Most say film noir, but I think it is Grand-Guignol cinema. The returning veteran played by Robert Ryan stalking Van Heflin is a theme from the theatre. ACT OF VIOLENCE (1948) has gorgeous gritty cinematography making it the most intense film of the decade - add to this also pre-PSYCHO Janet Leigh.

GINA (Denys Arcand, 1975) is a marxist-feminist rape revenge film about a stripper who is a worker connected to oppressed textile workers in small town Québec that is owned by Anglo money. Made in the context of the rising sovereignty movement in the 70s - a frigid surreal nightmare of a film.

Renate Reinsve is the centre of this film and the most powerful performance in SENTIMENTAL VALUE - my first Joachim Trier. A powerhouse film about actors and acting and the intensity of the nightly métier of being in front of a crowd (and camera). Bergmanesque! Stellan Skarsgård is superbe too!

French re-release poster designed by Brandon Schaefer.

Born on the day in 1950, Happy Birthday, RICK BAKER! 🎉

Found by Steve Dawson’s mother and sent to me as a holiday greeting!

From the new anthology NEGLECTED SCORSESE that arrived in the mail and this is the chapter I wrote on the episode "Mirror Mirror":

And the winner is… ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER Paul Thomas Anderson’s incendiary portrait of modern America has been voted best film of 2025 by our critics Find out what Sight and Sound critics have voted as the 50 best films of the year www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-so...

The post-partum experience in DIE MY LOVE is a taboo already in evidence in a culture that worships mothers. Lynne Ramsay has already made us experience being the mother of a serial killer. Here other mothering taboos that will keep the polite crew saying no. But I am fully yes.

Born on this day in 1954 (d. 2024), Happy Birthday, TONY TODD! 🎉

There is only one list! faroutmagazine.co.uk/john-waters-...

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All Hammer FRANKENSTEIN sequels: 5- REVENGE- gravitas of the gallows 4- EVIL- circus hypnotist 3- WOMAN- resurrection of "Baron" at beginning 1- DESTROYED- most sadistic Baron; intellectual creature 6- HORROR- different team and register-terrible Baron 2- HELL- very dark and back to the asylum

45 years ago today, Klaus Nomi released his self titled debut album"

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This monster kid encountered Udo on late night television in QC at a time when he was used to more serious Hammer films. I came across this crazy vampire, who puked blood and sought "wurgins." This teen did not understand the humour and only fell in love with the film later in a rep-house (@Cin V).

RIP the great Udo Kier!

I watched ENNIO (2021) and was quite moved by the film. The maestro used a pseudonym at the beginning of his career facing the double taboo of genre hatred and being a second class film composer within the music industry. I encountered him when I saw THE THING (1982). My sacred is called Morricone.

Whoa! www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEx9...

On this day in Horror History, ONIBABA was released in 1964.

Gaspar Noé giving the pope the brilliant VORTEX at the Vatican suggesting that a more serious view of cinema is offered than the constant refrain by my left liberal friends who want escape from the world. Is not the pope sounding like David Cronenberg: cinema should "not console, but challenge?"

On this day in Horror History, SALEM'S LOT premiered in 1979.

Jess Franco's DRACULA (1970) with Lee, Kinski, Miranda, Lom, and Rohm is actually quite brilliant. I think it is not liked because for Franco, who worked in France a lot, the reference is actually surrealism over the Gothic. The tone of the film is Stoker filtered trough Cocteau rather than Hammer.

I did not even know it was unavliavlabule until recently. I bought the film to honour Diane Keaton. It's a forgotten masterpiece. vinegarsyndrome.com/products/loo...

WOW! LOOKING FOR MR. GOODBAR (Richard Brooks, 1977) blew me away. Diane Keaton's performance is so powerful as a woman seeking sexual liberation from Catholic conservatism within the feminist movements of the 70s. Grand-Guignol cinema in every way. Still on my skin!

Never. Saw. This. Tonight.

I am always pleasantly surprised when I re-watch Jess Franco's films, here BLOODY MOON (1981), his slasher film set in Alicante (Spain) giving it a lovely weirdness accompanied by a bizarre score, really good FX work, and a sun-drenched vistas that clash with the slasher sensibility. Good one!

Et l'ère Denis Coderre est de retour ! ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/220...

Movie blood.

Happy Halloween/All Souls Day.