Monday, June 16, 2008

Spider Rose Monster

Sunday triple feature!

Spider Forest (2004). This Korean psychological thriller looks like a horror film, what with the beautiful, primeval-looking forest at night, the outbursts of violence, and the creepy spider stuff, but it's really more in the Lost Highway vein. That was a little bit of a letdown, but, you know, not as much as Lost Highway was.

Red Rose (1980). Rajesh Khanna is a vision of leisure-suited creepiness in this unlikely Bollywood attempt at the serial killer genre. Gotta love his Village People leather look when he prowls the discos, as Rose Royce's "Car Wash" (is that name a coincidence?) seems to drive him into a killing frenzy. And a tip for the ladies: when you find a human hand sticking out of your new husband's garden, and then see some home movie footage of him killing your best friend, don't stop to pack your suitcase!

The Monster Squad (1987). A cute movie, better than I expected: sort of Goonies meets Fright Night. It's always interesting to see movies from the seventies and eighties that were geared for kids, in which they say things like "chickenshit" and "asshole," and brandish all sort of inappropriate weaponry. Where did all this latter-day sentimentalization of childhood, with the non-stop social urge to "protect" them from everything, especially themselves, start up? It suddenly strikes me that it's been partly -- the parenting of my own generation. Of course, I've spent my life wondering what's wrong with these people, so it shouldn't surprise me...

No comments: