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...

**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 p...

**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...

**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 mi...

**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 o...

**REPOST** On this week’s annotated deep dive, The Cultists continue to present Stanley Kubrick’s final film Eyes Wide Shut (1999).  ***THIS IS PART TWO OF A TWO PART EPISODE*** Deep Dives Include: production history; comparisons with the film’s “Dream Story” (1926) novella source material ; the Gustav Klimt color pallet; the meaning behind those neon Eros/Thanatos street signs; secret societies a...

The Cultists are back! And in honor of The Resurrection, on this week’s annotated deep-dive, The Cutlists Present Ivan Reitman’s Ghostbusters (1984). A humble little film of grandiose origins (including a writer born into a family tree of generations of ghost hunters, a un-producable fever dream of a first draft, a 13 month time budget, and a die hard commitment to keeping the SNL and Second City...

On this week's five-by-five bonus interlude, London and Benji each present 5 recommendations for films with a color in the title. 

On this week’s annotated deep dive, The Cultists present Bernardo Bertolucci’s 'The Dreamers' (2003). Known for his “hot house” cinema, in which characters are crammed into isolated intimate spaces until they burst, Bertolucci returns again to offer up a claustrophobic yet sprawling visual love letter to his own memories of the French New wave —albeit through a lens of decadence, incest, and as ma...

On this week’s annotated deep dive, The Cultists present Cameron Crowe’s “indie” millennial LowFi-SciFi flick ‘Vanilla Sky’ (2001). The self described American “pop song” remake of the 1997 Spanish film, Open Your Eyes, VS was and remains a film of lukewarm division. Part of that reception has to do with early expectations. Made on a budget of 68 million, staring Tom Cruise, and marketed as a love...

On this week’s annotated deep dive, The Cultists present Bill Lustig’s controversial killer classic 'Maniac' (1980). Initially pitched as "Jaws but on land," Maniac tells the tale of Frank Zito, our man-about-town who can’t help but prowl the streets at night, scalping the women who remind him of dear old dead mom and thumbtacking his permed late-night winnings to stolen store front mannequins. An...

On this week's annotated deep dive, The Cultists present 'Urban Legend' (1998). A classic tale of a disgruntled heartbroken serial killer who seeks vengeance by re-enacting even more classic tales of contemporary lore, UL is the kind of film that has a surprising amount of depth lurking beneath its colorful, campy surface. Taking inspiration from the foundational urban legend scholarship of Jan Ha...

On this week’s annotated deep dive, The Cultists present David Lynch’s ‘Dune’ (1984).  A  byproduct of nearly two decades of active studio efforts to bring to the big screen, the 1984 highly anticipated “picture event” of Frank Herbert’s 1965 sci-fi classic was for some disappointing, for others baffling, and for a select special few the kind of sleeping celluloid wonder just on the prec...

On this week's annotated deep dive, The Cultists present the Universal Studios Hollywood Horror Classic, 'Frankenstein' (1931).  Helmed by the great James Whale, this first installment of a legacy of undying gems tells the well-known tale of Dr. Victor (or in this case "Henry") Frankenstein and his "Creation" - a life composited from scrapped together pieces of other men.  A creature tha...

This week on our annotated deep dive, The Cultists Present 'Tales from the Darkside - The Movie' (1990).  The year was 1983 when George Romero, inspired by the EC comics of the 1950s such as "The Vault" and "Tales from the Crypt", pitched a humble horror TV anthology that would harken back to the golden age of pulp fiction. Seven years, four seasons, and a major motion picture later, Tales ha...

On this week’s annotated deep dive, The Cultists present Terrence Malick’s ‘Knight of Cups’ (2015). Often regarded as a particularly “tough watch” (even by those who enjoy the film), Cups is a slow and mangled feast of images that will delight some and utterly baffle others. Adding to the challenge is that grasping the more concrete structure of the film demands a familiarity with a rather eclecti...

On this week's annotated deep dive, The Cultists present Panos Cosmatos's 'Mandy' (2018). The anticipated (mostly unrelated) follow-up to Cosmatos's first cult film, Beyond the Black Rainbow (2010), Mandy hit the scene marketed as a heavy metal, genre-bending, "cosmic opera" of the psyche. Set in a 1983 (that may or may not be *our* 1983), Mandy is still stuffed with references, homages, and abstr...

On this week's annotated deep dive, The Cultists present Kenneth Branagh's 'Murder on the Orient Express' (2017).  The technically ambitious 65 mm adaptation of Agatha Christie's murder mystery classic, MoOE tells the tale of the magnificently mustachioed Hercule Poirot -- the world's greatest detective (also known as the man who thinks and thus suffers). Yearning for a vacation, Poirot board...

On this week's annotated deep dive, The Cultists present Mel Stuart's 'Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory' (1971). Considered a flop during its initial release, ‘Wonka’ has grown overtime into a beloved classic of psychedelic sadomasochism of the childhood nostalgia variety.  Ostensibly the tale of a poor, starving child with nightly dreams of confectionary sweets, and an eccentric ch...

On this week’s annotated deep dive, The Cultists present Roger Kumble’s iconic “teen” flick, 'Cruel Intentions' (1999). Based on the 18th century French novel, Dangerous Liaisons (1782), about a group of bored (and very adult) aristocratic power-players living in a morality-absent void of entitlement and sociopathic values, CI hit the late 1990s YA landscape in a way no other film within the genre...

On this week's Five-by-Five interlude, The Cultists present the top "Dark Night of the Soul" films, as London and Benji each offer up their respective Top 5 films that all take place over the course of a single night. 

On this week’s annotated deep dive, The Cultists present John Guillermin’s ‘King Kong’ (1976). A remake of the classic RKO production from 1933, Kong ‘76 retains many of the high adventure staples popular in the pulpy 30s: the treacherous island, the perilous climb, and the classic meet cute of blonde bimbo pawn meets giant monkey during a casual ritual sacrifice.  But in all its surface simi...

In addition to our regular episodes, we are adding a new format into the mix! "Five-by-Five" eps will each be a Top Five list of films featuring different random topics, sub-genres, or objects. As we are often asked what our personal favorite episodes are, first up on the Five-by-Five front are each of our respective "top" favorite films/episodes we have done thus far and why.... 

On this week’s annotated deep dive, The Cultists present Stanley Kubrick’s final film 'Eyes Wide Shut' (1999).  An incredibly faithful adaptation of Arthur Schniztler’s 1926 Austrian novella, Traumnovelle (“Dream Story”),  (albeit set in a contemporary 1990s New York), Eyes Wide Shut remains a timeless dreamlike odyssey of paranoia, jealousy, (in)fidelity, occult desire, and institutiona...

The peculiar tale of a young Spiritualist medium listlessly going about her day job as a personal shopper for a Parisian model/actress while awaiting a sign from her recently departed twin, ‘Personal Shopper’ is an incredibly ambitious meditation on what it means to be alive in a contemporary haunted world. A languid ghost story interwoven through an erotically mundane day (plus a bonus sideline m...