Movies That I Own

As the president of a trashy TV channel, Max Renn is desperate for new programming to attract viewers. When he happens upon "Videodrome," a TV show dedicated to gratuitous torture and punishment, Max sees a potential hit and broadcasts the show on his channel. However, after his girlfriend auditions for the show and never returns, Max investigates the truth behind Videodrome and discovers that the graphic violence may not be as fake as he thought.

The movie follows the original tale in a somewhat loose fashion, but manages to retain the majority of the images and action.
A seminary student must survive three nights in prayer guarding the deceased witch maiden while she, along with an army of hellish demons, try to lure him out of his Holy Ring of Chalk.

In a run-down South American town, four men are paid to drive trucks loaded with nitroglycerin into the jungle through to the oil field. Friendships are tested and rivalries develop as they embark upon the perilous journey.

A terrified young man is being pursued by a mysterious man in black. He hides out in a nearby mental hospital, but can he escape his fate?

A windswept ghost story set on England's southeastern coast.

The Finnish film 'White Reindeer' is marketed in the USA and Britain as a horror movie, but that's not precisely accurate. This is a stark, moody film but not a scary one. It purports to be an authentic Lapp folktale about a woman named Pirita who turns into a white reindeer in order to feed upon men.
This story has elements of both the vampire and the werewolf legend, as well as the succubus. Apart from reindeer being native to Lapland, I can't imagine why the reindeer was chosen as the species for this folktale's version of the shape-changer legend. Bats and wolves are predators, and therefore scary. The reindeer is a domesticated herbivore that serves humans ... not very spooky, is it? In one sequence, the were-reindeer woman sprouts fangs. Actual reindeer don't have fangs, so why should these be part of her transformation? Female reindeer have antlers, so why doesn't Pirita sprout antlers?
Speaking of superstitions and myths: early in this film, a black cat scurries across the path of an approaching sledge, but the director gives this so little emphasis that it appears to have no significance. In Cornwall, it's considered *good* luck to have a black cat cross one's path, and this same thing is considered *bad* luck in America. Do Lapps have any superstitions concerning black cats?
Mirjami Kuosmanen, the actress who plays the central role in this film, is quite pretty ... but her performance as a native of northern Lapland is weakened by the fact that she is clearly wearing makeup. Due to the low production budget, we never actually see Pirita changing into the reindeer ... but the director cleverly gets round this by having his leading lady lunge towards the camera, then cutting to a shot of a reindeer in the same position. Still, I was hoping we would see a shot of a woman's shadow changing shape ... or a series of human footprints in the snow abruptly becoming hoof-marks.
The Lapp landscape in this movie is starkly beautiful and awesome but never frightening. The photography is excellent. There are two impressive dissolve shots involving flames, and a splendid montage sequence. I was extremely impressed by a night sequence over a bonfire. During the Midnight Sun sequences, there are two shots featuring a weird colonnade of white pillars: these appear to be artefacts of the Lapp culture, but we never learn what they are. A sequence in which a carved vertrebra dances magically across a shaman's drum has an eerie pagan power that made me think of Nijinsky's staging of 'The Rites of Spring'.
My one complaint about this film -- a minor grievance -- is that we never learn the time period in which the main action occurs. These Laplanders possess milled coins, a rifle, and loomed curtains. One sequence takes place at a prayer service that is clearly Christian, featuring a minister in geneva bands. Are we watching scenes in the twentieth century, or some earlier time? I'll rate this moody, compelling (but not frightening) film 8 out of 10. Oh, my deer!

The most famous of Indonesian ghosts, the Kuntil Anak, tells the story of Raesita, the batik artist, whose heavy grief after the death of her husband draws the ghost to her. They seduce each other into a deadly dream world. Raesita's own desire for oblivion moulds perfectly to the Kuntil Anak's desire to save her from the pain of life. But it is Raesita's unborn child, and its desire to live, that the Kuntil Anak has not counted upon.

An adaptation of the Icelandic ghost story of "The Deacon of Dark River", set in 1970s France.

A grim police detective lieutenant embarks on a one-man crusade to track down a depraved sex maniac in this forgotten neo-noir masterpiece of American independent cinema. With its sleazy, taboo-busting nature, the film was refused certification for a theatrical release in 1965.

In 1630, a farmer relocates his family to a remote plot of land on the edge of a forest where strange, unsettling things happen. With suspicion and paranoia mounting, each family member's faith, loyalty and love are tested in shocking ways.

In a barren, snowy Lapland landscape a man in a reindeer sled escorts a shaman's corpse to its final resting place. In the pale moonlight the fear is starting to take over, since something has awakened the shaman.

In a Czech town in the seventeenth century, an elderly woman enters a church to accept communion. Her true purpose is to collect the holy host for a midwife who needs it to treat an ailing dairy cow. The woman is caught and is forced to explain her sacrilegious actions. Religious and secular authorities agree that she is in league with witches and may even be a witch herself. This prompts an inquisition where confessions are obtained through threats and torture. A tribunal is held to provide a legal facade. Though the hunt is initially confined to the impoverished fringes of local society, the hysteria soon expands to the point that no one, not even leading citizens, is safe. The ultimate target is a clergyman, Deacon Lautner, who defies the righteous men of the tribunal.
Based on actual trial records from the 1678 to 1695 period, this well made Czech film features excellent performances and strong production values. It is somewhat extreme by 1969 standards.

A short film about Lapland

WOODLANDS DARK AND DAYS BEWITCHED explores the folk horror phenomenon from its beginnings in a trilogy of films - Michael Reeves' Witchfinder General (1968), Piers Haggard's Blood on Satan's Claw (1971) and Robin Hardy's The Wicker Man (1973) - through its proliferation on British television in the 1970s and its culturally specific manifestations in American, Asian, Australian and European horror, to the genre's revival over the last decade. Touching on over 100 films and featuring over 50 interviewees, WOODLANDS DARK AND DAYS BEWITCHED investigates the many ways that we alternately celebrate, conceal and manipulate our own histories in an attempt to find spiritual resonance in our surroundings.

2023 short film

In 1979, a group of young filmmakers set out to make an adult film in rural Texas, but when their reclusive, elderly hosts catch them in the act, the cast find themselves fighting for their lives.

The territory of Akwesasne straddles the Canada-U.S. border. When Canadian authorities prohibited the duty-free cross-border passage of personal purchases - a right established by the Jay Treaty of 1794 - Kanien'kéhaka protesters blocked the international bridge between Ontario and New York State.

The zodiac murders cause the lives of Paul Avery, David Toschi and Robert Graysmith to intersect.

On the Caribbean island of Matul, white doctor David Menard is trying to stem the tide of cannibal zombies that are returning from the dead. Arriving on the island are Anne and reporter Peter West who are looking for Anne's missing father. The pair soon find themselves under attack from the zombies.