My opinions on obscure movies!

[uberreiniger]

While the internet was blacking itself out in protest (and rightly so,) I sat around and watched horror movies. But they were really good horror movies.

Black Death - I've wanted to see this film for a while because it stars Sean Bean and I was expecting to watch him good-naturedly slog through a cheesy, low-budget shocker for the paycheck. This is actually a very good, thought-provoking film. Rather than a straight-up horror film, it's more appropriately thought of as a noir suspense thriller that just happens to be set in medieval England where everything is morally ambiguous and what we see is unreliable.
The main character is actually Osmund (Eddie Redmayne,) a novice Christian monk torn between his vows and the woman he loves. At the height of the bubonic plague one village in the area is untouched by the disease and Osmund accompanies Church investigator Ulrich (Bean) and his squadron of soldiers to find out why. Ulrich believes it's too good to be true and that supernatural forces may be involved.

I like the fact that this movie doesn't take the easy way out by casting the medieval Church as stock villains and/or setting up a conflict between repressive, militaristic Christians and peaceful, earth-loving pagans. Black Death dares to present both sides as equally violent, authoritarian, and cruel and yet at the same time, equally valid. I also liked that they never flat-out state exactly *what* the witches believe. On one hand they seem to practice a sort of Druidic paganism, but they make statements that lean toward them being Satanists/general occultists or even simply nihilistic atheists. This might be frustrating for some viewers, but the film is immersive enough that I felt this ambiguity heightened my empathy with the heroes' confusion and not knowing what to trust or who to believe.

I found this film very thought-provoking and felt it raised good questions about what we take for granted not only in terms of religious beliefs, but even what we may have taken for granted about certain such beliefs being evil or wrong. Be warned that it is a very depressing film.


Noroi: The Curse - Noroi is a Japanese "found footage" film from 2005. That's a few years before the found footage subgenre exploded back into popularity in the West and for those who think that the genre is contrived, not scary, or just plain out of good ideas... you need to see this movie.

Noroi centers around paranormal investigator Masafumi Kobayashi (Jim Muraki) who is filming a documentary of his investigations. He films a series of seemingly unrelated cases... but people he films keep acting in unexpectedly hostile, violent ways and voices and images keep showing up on the tapes that should not be there...

I will be honest, this movie starts out kind of slow and the Japanese variety show footage that Kobayashi draws on for his early leads gets pretty tedious. Having said that, I found the last thirty minutes of this film to be freaking scary! Noroi is one film that really knows how to effectively creep up the tension. It's hard to say more without giving too much away, but I stress again that if you're tired of or not impressed with found footage horror movies, please give this one a chance. You'll see what this much-maligned film technique is truly capable of.

I almost forgot to mention the best part. You can watch the entire movie for free on Youtube divided into eight parts starting here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zha9jJuB2yg Suck on that, SOPA.

Comments

[hravan.livejournal.com]

I'm watching my grandfather dying. And his wife is begging for him to croak.

And I want to give her a knife.

[uberreiniger.livejournal.com]

Umm... Okay? Sorry, I guess?

Actually, can I ask you something? Is there a reason why you're always coming in here and posting random shit that never has anything to do with what I'm talking about? Because I don't actually know you well enough to be comfortable with that.

I'm sorry you and your dying grandfather don't have a great relationship but that doesn't give you the right to come in here and spit it at me like how dare I be having a good time just because you're not.

And all these little videos you keep spamming my entries with? I don't watch them. I am not interested in watching them so knock it off.

[punkyami-chan.livejournal.com]

Japanese horror movies scare the snot out of me because they are almost always psychological scary as opposed to the Western "hack, slash and gore" fests. I forget what it was called but I remember I actually had to stop watching the movie because it was so scary. I actually saw The Ring and -spacing on the other Sam Raimi movie flick- in Japanese before the English versions came out and I almost laughed through the English ones because they were tame in comparison. I don't know if some of it is the language barrier of reading subtitles or that they are just that good at reading into human emotion and building up basic instinctual fears, but yeah, if I want a good horror movie, I turn to Japan. That being said, I actually do want to see Black Death.

[uberreiniger.livejournal.com]

I found the remake of The Ring far scarier than the original. But I did see the remake first so that may have been a part of it. Juon was the Sam Raimi one and it was effective but the original Juon films are just unbelievably scary. Not movies to watch while house sitting alone with all the lights off, as I did.

[para-xylene.livejournal.com]

I watched Black Death last year! I, too, was relieved that both sides of the religious 'fence' were truly just as villainous as the other. Perhaps I forced my own belief on it, but I came away (though depressed) with the thought; it isn't the religion or the organisation that breeds problems, but the people within them.

Also, there was plenty of mind-fuckery in that film of which I approve!

[uberreiniger.livejournal.com]

It's not an easy film to watch or to reflect upon afterward but it is definitely worth watching and reflecting on.

[ravenbrenna.livejournal.com]

**SPOILERS*** Just incase anyone feels the need to read my comment and hasn't watched Black Death yet lol.

I was under the impression that she just used show and didn't have any actual powers, but was just very good at combining flashy drama and drugs etc etc. Which I think might have been the thing that ruined the movie for me instead of just being meh about it...that and the horribly depressing ending. I think it may be that I can't wrap my head around that sort of evil. Tell a priest that info about someone and what do you expect them to do? I refuse to believe she did that for any reason other then to fuck with him. But, like I said on fb, Sean Bean's eff you was AWESOME. And I defnitely agree it was nice to see something different, but the feeling I had coming from that movie was...not pleasing, which I am sure was at least partly the intention if not entirely.

Now, for the found footage, is it really shaky and nausea inducing? Because it sounds interesting but if it is I won't be able to watch it without downing a bottle of gravol!! Lol

[uberreiniger.livejournal.com]

I think she genuinely did want Osmund for the cult because turning a priest to your side opens up all sorts of options that you don't get just by having your fellow peasants. It's not far-fetched that she'd still believe in the rightness of her cause despite having to fake all her supernatural powers because there have been plenty of people like that historically.

Noroi has a few shaky scenes, especially during the climax, but there's less of it than in most films of the genre because most of the footage takes the form of a professional documentary. It's worth toughing your way through the shaky parts because it's a really great movie despite the slow start.

[ravenbrenna.livejournal.com]

Makes sense. And the more I think about it, I think it might have simply been that it was so depressing, and I really wasn't in the mood for depressing.

I'll definitely have to check it out.