Through a Glass Darkly-Ingmar Bergman

Fellini-Satyricon

Ingmar Bergman's Hour of the Wolf

An artist in crisis is haunted by nightmares from the past in Ingmar Bergman's only horror film, which takes place on a windy island. During "the hour of the wolf" - between midnight and dawn - he tells his wife about his most painful memories.

Dante's Inferno (1935)

Dante's Inferno is a 1935 motion picture loosely based on Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy. It is primarily remembered for a 10-minute depiction of hell realised by director Harry Lachman, himself an established post-impressionist painter. PLOT SUMMARY: Jim Carter (Spencer Tracy) takes over a fairground show illustrating scenes from Dante. An inspector declares the fair unsafe but is bribed by Carter. There is a fatal disaster at the fair during which we see the vision of the Inferno. Carter establishes a new venture with an unsafe floating casino. Music by Alexander Scriabin, 'Mysterium - Prefatory Act'.

Faust 1926

Faust (German title: Faust - Eine deutsche Volkssage) is a silent film produced in 1926 by UFA, directed by F.W. Murnau, starring Gösta Ekman as Faust, Emil Jannings as Mephisto, Camilla Horn as Gretchen/Marguerite, Frida Richard as her mother, Wilhelm Dieterle as her brother and Yvette Guilbert as Marthe Schwerdtlein, her aunt. Murnau's film draws on older traditions of the legendary tale of Faust as well as on Goethe's classic version. UFA wanted Ludwig Berger to direct Faust, as Murnau was engaged with Variety; Murnau pressured the producer and, backed by Jannings, eventually persuaded Erich Pommer to let him direct the movie. Faust was Murnau's last German movie, and directly afterward he moved to the US under contract to William Fox to direct Sunrise (1927); when the film premiered in the Ufa-Palast am Zoo of Berlin, Murnau was already shooting in Hollywood. * Gösta Ekman - Faust * Emil Jannings - Mephisto * Camilla Horn - Gretchen * Frida Richard - Gretchen's mother * William Dieterle - Valentin * Yvette Guilbert - Marthe Schwerdtlein * Eric Barclay - Duke of Parma * Hanna Ralph - Duchess of Parma * Werner Fuetterer - Archangel * Anderhusan von Arteblach - Gretchen's aunt Murnau's Faust was the most complex and expensive production undertaken by UFA. Filming took six months and a cost of 2 million marks (only half was recovered at the box office), until it was surpassed by Metropolis the following year. According to film historians Faust seriously impacted studio shooting and special effects techniques. Murnau uses two cameras, both filming multiple shots; many scenes were filmed time and again. As an example, a short sequence of the contract being written on parchment in fire took an entire day to film.

Salem-King Night

The Hands of Orlac (1924)

An Austrian silent film (Orlacs Hände) of 1924. This late expressionist work is directed by Robert Wiene.
A concert pianist, Paul Orlac (Conrad Veidt), loses his hands in a railway accident. Replacement hands are transplanted onto him in an experimental procedure, but the hands are those of a recently-executed murderer. From that point forward, the pianist is tortured by panic attacks and irrational fears.

Director:
Robert Wiene
Writers:
Louis Nerz, Maurice Renard (novel)
Stars:
Conrad Veidt, Alexandra Sorina and Fritz Kortner

The Phantom Carriage (1921)

The Phantom Carriage (Swedish: Körkarlen) aka The Phantom Chariot, Thy Soul Shall Bear Witness! and The Stroke of Midnight is a 1921 Swedish romantic horror film, generally considered to be one of the central works in the history of Swedish cinema. Released on New Year's Day, it was directed by and starred Victor Sjöström, alongside Hilda Borgström, Tore Svennberg and Astrid Holm. It is based on the novel Thy Soul Shall Bear Witness! (Körkarlen; 1912), by Nobel-prize winning Swedish author Selma Lagerlöf.
The film is notable for its special effects, its advanced (for the time) narrative structure with flashbacks within flashbacks, and for having been a major influence on Ingmar Bergman.

It's New Year's Eve. Three drunkards evoke a legend. The legend tells that the last person to die in a year, if he is a great sinner, will have to drive during the whole year the Phantom Chariot, the one that picks up the souls of the dead.

Director:
Victor Sjöström
Writers:
Selma Lagerlöf (novel), Victor Sjöström
Stars:
Victor Sjöström, Hilda Borgström and Tore Svennberg

The Endless Night: A Valentine to Film Noir

Ernst Junger-One Man's War

Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown

Watch more free documentaries

David Lynch's Eraserhead (1977)

       

Eraserhead is a 1977 American surrealist film^[2][3][4] written, directed, and produced by David Lynch. In 1971, Lynch moved to Los Angeles to attend the AFI Conservatory. At the Conservatory, Lynch began working on his first feature-length film, Eraserhead, using a $10,000 grant from the AFI. The grant was not sufficient to complete the film and, as a result, Lynch worked on Eraserhead intermittently until its release in 1977. Lynch used money from friends and family, including boyhood friend Jack Fisk, a production designer and the husband of actress Sissy Spacek, and from odd jobs to finish the film.

Eraserhead polarized and baffled many critics and movie-goers, but has become a cult classic.^[5] In 2004, the film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. Lynch has called it a "dream of dark and troubling things"^[6] and his "most spiritual movie."          

 -Wikipedia                                                                

Tribute to Brigitte Bardot

"Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot[1][2] (French pronunciation: [bʁiʒit baʁdo], English: /ˈbrɪdʒɨt bɑrˈdoʊ/; born 28 September 1934) is a French former fashion model, actress and singer, and animal rights activist.

In her early life, Bardot was an aspiring ballet dancer. She started her acting career in 1952 and, after appearing in 16 films, became world-famous due to her role in her then-husband Roger Vadim's controversial film And God Created Woman. She later starred in Jean-Luc Godard's 1963 cult film, Contempt. She was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Actress for her role in Louis Malle's 1965 film, Viva Maria!.

She caught the attention of French intellectuals. She was the subject of Simone de Beauvoir's 1959 essay, The Lolita Syndrome, which described Bardot as a "locomotive of women's history" and built upon existentialist themes to declare her the first and most liberated woman of post-war France.[3]

Bardot retired from the entertainment industry in 1973. During her career in show business Bardot starred in 47 films, performed in numerous musical shows, and recorded 80 songs. She was awarded the Légion d'honneur in 1985 but refused to receive it.[4]

After her retirement, Bardot established herself as an animal rights activist. During the 1990s, she became controversial due to her criticism of immigration, Islamization and Islam in France, and has been fined five times for "inciting racial hatred".[5][6]" Brigitte Bardot

La Jetee

La jetée is a 1962 French science fiction film by Chris Marker. It is also known in English as The Jetty or The Pier. Constructed almost entirely from still photos, it tells the story of a post-nuclear war experiment in time travel.[1] The film runs for 28 minutes and is in black and white. It won the Prix Jean Vigo for short film.-From Wikipedia

The Scarlet Empress

"Of the two 1934 film versions of the life of Russia's Catherine the Great, Josef von Sternberg's The Scarlet Empress was the most opulent and exotic. Marlene Dietrich plays the German-born Catherine, who is required to marry Russia's mad Grand Duke Peter (Sam Jaffe, decked out in a Harpo Marx wig). As if her joke of a marriage isn't torment enough, Catherine must endure the excesses of her new mother-in-law, Empress Elizabeth (Louise Dresser). Eventually, Catherine finds solace -- and romance -- in the form of Count Alexei (John Lodge). But even this balm is denied her when the ambitious Alexei begins wooing the much-older Elizabeth. When the old Empress dies, Catherine ascends to the Russian throne, knowing full well that her addled husband would kill her at the slightest provocation. Soon her power outstrips Peter's, and the opportunistic Alexei now comes back into her life. The finale finds Catherine emerging triumphant over all her enemies -- and, in the film's least subtle sequence (which is saying a lot!), the new Empress is shown astride a horse, to whom she displays far more affection than any of her human compatriots. The Scarlet Empress has even less to do with accuracy than Paul Czinner's Catherine the Great of the same year, which starred Elizabeth Bergner. Watch for Dietrich's real-life daughter Maria Sieber (aka Maria Riva) as the 7-year-old Catherine in the early scenes."

Svengali (1931)

"Svengali (1931) is a drama/horror film starring John Barrymore, Marian Marsh, and Bramwell Fletcher, directed by Archie Mayo, written by J. Grubb Alexander, and released by Warner Brothers. It is based on the gothic horror novel Trilby (1894) by George du Maurier. The film was originally released on May 22, 1931. Warner Brothers was so pleased by the box office on this film that the studio hurriedly reteamed Barrymore and Marsh for another horror film The Mad Genius, released on November 7, 1931. The region 1 DVD of Svengali was released on October 17, 2000 by the Roan Group." -From Wikipedia

Forbidden Images

Haxan: Witchcraft Throughout The Ages

"Häxan is a 1922 Swedish/Danish silent film written and directed by Benjamin Christensen. Based partly on Christensen's study of the Malleus Maleficarum, a 15th century German guide for inquisitors, Häxan is a study of how superstition and the misunderstanding of diseases and mental illness could lead to the hysteria of the witch-hunts. The film was made as a documentary but contains dramatized sequences that are comparable to horror films. With Christensen's meticulous recreation of medieval scenes and the lengthy production period, the film was the most expensive Scandinavian silent film ever made, costing nearly two million Swedish krona. Although it won acclaim in Denmark and Sweden, the film was banned in the United States and heavily censored in other countries for what were considered at that time graphic depictions of torture, nudity, and sexual perversion." -From Wikipedia


The Criterion Collection on Haxan

Genesis