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The Horror! The Horror! - 25th November 2009

It’s funny how much you can miss even if you’re an avid movie-goer and cinephile. And it’s even funnier that the discoveries can come from the most unexpected of places.

I love films and filmmaking. I don’t think there’s ever been two ways about it: as long as I knew myself, cinema held an infinite fascination for me. And I don’t even mean cinema in its’ good sense, you know the brilliantly written and acted movies of all-time; no I mean cinema in an all encompassing sense. From Bogart to Troma to Judge Reinhart back to Bette Davis.

When I was younger, one of my main aims was to watch every film ever made. I now can look back with some fondness and amazement at this somewhat idiotic but nonetheless passionate ideal: it wasn’t because I wanted to feel superior for having done such an act but because I simply loved the experience of cinema.

Still, to this day, I get the same excitement I used to get when I walk into a cinema – especially if it is a film that I have been keeping track of. Even at home, the excitement of watching something, something new makes me almost giddy with pleasure.

And so to constantly discover things I’ve missed: things that are so good that more people should see them (or if they have why hasn’t someone kept me in the loop?!); things that are absolutely unique in some way or another; things that might be 99.9% awful but for one brilliant moment that outshines the rest of the dirge.

Take for example: ‘Next Of Kin’ ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084408/)– I knew nothing of this Australian ‘classic’ until chancing upon it one week. I got a copy (only the German DVD was available at the time) and then inflicted it at a movie party upon some friends. The result: agog at how such a seminal film could have gone so unappreciated. Think Argento meets Don’t Look Now but with an Ozzie twist. Beautiful shots, some amazing camerawork, surreal atmosphere and a killer ending. How many of us here have seen it? I’d expect a fairly wide divide – it’s just one of those films lost somewhere along the lines.

Or how about ‘The Flesh Eaters’ (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058101/)– until a friend of mine brought it over, I’d only ever heard of it vaguely. It has the dubious distinction of being the first ‘gore’ flick – even though it was release in 1964, according to sources the film was finished in 1962. Watching the film, it’s hard not to be impressed. All right so the story is cheese, the characters cardboard and the special effects primitive but fail to marvel at how well put together it is and I’ll call you a heathen! And any science fiction film which has the tenacity to tie everything back to the concentration camps of WWII (with lurid flashback!) surely deserves a better place in our infinitely generated top 10 lists. But no, it just gets a brief mention here and there.

And that’s the problem. We seem to be stuck in a loop of ‘cult’ films, ‘best’ titles, ‘classics’. Alright, the classics are classics , nothing is ever going to change that. But for every time we push ‘Evil Dead’ through, can’t we once mention ‘Equinox’, too? So the latter is nowhere near the quality – but it clearly has inspired it. Perhaps in its’ original 20 minute short form we’d be more impressed nowadays, unfortunately all that remains is the feature-length version which admittedly is slow and boring in places. Or every time some film club puts on ‘Don’t Look Now’ which is one of most brilliant, inventive films ever made with the beautiful use of cinematic language – can’t it be followed by ‘Who Saw Her Die?’ which came a clear year earlier and is obviously an influence. The examples are endless – the quantity of stuff out there that is neglected, ignored, unwatched is staggering – and upsetting

Sometimes it worries me that for some people cinema starts around 1980 – anything prior to that is ignored mercilessly. It’s as if the medium in question is not an organic one with links and ties all the way back to its’ beginning with the Lumiere Brothers. And even more terrifying than this comfortable ignorance is a desire to reject all information; a vengeance against admitting that you don’t know something. People desire to be seen as ‘guru’s or ‘experts’ and therefore never relent or admit or understand or try to discover. What is this fascination we have where everyone has to claim to have mastery of a subject? 28 years on, I still only know what is essentially a tiny, miniscule, insignificant amount about cinema: and for someone else to lead me to a discovery is the biggest of all joys: I know knowledge only multiplies if shared, discussed, dissected and re-formed.

We all love movies. So why can’t be all use that love to discover more, to learn more and to experience more instead of stagnating in our current state?

Continued over on the FrightFest forums. Click here.

Until the next time...

Evrim Ersoy.