DAY 17, with the entirely unintentional "Filmmakers who literally died for their art" double feature
The Spirit of Dark and Lonely Water: Another petrifying PSA! This one is all about the dangers of not paying attention to your watery surroundings, with Death literally looming over less sensible children as accidents come in a most fatal variety here. The daytime setting adds a good deal of creepy atmosphere for a figure like Death to appear, and the narration courtesy of Donald Pleasence is quite the fit for such a chilling figure. It's definitely not hard to see how this scared the pants off an entire generation of British children, as the scares here are legitimate and the lack of any kind of humor gives this a very strong edge for its intended audience. I know I'd probably never want to go swimming again if I was a kid seeing this for the first time back in 1973, so that's a pretty strong endorsement!
Bell from Hell: 70s Eurohorror was famous for their outlandish plots to go with their explicit content, but what happens when you dial up the former while largely minimizing the latter? You might get a film like this slice of pure madness, which is the kind of feature that pushes the boundaries of good taste in an unusual way. This has a little bit of everything, from incest, elaborate inheritance schemes, wild animals, threats of sexual violence, attempted murder with bees, tricking older men into opening pants, practical jokes of the felony kind and a revenge plot so insane that I still can't believe someone dreamed this up and turned it into a film. Combined with a quick pace and a truly unpredictable weave to the way it tells its tale, this is a film certainly not hurting for ways to keep you interested in just how brightly its dumpster fire of highly suspect taste and morals will burn. Films this outrageous are also not so well-made, either, with the look of the film having a nicely dreary affectation and a way of capturing some intriguing visuals in an understated way, unusual for a specific sub-genre known for throwing something more colorful and bizarre without having to answer for itself. Also unusual, as mentioned, is that despite all the insanity that takes place in it, it's a film that's shockingly short on graphic violence and the nudity it kept to a minimum that I'm not even sure was legal for this kind of filmmaking. Truly, the only explicit element to the film that reoccurs is some slaughterhouse footage that's bound to upset a lot of folks looking into this film, and I'd certainly warn those with an aversion to such imagery to stay the hell away from this film with how blunt and frequent that the imagery can get. Make no mistake: even if it didn't have those sequences, this would still be no essential masterpiece, but for anyone that's looking for something really bizarre that will also surprise you with the amount of craft and care that went into something that probably doesn't deserve such treatment, then look no further than this film for something you definitely haven't seen before.
Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom: You may have heard a thing or two about this one! To say that the reputation of this film preceded it would be putting it mildly, as those that don't know much about it otherwise could tell you all sorts of things about the film already, whether seeing it in lists of the most controversial films ever made or from friends who decided that the day leading up to watching this was going perhaps a little too well and needed something to bring them down. This had long been one of the films that I knew I was going to watch at some point, and what better time than a marathon dedicated to the history of horror itself to finally dive into the infinitely black depths that the film lays bare. A lot of talk about the film tends to focus more on the acts of violence and depravity themselves, and for good reason, as for as explicit as on-screen atrocities have gotten in the following years, this film still packs a rather strong punch when it comes to the sheer visceral reaction you'll have when they're committed. But I feel that what really makes those hit harder, and what gives the film its power is that Pasolini does the unthinkable and puts you into the shoes of those that are committing them and never once leaves that point of view. That point is driven home mercilessly in the finale, as each of the quartet of fascists take turns watching the final carnage unfold through a pair of small binoculars, but throughout, they're the ones that are the focus of any scene. As cruel and sickening as it can be to be following them, especially with all the violations they visit upon the innocent and young victims, I'll say that I don't think the points it makes about why and how such behavior happens would work any other way without the detached and non-judgmental approach that Pasolini takes with the film as a whole. That and the wordy nature of the dialogue reveals the film to have a strong intellectual quality to it, giving you a lot to chew on even without the parts you watch through your fingers to consider. It is a film that's impossible to love by design, but it's an undeniably and endlessly fascinating film to think about, and though I'm not keen on the idea of ever seeing it again because of how effective it is as putting you into the heads of men of pure evil, I definitely do not regret my time with it for a second.
53 films left, and one can hope for less poop from the point forward!
