Tuesday, 2 January 2024

my cult movie highlights of 2023

In 2023 I watched 254 movies - some first-time watched and some re-watches.

Among the first time cult movie watches the most pleasant surprises were:

Just Jaeckin's Madame Claude (1977), a stylish intelligent political thriller about sex and power.

Lucio Fulci's Aenigma (1987), seriously surreal and twisted, unsettling and perplexing but unsettling and perplexing in a way that is original and distinctive.

Lucio Fulci's The Devil’s Honey (1986). A sleazy kinky movie, but sleazy and kinky in an intelligent and provocative way. A movie about sex and sexual obsession and it confronts those subjects in the kind of direct way that very very few American movie have ever done.

Among the re-watches the highlight was Paul Schrader’s 1982 Cat People. In order to appreciate this one you have to regard it as being an entirely different movie from the 1942 version although dealing with similar themes. Both movies are equally great in their own ways.

4 comments:

tom j jones said...

The 1982 Cat People is a great film - I'm a big fan of the original, and of Lewton in general, but this was an awesome alternative rather than updating.

Think I've mentioned this film before, but the 70s version of Journey to the Centre of the Earth, with Kenneth More, a Spanish film made in English, is out on Blu Ray. A charming and occasionally inventive film, IMO the last of the great cheesy family B-movies, before they became about boobs and bombs - also lovely to watch, but a rather different class of film lol

dfordoom said...

tom j jones said...
A charming and occasionally inventive film, IMO the last of the great cheesy family B-movies

I do love pre-Star Wars pre-blockbuster 70s adventure and sci-fi films. They have such a genuine sense of fun.

tom j jones said...

The absence of money often benefitted - although not always lol.

Forgot to ask, did you get around to finding any of the Winnetou movies from the 1960s?

dfordoom said...

tom j jones said...
did you get around to finding any of the Winnetou movies from the 1960s?

Yes, I picked up a DVD boxed set. I've only watched one of themes so far. I'll be posting a review soon.