#misc horror

[marksollinger]

please watch vampires vs. the bronx

please.

[marksollinger]

rest in pieces to all the people i’ve recommended videodrome to over the past few years who i neglected to inform ahead of time about the protagonist’s gaping stomach-vagina or penis gun-hand

[marksollinger]

I just. What the fuck is videodrome. Like I loosely understand the plot I looked it up and read the synopsis but like what IS it I don’t get it. Is it because I’m not a film student. Dairy I don’t understand please help

i hate being a film student because people ask me for movie recs a lot and i have to actually think about it because telling an unwitting & innocent human being to watch videodrome is, i think, a very bad idea (unless they like body horror and film analysis and won’t assume i’m recommending a movie because i necessarily enjoy it wholeheartedly). i have had to watch and rewatch videodrome (and peeping tom and eraserhead and some others like them) to analyze and write about them for my cinema degree and i don’t think i could recommend some these movies to non film majors in good conscience, lmao

and i’m not trying to say this is like a High Art Form kind of movie because, Intellectuale™ as it may be, it is trash through and through. it is gorey and full of trash and so much freudian bullshit it’s unreal. when i say that this is a filmstudent-ass movie, i mean that it’s pretty hard to watch this movie and call it a masterpiece or whatever unless you’re saying it ironically or you’re stringing out a whole shitload of film theory and analysis from it because you went to film school and now you can’t watch movies like a normal person anymore (and that is not a compliment) 😭 like, i think if i told a normal person that i love the movie videodrome, they might assume i huff paint recreationally because this is clearly a movie for people who kill their braincells on purpose.

however i don’t think it’s because you’re not a film student lol there are lots of people who are film students who hate videodrome for valid reasons; it’s just a very fucked up and weird film that i enjoy for the body horror and because it mildly traumatized james woods, a dirty republican whom i hate

edit: here’s an actual summary and explanation* if you actually want it (*which is really just a mix of my personal interpretation and the interpretations i’ve had to read about in film theory and analysis courses):

the 1983 david cronenberg film, videodrome, is about a man named max renn, the president of civic tv, a toronto tv station which specializes in airing sensationalist content. unbeknownst to max, forces outside of his control are conspiring to turn him into a tool/weapon which will help some objectively evil people (weapons manufacturers) take control of channel 83 by using max to kill off his civic tv partners. there’s a cult that also does (practically) nothing but show weird vhs tapes to unhoused people and experiments on them (i’m skipping over the dynamic interactions between the o’blivion cult, civic tv, and barry convex but honestly that’s more plot-relevant than it is theme-relevant). in the end, max turns on the people controlling him, kills them in an act of defiance, and then kills himself. what i’ve personally taken away from this movie as being the primary message is that sensationalist exploitation of other peoples’ suffering (physical, sexual, emotional) is one of the larger evil of capitalism, and that, under capitalism, we’re all exploiting each other in different ways, all of it inherently violent and corrupting (videodrome even arguably includes some minor commentary on the fetishization of other—primarily asian—cultures and how they are consumed... but i've also seen it suggested that even this is a mere ornament to the topic of exploitation-as-violence in the film). in general, it's pretty obviously saying “you are not immune to propaganda, media can and does impact reality, fiction or nonfiction." it contains an overwhelming amount of freudian references (mentioning freud by name, the cigarette-smoking, the  phallic/yonic symbols) and mulveyan “voyeurism is violent” messaging. similar to peeping tom (1960, dir. michael powell), it’s kind of the ‘ideal’ film-major-movie because it’s really dense with obvious ideas and symbols that we get taught about in foundational film theory courses.

but again. i like it for the cartoonish 80s gore, practical effects, and watching james woods suffer. the self-reflexive meta stuff is cool, the materiality of the vhs and cathode ray tube televisions being very specific to the time in which it was made. it’s neat and fucked up. what more could you want from an 80s horror movie? some of the imagery is genuinely pretty upsetting for folks with common triggers so, again, it’s something i don’t really go around recommending to people... at least not lightly, film student or not.

[scrybe-grimora]

just saw lake mungo. damn. not a changed person but man.

[marksollinger]

hatred of john kramer is an entry level saw fan requirement

[marksollinger]

it’s just not a proper insidious movie if specs doesn’t suffer head trauma

[marksollinger]

so i’ve finally seen saw. #justiceforadam. what a complete fucking tragedy.

[tidepod-ghost]

on the bus ride home, i saw something kinda odd up in the sky. it disappeared a moment later.