A slight change to the way we do polls: you can now pick your top three, and the polls will now include 10 entries from our very long list. This should make things interesting!
I’m kind of curious how you’d react to Silent Running (1972). It’s not a *bad* movie, but would you end up clawing your eyes out from boredom? What are some other skiffyfanty movies that have practically no dialogue? Wall-E springs to mind, but that’s another ecological SF movie — maybe I should save these ideas for April/Earth Day?
So for this month, maybe Solaris — I caught the Russian original (also 1972!) on AMC a month or so ago and watched until my head was spinning. Do you watch only bad movies for Torture Cinema, or are head-trippy bizarre ones eligible?
Would you recommend we stick it on the Torture Cinema list, or is it one of those films that deserves a critical approach (a la the Shoot the WISB episodes)?
Right now, though, we’re all considering the ten on the poll. We keep a running list of titles of potential Tortures, which we randomize whenever we do a poll (keeps things fresh). But if you’d like us to add those two to the list, we will, but only if you really think they’re terrible 😛
I didn’t see the list above when I made my original comment; I just thought you were asking for *any* suggestions.
No, I don’t think those movies are terrible, just, ah, challenging. They’re thought-provoking, anyway. It might be interesting to have a theme WISB on various examples of 1970s experimental SF cinema, rather than focusing on just one. But that might be more effort than it’s worth for you.
We take suggestions on a rolling basis, though this post was really just a poll. I just wasn’t sure if you thought those films were really bad (a la Transformers 2) or just slow or weird, but thought-provoking. You’ve answered that here 🙂 I should start keeping a list for the Shoot the WISB segments…
I think bad Italian SF is poorly under-represented, so I’d like to suggest some titles for future Torture cinema polls…
Planet of the Vampires (1965)
Starcrash (1978)
Alien 2: On Earth – Unofficial sequel to Alien (haven’t seen this one yet) (1980)
Yor, the Hunter from the Future (1984)
1990: The Bronx Warriors (1982)
Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs (1966)
Danger: Diabolik (1968)
Most of these were Italian/American co-productions, with actors like Vincent Price, David Hasselhoff, Christopher Plummer, and Terry Thomas appearing in them. A couple of these are cult films, and a couple I sorta like.
Cheers!
I’ve added them. Begrudgingly.
Begrudgingly? You mean you’d rather I didn’t just stick to bad *Italian* SF? Because I could help out with a whole bunch of other films from different countries – I’m just more knowledgeable about the Italian ones.
If you wanted to expand Torture cinema to horror, the sky’s the limit! You’re just lucky The Conqueror with John Wayne playing Gengis Kahn is a historical!
We do have some horror on our list, but we have limited what we accept in that category due to host preferences (mine and others). So nothing that is too gory or horrific in terms of its grotesquery (rape revenge fantasies, for example).
8 Responses
I’m kind of curious how you’d react to Silent Running (1972). It’s not a *bad* movie, but would you end up clawing your eyes out from boredom? What are some other skiffyfanty movies that have practically no dialogue? Wall-E springs to mind, but that’s another ecological SF movie — maybe I should save these ideas for April/Earth Day?
So for this month, maybe Solaris — I caught the Russian original (also 1972!) on AMC a month or so ago and watched until my head was spinning. Do you watch only bad movies for Torture Cinema, or are head-trippy bizarre ones eligible?
Would you recommend we stick it on the Torture Cinema list, or is it one of those films that deserves a critical approach (a la the Shoot the WISB episodes)?
Right now, though, we’re all considering the ten on the poll. We keep a running list of titles of potential Tortures, which we randomize whenever we do a poll (keeps things fresh). But if you’d like us to add those two to the list, we will, but only if you really think they’re terrible 😛
I didn’t see the list above when I made my original comment; I just thought you were asking for *any* suggestions.
No, I don’t think those movies are terrible, just, ah, challenging. They’re thought-provoking, anyway. It might be interesting to have a theme WISB on various examples of 1970s experimental SF cinema, rather than focusing on just one. But that might be more effort than it’s worth for you.
We take suggestions on a rolling basis, though this post was really just a poll. I just wasn’t sure if you thought those films were really bad (a la Transformers 2) or just slow or weird, but thought-provoking. You’ve answered that here 🙂 I should start keeping a list for the Shoot the WISB segments…
I think bad Italian SF is poorly under-represented, so I’d like to suggest some titles for future Torture cinema polls…
Planet of the Vampires (1965)
Starcrash (1978)
Alien 2: On Earth – Unofficial sequel to Alien (haven’t seen this one yet) (1980)
Yor, the Hunter from the Future (1984)
1990: The Bronx Warriors (1982)
Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs (1966)
Danger: Diabolik (1968)
Most of these were Italian/American co-productions, with actors like Vincent Price, David Hasselhoff, Christopher Plummer, and Terry Thomas appearing in them. A couple of these are cult films, and a couple I sorta like.
Cheers!
I’ve added them. Begrudgingly.
Begrudgingly? You mean you’d rather I didn’t just stick to bad *Italian* SF? Because I could help out with a whole bunch of other films from different countries – I’m just more knowledgeable about the Italian ones.
If you wanted to expand Torture cinema to horror, the sky’s the limit! You’re just lucky The Conqueror with John Wayne playing Gengis Kahn is a historical!
We do have some horror on our list, but we have limited what we accept in that category due to host preferences (mine and others). So nothing that is too gory or horrific in terms of its grotesquery (rape revenge fantasies, for example).
So…yeah 😛