Mostly NP:At the movies

[Thomas Eckhardt]

Just came home from my second day at the yearly Fantasy Filmfest in
Cologne. A marvellous event. For a week or so they are showing
everything between "Scary Movie II" and disturbing Japanese stuff about
necrophilia and incest, as long as they find a way to call it horror,
fantasy, or SF. Especially fine are their retrospectives: A few years
ago we were treated to a few of those incredible Dario-
Argento-slasher-flicks, and if the videos of his movies you can rent in
the U.S. are as mutilated as the ones we get over here in Germany, some
of you can certainly imagine what an immense pleasure it was to watch
uncut versions of "Suspiria" and "Opera" on the big screen.

Anyway, yesterday was the premiere of "Memento", a film, I understand,
that is quite successful in the U.S. I will certainly go and watch it
again when it is being officially released. Generally, I thought it was
brillant. Any opinions?

Tonight the first movie I saw was Sam Raimi's "The Gift", a rather
gripping kind-of- supernatural thriller, vaguely reminiscent of "The
Sixth Sense", set in Georgia. Not quite as good as the at times
inbearably intense "Simple Plan", but highly recommended nevertheless.
The second movie was a docu about those nasty horror flicks of the
Sixties and Seventies - "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", "Last House on
the Left", "Night of the Living Dead" etc. - and their relation to
contemporary history and society. It was aptly titled "American
Nightmare". As there has been some discussion on this list about the
relationship between the Kennedy assassination and COL49 despite there
being no explicit reference in the text (no, I haven't read Charles
Hollander's essay yet, so please correct me if I'm wrong), this is why I
put the "mostly" before the "NP" in the subject line: I was certainly
aware of the fact that the ending of "Night of the Living Dead" referred
to the clash between the Civil Rights Movement and those redneck
sheriffs from the south of the U.S. Not explicitly but by means of the
imagery and because of the involved characters. But it was certainly
very interesting to hear from the likes of Tobe Hooper, Wes Craven (who
way back then directed the probably most disturbing of those movies,
"The Last House on the Left"), or George A. Romero, in how far they
nowadays feel the violence in their films was related to events like the
Kent State University shooting, the assassinations of Martin Luther King
and Bobby Kennedy, and of course the war in Vietnam. Romero has always
been in some sense a very political director, but it was also highly
interesting to watch crucial scenes from "Last House on the Left" or
"The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" cut against excerpts from documentary
material from Vietnam or the U.S. Should be essential viewing for
everyone who likes those films.

Good night,
Thomas

P.S. Tomorrow, finally, the new Argento. Can't be worse than "Phantom of
the Opera"...