Cinema of Cruelty (Movies for Masochists)

 *NEW!* On this episodes annotated deep dive, The Cultists present Roman Polanski’s The Ninth Gate (1999).  A slow and cozy burn of paranoia through warm-lit and dusty streets, The Ninth Gate tells that classic tale of a bored and bitter book dealing mercenary who happens upon an ancient esoteric puzzle concealed in the pages of the text — a one shot, all-consuming mystery that many a mad man has tried to solve for centuries — but that Johnny Depp’s Robert/Dean/Lucas Corso might happen to solve instead through sheer divine apathy. (Albeit with a heavy green-eyed stalker assist). Curiously based on only half of Arturo Pérez-Reverte’s novel, The Dumas Club, (and on the B plot of the novel at that), Polanski’s adaptation transforms Reverte’s postmodern parable about the dangers of of looking too closely at a text, into a modernist love letter to the practice of… looking too closely at a text.  

Topics Include: Comparisons to The Dumas Club and the details from the novel that help shape the more esoteric parts of the film; the book market value of all those old tomes; the abstract tradition of Grimoires; the occult golden age of Prague; fallen angels, The Grigori , and other lesser diablos; the paradox of making a modernist film out of a postmodern source, and a (somewhat brief) history of the devil, or how satan(s) became Satan. 

Episode Safeword: Salvation

**REPOST** On this week's annotated deep-dive, The Cultists present Catherine Hardwick's wondrously absurd adaptation of Twilight (2008). The tale of a self-loathing undead stalker who has been stuck repeating high school for one hundred years, and the clumsy death-welcoming teen of his dreams, Twilight is a wild trip. Known as the phenomenon that brought a reinvigorated interest in teen paranormal romance to the masses, Hardwick's first and only adaptation circumvents any of the potential softer angles of the genre to instead create a masterpiece of the bizarre. Three parts absurdism, two parts angst, and a healthy dash of the "imp of the perverse," this strange concoction of a film stands alone outside the rest of the subsequent franchise as something truly spectacular.

(That's right, we love this movie. And we aren't even joking).

Deep Dives include:

The film's history and production; the myriad of practical effects; filming locations, comparisons with the novel source material; the joy of teen angst; the aesthetic paradox of May-December romances; Native American lore (from New Brunswick sea serpents to (the lack of) Cold Ones); and why, as even Hardwick herself claims, we have the special tonal peculiarities of this film thanks to a little thing Edgar Allen Poe once called "The Imp of the Perverse."

Episode Safeword:  Consent 

(REPOSTED Episode from 2022 that traveled over from the old Anchor platform with a broken link).

**REPOST** For our one year anniversary episode, The Cultists present David Lynch’s ‘Blue Velvet’ (1986). Yet another film that was met with a mixture of confusion, repulsion, and awe upon its release into the center of the Regan era and big blockbuster productions,  BV has since become something of a noted surrealist masterpiece of avant-garde cinema—one that, to some, single-handedly paved a new path for the landscape of 90s cinema. From  Tarantino’s hyper cool nostalgia and rockabilly soundtracks, to the Cohen brother’s wild humor set to a backdrop of blunt, brutal violence, the ripple effects of this strange little film about a strange little world continues to shudder its way through time.  

The premise is simple enough: Jeffery (Kyle MacLachlan) returns home from college to his small 1950s-tinged nostalgia  town, finds a severed, moldy ear in a field, and embarks upon a self-guided odyssey into the darker parts of the town’s worn-down crevices, only to find that his thirst to drink in the dark might be stronger than he’d like.  The premise is simple, but the film that unravels from beneath its surface is anything but.  Relying largely on sensory instincts and “day dream logic”, Blue Velvet presents a rather loose and tangled web of threads that people love to try and straighten, only to find that the harder one pulls, the quicker the strings curl into something new.  Is this film an oedipal psychodrama? A coming of age story? A heartland conspiracy? Or is it simply a mystery about mystery? 

Let’s find out. 

Episode Safeword(s): “red pleather” 

(REPOSTED Episode from 2020 that traveled over from the old Anchor platform with a broken link).

**REPOST** On this week’s annotated deep dive, The Cultists present Baz Lurman’s 90s frenetic teen angst extravaganza, Romeo + Juliet (1996).  Known for his kinetic color-fueled explosions of images and sound, Lurman’s “red curtain trilogy” put him on the film world’s map as an Auteur with a distinct and immediately recognizable style. Bright, brash, and unforgiving to anyone who prefers a more minimal Mise-en-scène, Lurman’s penchant for decadence was ripe for a world of high octane emotions, brawls, masquerades, and the lush arc of an epic demise. However, Lurman’s vision of bringing the dusty pages of the oft produced Shakespearean play into the hearts and minds of the notoriously apathetic 90s teenage market was a rather unprecedented and hard sell for commercial studios at the time. Particularly when Lurman insisted that not only would he win over a teen audience, he would do it all without altering a single syllable of the original Shakespearean language of the play. And he would use a cast of mostly young people to do it. 

Lurman’s vision succeeded and the decade to follow would be one stuffed with Shakespearean adaptations for teens, and yet, ‘R+J’ remains distinct among them all. A burning strange indefinable star, that shall not be defied. 

Deep dives include: The film’s production history, editing and cinematography; the lineage of Romeo and Juliet literature that lead to Shakespeare’s 1596 adaptation of the tale; the 1996 film’s comparisons with the exactly 400 years older play; the historical roots of the warring Guelph vs. Ghibelline factionalism that led to such constant civil brawls; how amazing it is that Romeo spends a full third of the play desperately and despondently in love with someone else; why the developing teenage mind lacks impulse control; and why even Dante personally hated the Montagues and Capulets enough to write them into his levels of Hell two centuries before Shakespeare was even born. 

Episode Safe Word(s): “impulse control” 

(REPOSTED Episode from 2023 that traveled over from the old Anchor platform with a broken link).

**REPOST** On this week’s annotated deep dive, The Cultists Present Ari Aster’s ‘Midsommar’ (2019).   

The horror genre has long been a place of shadows. And yet, what happens when those horrors are brought into direct light? Can grief, heartbreak, graduate thesis work, and human sacrifice all still thrive under the warm glowing rays of the midnight sun? Aster’s sophomore film sets forth to find out.  As such, The Cultists welcome in the encroaching autumn with a scenic tour through the incredible landscape of Aster’s reimagined lore-laden fairy tale. (Because nothing says “summer” like downing home grown psychedelics in the warm lit sunshine with a folksy Swedish death cult.)

(Topics include: allusions and inspirations from Swedish folk artists (John Bauer to Hilma af Klint); the challenge of filming outdoors; and so much Nordic folklore (Ättestupa, the old “blood eagle,” runes, beserkers, and more!) 

Episode Safeword: “metropolitan” 

(REPOSTED Episode from 2020 that traveled over from the old Anchor platform with a broken link).