither is gonna get as easy a path this time around and that could hurt since neither drew an obvious killer. Nightmare Detective is a low rated, deep cut for Tsukamoto that seems to be dismissed by many of his fans as “too mainstream”, and while Hellboy is a bit of a cult classic and has a lot of Gdt’s style its also considered one of his more “mainstream” or production/comic book compromised films. Its a tough one to call once again. Based purely on ratings del Toro would seem to have an edge but he was eliminated last year with Blade II so it feels very easy to see this very similar film take him down again and for people to be drawn to the underdog foreign film. It feels like the second matchup of the week that’s gonna come down to the viewings and maybe the writeups. Nightmare Detective Hellboy is on DIRECTV, Hoopla, and Starz in the US. Ok, that’s all I got in me. I’m spent Seems like a tough week to call in both matchups which hopefully makes for a good viewing experience for most. For me its got two films I really like and two I’ve never seen, although I just saw Creature last week so maybe I’ll skip that and watch del Toro’s director commentary instead. I think I have the Hellboy DVD. Too tired to check. Go… on… without… me. Vote or change your vote until 3 AM EST May 28th (or when I wake up) Bracket & Noms Spreadsheet Letterboxd List Next Week! Round 2! 4. Femme Fatale vs. 5. Team Grindhouse 16. Predation vs. 8. William Castle STAC Goat fucked around with this message at 08:24 on May 21, 2021 |
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May 21, 2021 08:20
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STAC Goat posted:The 3rd win of the tourney over Tarnop’s Brutal Brits puts the team back in first place overall for points over Tarnop’s Predation. That feels personal. Oh ALSO Fulci’s second victory moves him into second overall for the directors behind only Gasper Noe. For Marshall and Wheatley its their tournament and first time out, but if they want another go next year they’re either gonna have make more movies or find a 3rd Uncomfortable UKer. It would probably feel more personal if I hadn't voted against my own team. Oh and Wheatley has already made a new film that's getting a good reception in the horror thread so maybe they'll be good for next year depending on the format. Another very interesting set of films this week! I'll finally be watching Creature from the Black Lagoon, so another classic soon to be checked off. I think Team David could possibly be in trouble here. Scanners starts strong and just keeps falling away over the course of the film, and I suspect that leaving a lingering sense of disappointment is bad news for an elimination tournament. I haven't seen the Tsukamoto, but it will be nice to watch Hellboy again. One thing that I remember from last time I saw it was just how many false endings that film has. I tend to get frustrated once a film gets into "wrap it up" mode and then just keeps going, so it'll be interesting to see if my tolerance for that has changed and if the Tsukamoto is good enough for it to even matter.
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May 21, 2021 10:02
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Woah I'm pleasantly surprised that Fulci survived. A three way dance with Fulci could be interesting because he may not win but you know he's gonna at least pull some votes away from the other two teams. One of these matchups this week is super easy, it's Creature From the Black Lagoon all the way. Not even close.
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May 21, 2021 14:14
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I'm gonna say something that I know is going to be very unpopular but must be acknowledged: Scanners kinda sucks. Scanners is one of Cronenberg's overall weakest outings, a film that lives entirely on the back of a single iconic shot (and alright a pretty good finale). But for a filmmaker who already had the masterpiece Shivers under his belt and was on the verge of beginning Videodrome, it feels sloppy, inarticulate and aimless. While Cronenberg may have a penchant for emotionally detached characters, Stephen Lack tests the limits of bad acting. Without an ounce of charisma, we're stuck with this awful performance for the bulk of a very sluggish, plodding film. Scene after scene of strained dialogue and poor attempts at plot. The parts everyone remembers, the parts everyone loves, are so few and far between it is agonizing. And I have seen this film in the theater on 35mm so I have experienced it the way it was intended and I still feel that it might be Cronenberg's worst film outside of his amateur early work (hell, it feels like it should be amateur early work). Creature from the Black Lagoon, however, is a marvel. A tragic, poetic and mysterious monster flick filled to the brim with memorable imagery. Of all the Universal monster flicks, it comes closest to King Kong in capturing the intangible power of film to see past the special effects and feel deeply for the story. It's no wonder Del Toro chose this for the basis of The Shape of Water, the core elements are already there to transform the story into a romance. This is an easy vote for Jack Arnold.
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May 21, 2021 14:16
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Ah, I forgot my little writeups! I voted for Garcons, but I can't help but feel somewhat pleased that the apparent underdog Fulci pulled through. Abstained from the other vote, went about as I'd expected.
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May 21, 2021 14:22
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I think Scanners is fine, maybe even good, but Creature is fantastic. This round only has one movie that's new to me (not complaining) but I might rewatch Hellboy, it has been a while.
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May 21, 2021 14:29
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So, I had to admit, Wild Boys was a Julien Donkey Boy situation for me. The Wild Boys was the more interesting, inventive, creative film. I loved it. But it’s even less of a horror movie than Julien Donkey Boy, which still is about a mentally ill person who commits murder. While The Wild Boys is also about an accidental murder at the hands of rapists, the tone was never once scary to me. It’s an adventure film, a fantasy film. A magical realist gender-fluid fairy tale take on Lord of the Flies and The Lost Boys. At least with Julien Donkey Boy, that film is tonally full of dread. In the chat people were scared, anxious, nervous, and worried. I didn’t hop in the chat for Wild Boys, but I can’t imagine a reaction like that. It’s too whimsical and interesting to ever sink into disturbing or scary, even when it’s showing sexual assault. So I voted Fulci, because that was actually a horror movie. And it’s Fulci’s 2nd best movie. That was enough for me to justify the vote. And it lead to a tie! Which, honestly, feels like the best outcome? Cuz I want to see more from both teams. (Totally not salty about Julien losing to Mr. loving Sardonicus.  )Edit: I also thought The House That Jack Built is pretty funny. Amazing performances, intimate hand-held cinematography, and a very fun anthology/vignette structure that explores the absurdity of psychopathy, toxic masculinity, and musings on art from a kinda-dumb-but-lucky narcissist? loving GREAT. You still got it, Von Trier. Edit 2: Of course the Tsukamoto pull is one of movies not included in the Tsukamoto Solid Metal Nightmares Box. Franchescanado fucked around with this message at 14:51 on May 21, 2021 |
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May 21, 2021 14:32
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Scanners and Black Lagoon are both excellent, pretty much a coin flip decision for me.
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May 21, 2021 15:17
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I've only seen Scanners once and was pretty unimpressed, i guess this week is as good as time as any for a rewatch.
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May 21, 2021 15:28
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It's a bit disappointing that the results were so tight, and yet there was so little engagement in the thread. I would hope that we'd be able to talk out these matches. Still, I'm happy that my team lives to see another day. I really didn't enjoy Creature and will vote against it probably on animal cruelty lines alone. And I'm looking forward to Nightmare Detective. E: I think I'm getting it mixed up with Revenge of the Creature Debbie Does Dagon fucked around with this message at 17:33 on May 21, 2021 |
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May 21, 2021 17:00
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I have no idea how Scanners vs. Creature will play out - my first reaction is that it's a slam-dunk for Creature because lots of people love it and I think most people agree that Scanners kind of sucks. At the same time, Scanners sucks mostly by comparison to Cronenberg's other work and the one part of the movie everybody knows is still an incredible standout. I don't even know how I'd vote on this one, I haven't seen Creature since I was 12 and it didn't make much of an impression at the time.
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May 21, 2021 19:14
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 Week 21 Bracketology Streams!  Only on the CineD Discord All times are in EST and may not reflect reality. Saturday, May 22nd  1900 Creature From the Black Lagoon vs. 2030 Scanners Monday, May 24th  1900 Nightmare Detective vs. 2055 Hellboy (2004) Content Warnings Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954) Rated G for mild violence, gore, and frightening scenes. Scanners (1981) Rated R for severe violence, gore, and frightening scenes. Nightmare Detective (2006) Unrated - heavy suicide themes. Hellboy (2004) Rated PG-13 for sci-fi action violence and frightening images e: Thank you, Goat! vvvvvvv Debbie Does Dagon fucked around with this message at 23:32 on May 21, 2021 |
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May 21, 2021 23:18
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For the sake of content warnings while I've never seen Nightmare Detective a number of the reviews I read did warn of heavy suicide themes.
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May 21, 2021 23:21
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3. (Irony or Death’s Team David) David Cronenberg’s Scanners vs. 11. (STAC Goat’s Team Universal) Jack Arnold’s Creature From The Black Lagoon These were both rewatches for me, but I hadn't seen Creature From The Black Lagoon in decades, so I decided that rewatching both would be the fairest way to compare them.  Scanners (1981) Directed by David Cronenberg Scanners is a ponderous chore, punctuated by a few moments of bonkers sci-fi action. The best bit, the part we’ve all probably seen, happens in the first fifteen minutes and then you have to trudge through the rest of the movie to get to the goopy, fiery finale. It’s like a half-baked conspiracy theory thriller where you don’t necessarily care about the details of the conspiracy or the intrepid heroes trying to unravel it.  I’m not saying that I think David Cronenberg is a bad director. He’s actually a really good director. Few people who argue that he doesn’t know how to compose a shot or sequence. I just don’t think he should be trusted to write his own movies. Aside from Videodrome, his best movies are all written or cowritten by someone else.  Michael Ironsides does the best he can, but his character is limited to scowling and occasionally emoting like he’s taking an epic dump. Also, instead of being an omnipresent menace, he’s barely in this move at all. Steven Lack though. Ugh. What’s going on there? Even the big reveal about Dr. Ruth lacks any kind of punch because Vale is just so blah. I definitely liked Scanners more the first time I saw it, so I'm not sure what happened.  Creature from the Black Lagoon (1953) Directed by Jack Arnold I haven’t seen this movie since I was a kid, so a rewatch was very interesting. So many false memories. For example, I was sure that the creature was captured and put on display in an aquarium, but I was apparently confusing this movie with the sequel, Revenge of the Creature, which I must have also seen at some point. The 50s were a decade of unlimited optimism, for at least some Americans. The idea that we might not be the dominant culture, let alone the dominant species, was probably unthinkable. I’ve only seen a handful of 50s horror movies and it’s hard not to view them all through the lens of the Red Scare. It’s not just the commies who want to take our freedom and tail fins and ladies, it’s the monsters too!  Though the characters are mostly forgettable, the performances are good enough that I didn’t really notice them. Sometimes that’s the most you can ask from a creature feature. The jungle scenery and underwater photography are beautiful, even in black and white. The creature’s design is iconic and even more impressive considering it’s a practical suit in which the actor could walk and swim. I think the suit is really what makes the movie. The fact that the creature is so mobile and relentless leads to quite a few genuinely tense moments, along with more action than you would expect from a movie of this vintage. It’s also not a dumb creature — the so-called gill man is able to form plans and escape a net. Monsters that aren’t mere animals are much more compelling.  Also, Mark is such a sourpuss turd that I was rooting against him basically the whole movie. I'm planning to vote for Creature from the Black Lagoon here because when I compare the cores of each movie, it's not even close. Scanners is character-driven but the lead character, the person who should be driving everything, is very boring. Creature from the Black Lagoon is obviously creature-driven and the creature is great. Also, the acting in Creature from the Black Lagoon is lackluster, but much of the acting in Scanners is actively bad.
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May 22, 2021 18:54
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Creature from the Black Lagoon is an astounding feat of filmmaking. You will not see better underwater monster stuff from that era, or any other. I want you to think about the logistics of many of the shots when you watch it, think about how the creature never lets air bubbles escape, think about how much work every single shot took. The story is a riff on King Kong, but the visuals are what win the day across the board. Scanners has A Moment, Creature is made of gorgeous shots and stunts
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May 23, 2021 00:40
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STAC Goat posted:
STAC Goat posted:
I watched Creature a week ago and wasn't planning to rewatch it tonight at all but I just got suck in that way I do vith my favorite films and ended up watching almost the entire thing. Conversely Scanners just had a real hard time holding my interest between the big bookending Michael Ironside gore scenes. A mix of Cronenberg's cold approach that turns me off and just a very oddly paced, exposition heavy conspiracy unraveling with a not compelling lead. Creature doesn't have the best human cast in the world and most people would be pained to name anything about them beyond Julie Adams' bathing suit but there's a whole lot to remember about the Gillman and those underwater scenes and that picturesque Lagoon setting that felt vibrant even in black & white. I dunno. Its a slam dunk for me but this is one of my teams and Bracketology loves them some werid, 80s, gore and Davids. So I'm not counting on anything.
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May 23, 2021 04:27
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Nightmare Dick has an incredible finale that outclasses the entire movie before it. A very unique premise and some great death scenes. I'm kinda leaning voting for it over Hellboy tbh. It's not without problems, the action is filmed with too much shaky cam which hinders it quite a bit.
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May 25, 2021 19:59
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I'm definitely leaning in the direction of the more interesting vs. technically better-made movies this week. Nightmare Detective has a good psychological-horror hook and tackles some more serious themes, occasionally interesting visuals, and characters I can at least feel something about, even if it's sloppy and feels like a drawing that isn't fully colored in right. Whereas Hellboy is decent all around, but rather bland, and the most interesting characters feel increasingly sidelined as the film goes on. Likewise, Scanners is choppy and doesn't fit together well — the potentially intricate conspiracy plot keeps getting interrupted by action sequences and the interactions you most want to see just don't end up happening, while Creature from the Black Lagoon hits all its beats with no real issues, has excellently-shot action, and a good villain, but the characters are practically ciphers. I'm voting Scanners and Nightmare Detective because what's there in both of those just appeals to me more. (And unfortunately I prefer the teams I'm voting against a lot more than the ones I'm choosing, but that's how it turns out).
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May 25, 2021 21:24
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I agree with everything Kangra has said. It's sort of a battle between technically sound though ultimately hollow films, versus interesting "failures", and I'm always going to go for the film that has more to chew on. So I'll be voting for Night Detective and Scanners.
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May 25, 2021 22:24
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But consider... Gillman and Hellboy are hunky boys who should be be punished for being in well made films.
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May 25, 2021 23:06
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Creature From the Black Lagoon is much more than just "technically well made". It was very ahead of it's time and set a standard that creature features and blockbusters in general are still using to this day. The underwater scenes are such an enormous accomplishment, I think it goes beyond just well made and into iconic, groundbreaking territory that should be recognized and celebrated. Interesting, discussion worthy themes are great, but let's not dismiss all technical aspects of these films especially when they're so high level and impressive as they are in Creature.
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May 26, 2021 00:09
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Now I want to vote for Scanners twice
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May 26, 2021 00:44
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2. Shinya Tsukamoto’s Nightmare Detective vs. 7. (STAC Goat’s Creature Features) Guillermo del Toro’s Hellboy Hellboy (2004) Hellboy is a fun supernatural adventure that probably owes as much to the Indiana Jones series as it does to the See of Destruction comic mini series, which I have never read. I did read a plot summary on Wikipedia, so you’ll just need to trust me that this analysis is spot on. Anyway, Hellboy is Indiana, Liz is Marion, and Myers is Marcus Brody. Some of the action is a little awkward. I honestly don’t know if it’s a choreography issue or a special effects issue. The end could have been cut a little shorter too. Otherwise, I think everything works. There are many beautiful shots. The colors are wonderful. Most of the acting is great. Really my only substantial beef with Hellboy is that I think it should have been a series instead of a movie. There’s so much of the world building that we don’t get to see. Nightmare Detective (2006) Nightmare Detective is what Inception would have been if it had been released in Japan four years before Inception. Also, instead of a heist movie, it was a horror police procedural. A mysterious entity is entering the nightmares of people who may already be having suicidal thoughts, killing them in their sleep and making it look like suicide. Some of the police have no interest in investigating the cases further, but a young detective knows that things are not what they seem. She enlists the Nightmare Detective to help her solve the mystery. After a really engaging start, the movie started to lose me. It’s full of beautiful shots, but the characters all felt very flat so I didn’t really connect with any of them. This meant there wasn’t as much emotional impact as there should have been when a character died. Also, the action leaned really heavily on shaky cam antics which tends to make things disorienting rather than exciting. Nightmare Detective does feature quite a bit of blood and way more bike riding than I would have guessed. I could really go either way here. I think that Hellboy is executed better, but Nightmare Detective is more thought-provoking. There's also the fact that I don't really think of Hellboy as a horror movie, but I'm not sure I've always taken that into consideration before.
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May 26, 2021 16:26
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Its Wednesday. That time for me to make the same post you see every week thus probably defeating the purpose of it being enough of an alert to serve as a reminder in case people have forgotten. But I do it anyway because I am a creature of habit. There's still some time if you haven't watched movies or voted. I myself have yet to watch Nightmare Detective and am trying to get comfortable enough in the nasty heat to do so this afternoon. You can still vote or change your vote until 3 AM EST May 28th (or when I wake up). That's 35 hours from now? Something like that.
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May 26, 2021 20:57
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Nightmare Detective Nightmare Detective is a stupid movie with the veneer of a smart one, attempting to deal with complex themes but absolutely not doing it properly. I’m not going to give it points for being a high concept – failed execution movie, because it really doesn’t try at all. It’s all stupid from the start, everyone acts as stupid as needed to move the plot to where it needs to go, and boy does it need some stupid stuff. Then some empty gesturing at pretty imagery. It felt insulting to be shown these pictures in this movie. Not voting for this. Hellboy Hellboy is a perfectly fine movie, starts strong with Nazis getting gooped, has some charismatic acting, the usual GDT love put into the setting, but it kind of falls flat for me. I was definitely enthusiastic at the start and then it just slowly meanders out, there’s no point where I can say it lost me, but when it was over my thoughts were “okay”, followed by “hey, is that Ron Perlman singing a Hellboy song”? Song’s not quite good enough to make me vote for it by itself (see The Roost), but I suppose it’s enough to beat what it’s up against. No time to watch the other two this week 
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May 27, 2021 14:14
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Fairly easy decisions for me this week. Scanners for me has never worked. We all know it has it's moments at the beginning and the end, but in between is about 90 minutes of meandering exposition and bland acting. It could've been drastically improved by more emphasis on Michael Ironside's Revok, who seems to disappear from the movie for huge chunks of time and because of that it's a very frustrating experience. And while the head explosion is great, I've now seen it about 100 times over the course of my life and it's not like there's much to that scene other than that. Creature From the Black Lagoon on the other hand, commits what is apparently a cardinal sin of actually hanging together as a coherent story and flowing from beginning to end in a satisfying way with excellent pacing. It's just a well made film in basically every way, and as I said before the creature work is still impressive almost 70 years later. So ok, the characters are a bit bland but is that really going to be an issue here when it's going up against perhaps the most notoriously lame protagonist in horror history? Hellboy for me is in the "good" category, because it's really going for the gold with the Elder Space God storyline but in the end it feels rushed. Perhaps if the extra time allotted for the directors cut was used more wisely, instead of for extra Myers scenes and redundant exposition about Samael, things would've come together more coherently. I remember being quite confused as to what actually happened when I left the theater in 2004. But there's way too much charm and style in the movie for me to not have fun with it, and that's always a saving grace that a Del Toro film will have. Even when he doesn't hit a home run, he never strikes out. Nightmare Detective on the other hand just bored me. The premise was established pretty much from the outset, there wasn't a whole lot of mystery to it, and visually I did not find much to enjoy at all. The story picked up at the end but by then I was mostly checked out and if I wasn't watching in the stream I probably wouldn't have made it that far. So I easily could've voted against Hellboy if the competition was better but in the end the choice was almost made for me.
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May 27, 2021 15:25
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I'm voting Tsukamoto's Nightmare Detective over GDT's Hellboy. This may get a little morbid, folks! So if you don't want to discuss suicide in an analytical way, skip this post! But I think it's an essential part of the discussion when looking at Nightmare Detective. Some facts, pulled from the ol' Wikipedia: When Nightmare Detective was released in 2006, Japan has (and, mind you, continues to have) the 3rd highest suicide rate of any G7 country, beat only by #1 South Korea, and #2 Russia.  The suicide rate was pretty steady until around 2011, when they started seeing results from their suicide prevention plans: quote:In 2007, the government released a nine-step plan, a "counter-suicide White Paper", with hopes of curbing suicide by 21% by 2017. The goal of the white paper is to encourage investigation of the root causes of suicide in order to prevent it, change cultural attitudes toward suicide, and improve treatment of unsuccessful suicides. On average, 70% of Japan's suicides are male. It is Japan's leading cause of death for men 20-44 years old and women 15-29 years old. Around 59% of suicide victims are "Not Employed", which isn't just "unemployed", because it includes pensioners, homemakers, freelancers, and others. Suicide is so common in Japan that it is ingrained in Japan's culture. You're probably familiar with seppuku, the Samurai's formal suicide to take their own life with honor. For a long time, suicide was considered a morally responsible action an individual could take. Japan is culturally tied to the concept of "amae", a need for dependence and acceptance by authority figures or a group. According to Takeo Doi, who first referenced amae in his 1971 book The Anatomy of Dependence, the concept of amae is about being in harmony with others and being able to depend on them as a child could depend on their parents. His thought is that even though a child can act ridiculous, their parents would indulge them. Because of this idea of amae, many people in Japan suffer from fragile self-worth, because their identity is so tied to exterior forces, like friends, family, and especially work, moreso than an internal sense of individuality. To tie this into Nightmare Detective, the three major characters are suicidal based off of low self-worth from amae. Keiko Kirishima, our lead detective, was an excellent student and has an ability for insight into cases, but can't handle actual crime scenes. She expresses her inability to read others, which causes her to clash with her superiors. Her gender and her intellectual prowess causes her authority figures to hate her or have a combative relationship with her, much to her dismay. When she calls 0, these are the thoughts that 0 digs into to create their link. Also of note, the haunting ghost figure that haunts Keiko's dreams is revealed to be herself, showing an internal struggle between her identities and her self-worth. Kyoichi Kagenuma, our titular nightmare detective, suffered familial abuse from an implied mentally ill parent and another guardian. He was born without any self-worth. He has the ability to travel into dreams and nightmares, and is ostensibly a suicide negotiator, who tries to talk down individuals in their dreamscape, but the results are about as good as actual suicide negotiators, with the added existential horror that Kyoichi could be trapped in their dreamscape permanently. Kyoichi himself is suicidal, but there is still hints of his warmth. A notable scene is that children have found him in an attempt to hang himself. They are crying and trying to wake him up. Later, the same children approach Kyoichi, and we learn that he is their friend and plays with them. His self-worth doesn't let him bask in this human warmth, unable to see beyond his own depression that he is loved by people he allows to get close to him. While he seems to ignore Keiko and Wakamiya's plan to hunt 0, he calls Keiko at night to warn her of the danger in their plan and to talk them out of it. These moments show why Kyoichi is who he is, and how he suffers from his repeated failures to help people. 0 is the foil to Kyoichi, also having suffered abuse as a child and helplessly witnessing the childhood death of his sister. This death has plagued his life and is ultimately a root for his nihilism and depression and want for suicide. His first attempt at suicide, however, reveals to him the power to travel into peoples dreams, like Kyoichi, but instead of trying to save them, he hungers to devour them. It cures his wounds and grants him further life, but the hunger grows greater, and his existential suffering continues. (Interesting parallels to the Wendigo myth, here!) Equally important to the ideas and themes in Nightmare Detective is the concept of Shinjū. Shinjū (心中, the characters for "mind" and "centre") means "double suicide" in Japanese. It is a form of suicide pact. It's been a term since at least the 17th century, where it was the subject of a puppet theater performance written by Chikamatsu Monzaemon, called Shinjū Ten no Amijima (The Love Suicides at Amijima). The original idea was that people who were intimately connected, like family members, close friends, or lovers would kill themselves together. (The term can also be applied to murder-suicides, where a person kills another out of passion or act of love before themselves, like patricide, matricide, filicide.) This has evolved in modern times, especially with the internet age, and now tends to mean "Internet group suicide". Individuals, usually strangers, find each other on forums, message boards, chatrooms, and social media groups and agree to kill themselves together (usually in person, but not exclusively). Nightmare Detective, interestingly enough, uses both ideas of Shinjū for 0's villainous plan. While 0 is a voice on the phone asking for Shinjū, a suicide pact, in reality, 0 is committing Shinjū, a devouring/killing others in a murder-suicide rite. It's a strange thematic pun, which is further emphasized by 1) the duality shown between 0 and Kyoichi, and 2) the resolution that Keiko and Kyoichi escape suicide/death by finding a reason to live out of a common bond of friendship/love/support for each other. A bitter irony is that Japan was able to find tolerance towards Shinjū, lovers/intimate persons committing suicide together or murder-suicide, but intolerance towards Shinjū, the internet suicide pacts between strangers, defining it as thoughtless, impulsive, and functionless. This, to me, is pushed further by the promise of the internet to connect individuals and for them to find social acceptance when it can't be found in their immediate surroundings. Individuals are finally able to connect with each other, but it leads to self-destructive acts, where the mutual bond is to end their lives. A more sympathetic light has been shone towards this modern form of Shinjū, starting in 2008 with Chikako Ozawa-de Silva's research "Too Lonely to Die Alone: Internet Suicide Pacts and Existential Suffering in Japan": these deaths are "characterized by severe existential suffering, a loss of the "worth of living" (ikigai)...and a profound loneliness and lack of connection with others". This is one of the few films where I find The Power of Friendship as the key to the plot's resolution to be satisfying. 0 is not defeated because the value of life is greater than the desire for death, but over a mutual understanding that each of the characters have suffered in their own way, and can find peace with the solidarity in knowing that. There isn't a cure to suicide, necessarily, only a greater desire to live beyond it. It's a bit too complicated an idea for a clean resolution, which is reflected in the final moments of the film, where Kyoichi and Keiko are bonding. Kyoichi still struggles, Keiko still has her doubts, but together they will work past them one day at a time, together. There are aesthetic aspects that lessen Nightmare Detective's impact. I think the first act is hampered by the washed out images from the 2006 digital photography not handling the lighting too well. It's too bright, and doesn't have the visual weight of film. The gear is also lighter, which gives the camera a little to much freedom for close-ups where there should be more distance, and movement where there should be restraint. I think this is used in it's advantage later on in the dream sequences, where the camera gets claustrophobic with it's shots of eyes, and frantic movement. I think most of these issues are solved in the editing. There are a lot of complicated cuts and timing that are handled very well. There's a bit too much fluff that could be cut in the more mundane moments, like the lingering shots in the epilogue. (End the film on Keiko and Kyoichi's backs as they look at the water, not Kyoichi's profile with a zoom in on the water.) What I dislike is balanced by what I did like. I appreciate that so much of 0 is hidden from the viewer until the final act. And even when 0 is in his bloodiest, skinless form, so much is left off-screen rather than on. I was also impressed with how absolutely gory and violent this film was. I know Tsukamoto is a fan of blood splatter and body horror, but the scenes with the sleeping victims stabbing themselves into bloody pulps did make me wince, especially the 2nd victim who's wife watches him rip apart his chest with a razor blade. I'm also impressed by the collage-imagery that fuels the dreamscape, and the motif of fish and water. An awesome moment for me was when the camera zooms into Kyoichi's cloak, goes into pitch black, and the darkness dissipates like ink into imagery like fish swimming. There's a montage where things rapidly move from the microscopic--cells, cell structures, close-up of wings of insects, and then explodes into the macrocosm of the Universe, visually expanding existence from the microscopic to the grandeur of the entirety of our knowledge of life. Compelling imagery in a film about suicide, where individuals can feel isolated to a greater world, when really, like atoms into cells into organisms into systems, we are indeed one part of a greater whole, even when we can't see it, and discovering that bond is at the heart of Keiko and Kyoichi succeeding and 0's inability is the root for his suffering. On a purely entertainment level, if you were to ask me, "Would you like to watch a movie that mixes A Nightmare On Elm Street, Se7en, Ringu, and Cure?" or "Would you like to watch a superhero movie with some Nazi occult stuff and monsters?", I'm gonna pick the surreal police procedural over a devil man superhero beat-em-up. When it comes to Hellboy, I'd actually much rather read a Mike Mignola comic. His art is so distinctive and, for better and worse, influential. I don't really like how GDT emphasizes the human side of BPRD, when I'm more interested in the devil dude and the fish man. I much prefer GDT's original concepts, not when he's adapting comic books. As much as I like Hellboy's production design, I'm a bit more impressed with Tsukamoto's low-budget auteur work on display here. He directed and edited the film, and co-wrote and also collaborated on the cinematography. He delivered a premise that I would happily engage with if serialized. I liked all the characters, I liked the villain, and I found the whole thing thought-provoking about themes and ideas that are incredibly common to the 1st World, even though it's society's big ugly elephant in the room. Nightmare Detective all the way. Franchescanado fucked around with this message at 16:15 on May 27, 2021 |
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May 27, 2021 15:30
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Franchescanado posted:There are aesthetic aspects that lessen Nightmare Detective's impact. I think the first act is hampered by the washed out images from the 2006 digital photography not handling the lighting too well. It's too bright, and doesn't have the visual weight of film. Yea I think this caused a problem for me and it really wasn't a good first impression. It was very hard to get into that mindset of ok I'm watching a serious horror/thriller ala Se7en or The Ring with that cinematography. I think I pretty much dismissed the film within the first 15 minutes and had a hard time getting back into it.
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May 27, 2021 15:38
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Basebf555 posted:Yea I think this caused a problem for me and it really wasn't a good first impression. It was very hard to get into that mindset of ok I'm watching a serious horror/thriller ala Se7en or The Ring with that cinematography. I think I pretty much dismissed the film within the first 15 minutes and had a hard time getting back into it. I think these issues go away near the end of the 1st act, though, and I didn't have any problems with it after. I went from "This is kinda ugly" to enjoying what the digital camera was allowing them to do. There's some shots that you straight up can't do with a bulky film camera, and I think they worked in the film's favor rather than it's weakness. I do think it's funny that we have two movies in each vote that's about psychics, and I find the psychic stuff in Nightmare Detective interesting and compelling, and the psychic stuff in Scanners waffling between impressive and "pew pew psychic power fight look how my face shakes and turns red cuz I'm concentrating hard". Reminded me of that gag in Bojack Horseman where Todd escapes with improv(?) I'm voting Creature over Scanners, too, but I gotta revisit Creature tonight to do a write-up defending why I'm right and everyone voting against it is wrong. To be fair, I think it's just a thing that a lot of '00s Japanese films have when they went digital. I think Ringu also has a too-bright washed out look, and that was filmed on 35mm as far as I can tell, and in '98. Franchescanado fucked around with this message at 16:14 on May 27, 2021 |
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May 27, 2021 15:46
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Well poo poo, I have to go on Discord and see if DDD is planning to come back and still participate in this. This is a huge bummer.
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May 27, 2021 16:52
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I've decided on creature and nightmare.
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May 27, 2021 21:33
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MacheteZombie posted:I've decided on creature and nightmare. Hell to the gently caress yes.
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May 27, 2021 21:44
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Franchescanado posted:Hell to the gently caress yes. It is the correct place to be
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May 27, 2021 21:59
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 14:41 |
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Those underwater shots won me over. The suit is obviously fabulous but that it was functional enough to capture the underwater photography is just drat impressive
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May 27, 2021 22:02
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