Capital Celluloid 2021 — Day 141: Mon Oct 4

No1: Frankenstien Created Woman (Fisher, 1967): Prince Charles Cinema, 6.10pm

This screening is part of the Female of the Species is More Deadlier Than the Male season curated by Sophie Determan and presented in partnership with the National Film and Television School. Full details here.

Baron Frankenstein’s lab assistant Hans is wrongly sentenced to the guillotine for the murder of an innkeeper that was in fact conducted by three drunken libertines. Frankenstein has been conducting a series of experiments that allow him to preserve the soul of a person after death. His opportunity comes when Hans’s girlfriend, the innkeeper’s disfigured daughter Christina, throws herself into the river in anguish. Frankenstein then successfully transfers Hans’s soul into Christina’s body. What he does not see is that Hans now uses Christina’s body to obtain revenge on the three youths who were responsible for the murder.

“It’s a heady brew, rather as if it were written by the Brothers Grimm with ‘additional dialogue’ by Sigmund Freud […] One of Hammer’s most complex scenarios concludes with perhaps the most downbeat ending in all horror films.” Jonathan Rigby, English Gothic

Here (and above) is the trailer.

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No 2: The Exorcist (Friedkin, 1973): Prince Charles Cinema, 12.15pm


This 35mm presentation is on an extended run at the Prince Charles Cinema through October and is the extended version of the film. Full details here.

Chicago Reader review:
'Doubtless this tale of spirit possession in Georgetown packs a punch, but so does wood alcohol,” wrote Reader critic Don Druker in an earlier review of this. I wouldn't be quite so dismissive: as a key visual source for Mel Gibson's depiction of evil in The Passion of the Christ, as well as an early indication of how seriously pulp can be taken when religious faith is involved, this 1973 horror thriller is highly instructive as well as unnerving. William Friedkin, directing William Peter Blatty's adaptation of his own novel, aims for the jugular, privileging sensation over sense and such showbiz standbys as vomit and obscenity over plodding exposition.' 
Jonathan Rosenbaum 


Here (and above) is the trailer.


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