Dekker’s cultish directorial debut (which he likes to describe as a “stewâ€) is very much a reflection of his feverish imagination, fed by years of B-movie fare cutting across every conceivable generic boundary, which weContinue reading
Category: Cult Films
Tokyo Gore Police (Yoshihiro Nishimura, 2008)
The title of this cartoonishy gruesome sci-fi mashup pretty much tells you everything you need to know about it. There are moments of outlandish humor, social satire, and abject grossness to be sure, but itContinue reading
Vanishing Point (Richard C. Sarafian, 1971)
A particularly interesting, if not always successful, variant on the long-deceased artsy B-movie, Sarafian’s cross-country chase film—which cinematographer John A. Alonzo turns into a kind of visual poem of light and dust—has become a cultContinue reading
MirrorMask (Dave McKean, 2005)
There is a dazzling display of imagination in virtually every frame of this weird fantasy adventure, but what it really needs is someone to draw it all together. The last of the opening credits notes thatContinue reading
The Inglorious Bastards (Enzo G. Castellari, 1978)
It’s not not hard to see what Quentin Tarantino loves so much about this Italian-made Dirty Dozen knock-off about a bunch of “deserters, cutthoats, and thieves” who get stuck on a suicide mission while tryingContinue reading
Brand Upon the Brain! (Guy Maddin, 2006)
Like most of Maddin’s films, this bizarro fantasia reanimates the cinematic past with its silent-film structure and willfully archaic visual quality. Shot entirely on high-contrast 8mm and edited like an experiment in Soviet montage, theContinue reading
Boxcar Bertha (Martin Scorsese, 1972)
Martin Scorsese directed this Roger Corman-produced knock-off of Bonnie and Clyde the year before he became a critic’s darling with Mean Streets, and his strong visual aesthetic and playful editing are almost enough to coverContinue reading
Death Race 2000 (Paul Bartel, 1975)
One of the quintessential cult films of the 1970s, this Roger Corman-produced gem of sicko low-budget ingenuity is spun around a uniquely perverse premise: In the near future, the most popular sport is a cross-countryContinue reading
Vampyr (Carl Th. Dreyer, 1932)
Initially upstaged by Tod Browning’s Dracula, the great Carl Theodor Dreyer’s stab at genre filmmaking is an evocative masterpiece of hallucinatory imagery and dream-logic narrative. It makes sense that Dreyer’s horror film is so unnervinglyContinue reading
Crime Busters (Enzo Barboni, 1977)
The funniest thing about Crime Busters, the 10th of the 17 films in which Italian actors Terence Hill and Bud Spencer appeared as a comedy duo, is the bizarro world created by a fully EuropeanContinue reading