The Quatermass Xperiment

Victor Carroon (Richard Wordsworth) was one of three astronauts launched into space in a rocket by Professor Bernard Quatermass (Brian Donlevy), but he's the only one found on board when the rocket crashes on a farm. When he's dragged free, all Victor can say is "Help me," before slipping into more-or-less a catatonic state. Before long, it becomes apparent to Quatermass, Scotland Yard Inspector Lomax (Jack Warner), and others that something inhuman has taken over Victor, threatening the entire world.

The Quatermass Xperiment is a movie I was curious about for a long time before I finally saw it. I first became aware of it when I learned John Carpenter used "Martin Quatermass" as a pseudonym when he wrote Prince of Darkness. Carpenter even appears on the DVD to talk about his love for the movie.

Watching it for the first time, I see why it appeals to Carpenter. It's apocalyptic sci-fi horror, dark and cynical, and it mixes subtle mystery and tension with (for the time) graphic shocks.

Would You Rather

I love Jeffrey Combs. The man has turned in countless great performances in the horror and science fiction genres, and when I see he's in a movie, I immediately become interested.

Combs’ presence intrigued me with Would You Rather, and indeed, I don't think I would have enjoyed the movie as much if he weren't in it. He plays such a wonderfully loathsome and nasty villain and carries the movie on his back.

Plenty of movies start off interesting and become disappointing by the end. Would You Rather works in the opposite direction. It begins fairly uninvolving. I was disappointed the filmmakers took a great, schlocky idea and played it seriously, which drained out a lot of potential fun and humor. But, by the end, I confess the movie had me hooked, creating genuine tension and unpredictable moments.

The Pit and the Pendulum (1991)

Director Stuart Gordon is best known for his H.P. Lovecraft adaptations, but with The Pit and the Pendulum, he moved on to Edgar Allan Poe, handling the material with the same splatter gore and black humor he’s known for.

Spain. 1492. The Inquisition under Torquemada (Lance Henriksen) is in full swing. During the auto-de-fe, Maria (Rona De Ricci), aghast at the cruelty on display, begs for the violence to stop when a child is whipped. Entranced with her beauty, Torquemada orders her arrested as a witch. She's taken to the castle dungeon for torture while her husband Antonio (Jonathan Fuller), a baker and former soldier, tries to rescue her.

Nobody expected the Spanish Inquisition, but viewers of The Pit and the Pendulum can expect a cavalcade of atrocities: the iron maiden, the rack, floggings, burnings at the stake, a tongue is cut out, and Torquemada wears a spiked corset with the spikes pointed inward. It's as bloody and ghastly as you'd expect a movie about the Inquisition to be.

Three...Extremes

America and England are responsible for most of the anthology movies I'm familiar with, but Three...Extremes is an East Asian production from three different directors: Fruit Chan of Hong Kong, Park Chan-wook of South Korea, and Takashi Miike of Japan. Each one of these directors directs a 40-minute segment.

Chan starts with "Dumplings," the tale of an aging ex-actress who visits a woman for dumplings that restore youth but are made with a gruesome ingredient.

In "Cut," by Park, a successful film director and his wife are kidnapped by an extra from his movies and tortured.

With "Box," Miike tells the story of a woman haunted by nightmares of being buried in a box in the snow.

Throw Momma from the Train

An early scene in Throw Momma from the Train hits close to home.

Larry, the community college creative writing professor played by Billy Crystal, listens blankly as a student reads from her submarine story.

“Dive… DIVE,” yelled the captain through the thing. So the captain pressed a button, or something, and it dove. And the enemy was foiled again!”

I've been in my fair share writing classes and workshops. Believe me: this is only a slight exaggeration of the terrible writing one can encounter. Thankfully, I've never met anyone who has written anything as uncomfortable as “100 Women I Would Like to Pork.”

Ran

Ran is legendary director Akira Kurosawa's final masterpiece, what is often referred to as the Japanese King Lear.

Like Shakespeare's tale, Ran concerns an aging monarch who foolishly divides his kingdom among his children, banishes the one child who sees the folly of the plan, is rejected by his other offspring, and is driven mad as the land becomes engulfed in war. Both stories also prominently feature a royal fool whose silly behavior and nonsense songs reveal the blunt truth of the monarch's behavior.

Lord Hidetora is the elderly leader of the Ichimonji Clan. Following a boar hunt, he decides to relinquish his power and divide his kingdom between his three sons: Taro, Jiro, and Saburo. Saburo recognizes the plan would never work because he and his brothers were raised on conflict, but his protest enrages Hidetora, who banishes Saburo and Tango,a trusted adviser who defends Saburo.

Wings

Wings, directed by Larisa Shepitko, is a post-World War II drama set in the Soviet Union, where it was produced, about a woman who served as a pilot during the war but now struggles in her civilian life.

There are many American movies about veterans struggling to adjust to life out of uniform, such Coming Home and First Blood, but I don't know of any others from a Soviet perspective, and I don't know of any other prominent female directors from that period in the Soviet Union.

Shot in black and white, Wings follows Nadezhda Petrukhina (Mayya Bulgakova), who served with distinction during the Great Patriotic War in the Soviet Air Force. Twenty-plus years later, she's the headmistress of a vocational school. The students don't respect her, her daughter Tanya (Zhanna Bolotova) won't introduce her to her new husband, and overall, Nadezhda feels unfulfilled, out of place, and unappreciated.