Tusk (2014)

Terra and I watched Tusk (2014), which was a trip. Disgusting, but darkly humorous... although for me the "ick" factor was distracting haha. As Terra said, "I definitely don't regret watching it but I also can't think of anyone I would recommend it to off the top of my head." 🤣🤣 

There was also a lot of misogyny which didn't seem to drive the plot at all, it was just uncomfortable.

Featuring the Sixth Sense kid (Haley Joel Osmont), and randomly, Johnny Depp.

Definitely the weirdest Kevin Smith film (I've seen, anyway). 

Bug (2006)

Nicole and I watched Bug (2006), and it was f'ing crazy!! It was not what I was expecting, that's for sure, which was a relief for me anyway, tho this was surely gnarly in its own way. Themes of paranoia, madness, conspiracy, loneliness, loss of self. A good movie but rough!

Suicide Circle aka Jisatsu sâkuru (2001)

Damn. Suicide Circle aka Jisatsu sâkuru (2001) was a brilliant but brutal watch.

 ** ❗Content warning, there was a scene at ~1:05:00 that was too horrible/disturbing for me, I had to stop watching and turn it off last night. The movie up to that point was really awesome and creative, so I came back to it today, just fast-forwarded through that scene. Truly awful subject matter and felt so real that it really disturbed me. On the balance, I still liked/respected the movie. But if you choose to watch, please be ready (I was not).❗** 

Anyway, there were some super iconic moments, I'm really shocked I had never heard of or seen this movie before. (Mark said he saw it like 15 years ago.) I have seen a great deal of American horror by now, but one of my goals for this year is to expand my knowledge of international horror. HMU if you want in on that! 🇯🇵👺👹👻

Phenomena (1985)

Megan and I plunged into the abyss with Dario Argento's insane giallo Phenomena (1985). My all-time favorite horror film, Suspiria (1977), is by Argento, and this film stars the exquisite Jennifer Connelly one year before her appearance in Labyrinth, so I was pretty psyched for this movie. The narrative has been called "muddled," but that's a dramatic understatement. It starts out as a rational and linear (if fantastic) story, but abruptly devolves into visual and narrative chaos and depravity. The aesthetics of the film are great and characteristic of the genre, with intense colors, crazy zooms, and wild music (Iron Maiden, anyone?). I LOVED the movie until its utterly strange denouement... now need to sit with it a bit. Still, I'd recommend! //  Oh also, there was some weirdness with the release of this film (they cut out 20 min and re-released in English as the widely-panned Creepers). We watched the so-called "hybrid" version, with ~6 min of footage where no English audio exists, so there were random Italian scenes. 🙄 These were supposed to appear with subtitles, but did not on Amazon prime, so brush up on your Italian!

Society (1989)

Wow... Society (1989) was nuts. One of the horror tropes I really like is the paranoid, everyone's in on it, me-against-the-world conspiracy (cf The Truman Show, Rosemary's Baby), which this explored to good effect. The practical effects were pretty gnarly too, and I loved the tongue-in-cheek visual humor, reminiscent of my all-time-favorite movie, Heathers (1988).

Santa Sangre (1989)

WOWWWW Santa Sangre (1989) is one the best movies I've ever seen, across genres. Such richness and depth of emotion! So very strange and haunting!! Brilliant. I knew I loved Dario Argento (Suspiria is my all-time favorite horror movie), but now I am pretty damn impressed by Claudio Argento, too! What a talented family.

From Dusk til Dawn (1996)

Horror movie 2 of Halloween season - From Dusk til Dawn. Standard gangster hijinks and then shit got weird. Like, Dead Alive weird.