Originally Posted by Elvis_Christ (Post 907185)

Henenlotter rules. I'm a big fan. Frankenhooker is a great flick for sure.

Originally Posted by Fearonsarms (Post 906803)

Frankenhooker-I was literally crying with laughter at this.

Originally Posted by Fearonsarms (Post 907407)

Also saw My Bloody Valentine (1980) finally with restored cut footage-which I thoroughly enjoyed and highly recommend to anyone who hasn't seen it. Avoid any cut version though obviously.

Originally Posted by Elvis_Christ (Post 907429)

Waited years for that to come out and it certainly didn't disappoint. Great film made even better.

Originally Posted by Ferox13 (Post 907435)

How much is cut from it?

Originally Posted by roshiq (Post 908323)

A family decides to leave behind the stress of city life and move into a huge house in the countryside that they recently inherited. And the country is a vastly different place than the city, a place where superstition runs widespread, the local priest still performs exorcisms, and there may just be a thread of truth surrounded in the strange, disturbing tales told about their new home.

The film takes its time to build mood and atmosphere. Rather than slapping you around with shock after shock or spooky encounters, the film builds its characters carefully while slowly raising the tension. It is a film where more is hinted at than demonstrated, a serious look at the possibilities of the supernatural. The storytelling is more concerned with the consequences of the supernatural tales & beliefs that the family is dealing with in a new place than it is with exposing the supernatural itself. But when the supernatural forces involved finally becomes evidently real that investment in character pays off beautifully.

The camera work is beautiful and the entire cast & characters believable through and through.

Overall, this is a subtle, slow burning tale of a haunting, set in rural Portugal with a tragic finale.

Originally Posted by roshiq (Post 909023)

Few months back while I was looking through some IMDB lists then I first get to know about this film & it made me instantly pretty curious to give it a blind watch as early as possible. At that time I just found the title & the premise very interesting.
Now, after watching it very late last night without knowing much about the background or the content, Peter Watkins' Punishment Park just straight way made me think & feel I was watching something very real...a genuinely horrifying documentary that was probably banned or hidden all these years or people didn't like to talk about it for its shockingly true & appalling subject matter. Therefore, in this regard, this is surely turned out one of the best Shockumentary I have seen so far.

This is a troubling document from a time when the US seemed about to tip into chaos and the powers that be would have gone to unimaginable lengths to maintain their control. But what gives Punishment Park its quite substantial punch is the absolutely palpable air of paranoia that pass through in every scene. The film flips back and forth between one Corrective Group's miserable odyssey across the desert and the next Group's tribunal hearings. One of the best aspects of the film is those heated tribunal sessions.

"I don't have to call you what you are, you know what you are...better than I do."

According to Wikipedia, Mr. Watkins allowed his cast to mostly speak their minds to each other and the cameras, and that creates a fascinating time capsule from a time & gave birth to a tale of a generation when average citizens actually cared passionately about their country and were willing to go to extreme lengths for those beliefs & doesn't care about the consequences.
Of course, now, some 40 years on, it might be supposed that the political context of Punishment Park is out of date - but Watkins' film still has its relevance, as the US again & again caught in endless foreign conflicts resulted the untold horrors of US detention compounds in Guantanamo Bay, Iraq and Afghanistan. Looking back on history reminds us of the differences and similarities between then and now, but still Punishment Park shows that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Punishment Park is an extraordinary film, very much thought provoking and deeply depressing.

A must see for everyone.