Heck, I don’t know where to start with this one. I’ve been watching just scads of unknown garbage and making notes about it on my phone so I can later write reviews for my not-yet-begun site underratedfilms.com. Lots of straight to video stuff, but occasionally a “real” film… very occasionally.
I’ll share a few that I actually liked across the last little while (most of it is trash that nobody needs to see ever).
Dead and Buried (1981) - Folks are disappearing in this seaside northern california-looking town. I don’t wanna say too much more about it other than I liked it! It has a real vibe and I did not expect it to be such a solid and unique-feeling experience.
The Psychic (1977) - One of the best movies from Lucio Fulci, about a woman who thinks she saw a vision of a murder. Great soundtrack too, by Fabio Frizzi, who we’re working with on a future thing.
Demon Wind (1990) - campy as heck, about a guy who goes back to his family cabin and finds out satanic rituals were done there. it’s dumb but if you like camp, hooray. It’s not boring which is a feat for one of these.
Death Spa (1989) - This movie has inexplicably great artistic cinemetography, and some actual good scenes, surrounded by absolutely nonsense. It’s like two folks had two different ideas of what movie to make and then slapped them together. It works though.
Hardware (1990) - Alien meets terminator in a mad max universe with lots of practical effects. I love it! Probably everyone’s seen this.
Blind Woman’s Curse (1970) - lady yakuza meeds blind witch in a super awesome stylish movie that is pulpy while also feeling weighty.
Drive (1997) - Straight to video Mark Dacascos action movie, maybe the best straight to video action movie I’ve ever seen. Dacascos knows how to perform martial arts for the camera, and Guyver director Steve Wang knows how to direct and cut action. It’s a lesson in like… if you’ve got a good action director, you can make anybody into a fighter.
Liquid Dreams (1991) - video stores tried to pitch this as an “erotic thriller” with sci-fi edge. in reality you see less nudity in this movie than you do in your average action film from the era. It’s really a high concept sci-fi videodrome-ish thing with some alternately forward-thinking and regressive ideas about gender. The main thing is it LOOKS cool and has a unique vibe even among all the sci-fi films of the era. Unfortunately the best way to watch it is VHS and uhhhhh it’s kinda hard to find, honk. I think it might be on video on demand now but watching a vhs rip on an hdtv kinda sucks.
Now for “real” movies: if you’re on a japan kick, watch seijun suzuki’s stuff. His yakuza films are daring, and are what got him blacklisted from making movies, to where he had to self-fund stuff by doing commercials outside japan or whatever. He made the movie Ziguenerweisen after this, and had to put it in self-funded inflatable theaters. Then it won like the palm d’or or whatever and japan was like “oops welcome back.” anyway those three movies, ziguenerweisen, kagero-za, and yumeji are like watching someone else’s fever dream. good stuff.
I mean:
[edit] intentionally not including trailers for these to not ruin surprises. but ziguenerweisen et al are basically unruinable I’d say.