Saturday night:
Suspiria [dir. Luca Guadagnino, 2018] - finally decided to watch this, going in with no expectations good or bad. if you sidestep the trap of comparing it to the original the whole time I think it's a very good modern horror film and an example of what a good remake can look like. It has it's own visual language, it uses the story skeleton in a new way and the performances are generally strong. I like modern dancing and there's a lot here, although I could've gone for even more! I also enjoyed that this generally felt grounded in reality, especially for the story it was telling, where the original feels like a candy-colored fever dream. My big complaint was the use of digital blood spray, especially towards the end, and some other editing and visual decisions that felt out of synch with the rest of the movie. I also found Tilda Swinton's performance as the old psychiatrist very distracting at times. I think the audience for this is definitely smaller than for the original, but I liked it a lot.
I took the day off yesterday and wound up watching 3 movies almost back to back. can't complain about that!
Horrors of Malformed Men [dir. Teruo Ishii, 1969] - second viewing and more enjoyable than my first since I wasn't falling asleep. I really have to stop starting movies at 11PM after being up for 18 hours already... My understanding is the story crams together several Edogawa Rampo stories into one (maybe too many), which is why the pacing and exposition dumps are a little funky. But honestly everything leading up to the arrival on the island is a lot of fun, a nice mix of amnesia-noir and comedic elements. And then you get to the island and it's titties and deformities and reveal after reveal after reveal. I mean this movie goes hard. It's relatively tame compared to the torture flicks Ishii was doing simultaneously, probably safe to watch with the wife and kids. A quality family romp!
Gamera: Guardian of the Universe - [dir. Shusuke Kaneko, 1995] - I was really disappointed when I missed Arrow's Gamera box set last summer and it immediately stared selling for x4 the original price. I hoped they'd do additional, less limited releases and they did so happy day. I've never seen any of the Heisei era Gamera but I've read so many good things. Well I was not disappointed! For a movie about a flying turtle that fights monsters with its fireball breath and tusks it feels surprisingly grounded. It felt like the seeds for Shin Godzilla were already growing here too. The pace is brisk, the balance of science talk and kaiju action is perfect and tons of innocent people die. What's not to like? Looking forward to the next two films.
Tremors [dir. Ron Underwood, 1990] - fuck I haven't seen this one in 20 years at least. but I watched the shit out of this as kid along with the first two sequels. It's been so long I remembered some of the main story beats but none of the specifics. On re-watch as a somewhat critical "adult" I'd say this is a near perfect movie, and I can't normally stand Kevin Bacon. tight script, solid performances, awesome creature effects, tight pacing, it's got it all. goddamn this movie rules.
