Cinema of Cruelty (Movies for Masochists)

This week, The Cultists Present, John Waters’ Cry-Baby (1990).  Inarguably the most mainstream and accessible of Waters’ oeuvre, Cry-Baby’s technicolor array of costumes, camp performances, and impeccably mixed sound still bears all the markings of John Waters’ loveably perverse and whacky soul. In a charming parody tale of 1950s cinema nostalgia, Cry Baby Walker—the matchstick chewing, leath...

This week The Cultists Present Werner Herzog’s Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009). Technically (kind of, maybe) a remake/sequel/spin-off of Abel Ferrara’s 1992 film Bad Lieutenant, Herzog’s film remakes someone else’s the only way Herzog can: by openly never having heard of Ferrara’s film, nor caring.  Instead, with a screenplay written by the man who brought the world the glorio...

This week The Cultists Present Joel Schumacher’s ‘The Lost Boys’ (1987). At once a pulpy comedy about teenage boardwalk-dwelling vampires on the California coast and a startlingly deep horror critique of Regan Era conservatism, Schumacher reworks what was initially a kid-flick studio pitch of “Peter Pan with Vampires” into an aged-up love letter to letting go.  Join us as we take a guided wal...

This week The Cultists Present Panos Cosmatos’s 'Beyond the Black Rainbow' (2010).    Coming almost 10 years before Cosmatos’s surprise Indie hit “Mandy” (2018), “Beyond” is a transcendental, atmospheric color wheel of a tale. One that tells the story of a young girl subjected to the obsession of one man’s dreams to transform humanity into something “better”.  Light on plot but...

In 1978, Ed Wood died at the age of 54, homeless, unknown, and unappreciated. Leaving behind him a trail of often baffling yet now celebrated wonders like “Glen or Glenda” (1953) and “Plan 9 from Outer Space” (1959), Wood is now posthumously revered as a patron saint of passionate, low budget cinema.  And, as it turned out, Ed Wood had one more gift to give— a final screen play. A screen play...

On this week’s annotated deep dive, The Cultists Present Kenny Ortega’s ‘Hocus Pocus’ (1993).  A massive commercial and critical failure upon its bewildering release one hot, sweltering day in July, this film about a trio of soul-sucking witches failing to spree-kill children on Halloween night has since become a beloved holiday staple. Now, with All Hallows Eve encroaching, the time has come...

On this week’s annotated deep dive, The Cultists Present William Friedkin’s ‘The Exorcist’ (1973).  In 1949, a boy known now as “Ronald Doe” begins acting out, ultimately becoming the recipient of a rare exorcism procedure that would one day change the course of cinematic history.  In 1971, William Peter Blatty reads an article about Ronald Doe and writes a novel about a child possessed....

On this week’s annotated deep dive, The Cultists Present Brian De Palma’s ‘Phantom of the Paradise’ (1974).  An intertextual explosion of classic literary references reworked and remixed through the lense of a then fresh-on-the-scene De Palma, ‘Paradise’ tells a fever dream of a musical tale about Winslow Leech, a bugged-eyed ingenue who just wants to finish his glam rock Faustian pop cantata...

On this week’s annotated deep dive, The Cultists Present Tim Burton’s ‘Sleepy Hollow’ (1999). A film that set out to both capture the essence of Washington Irving's classic tale about the legend of a head-snatching specter, while also paying homage to the era of "Hammer Horror," Sleepy Hollow is a flick stuffed with allusions to oft forgotten gems. From replicating shots, recreating subplots, and...

On this week’s annotated deep dive, The Cultists present Richard Stanley’s Color Out of Space (2019). The cult director of Hardware (1990) and Dust Devil (1992) returns to the big screen after a decades-long hiatus with this H.P. Lovecraft adaptation about a color so unfathomable that it can’t help but destroy everything its light touches.  Lovecraft’s writings—packed full of thick lurking at...

On this week’s annotated deep dive, The Cultists Present Paul Thomas Anderson’s ‘ Boogie Nights ’ (1997).  Jam-packed with star power and impeccable cross-decade production design, this retro-time period romp through the golden age of “porno chic” and it’s subsequent sharp decline, is one roller coaster of a tonal ride—Like basking in the warm peachy glow of the California sun followed by a s...

On this week’s annotated deep dive, The Cultists Present Joel Schumacher’s '8MM' (1999)— a classic tale about one man's quest for that holy grail of cinematic legend: The Snuff Film.  Released at the brink of the new millennium, a time in which porn was just beginning to carve out a place for itself on the nascent mysterious frontier of the World Wide Web, and, somewhat surprisingly, still le...

On this week’s annotated deep dive, The Cultists present Steven H Stern’s ‘Mazes and Monsters’ (1982). On August 15, 1979, James Dallas Egbert disappeared from  his college dorm room. Subsequent investigators and the press quickly arrived at one conclusion: the still new and blossoming game Dungeons and Dragons had something, if not everything, to do with it. Fueled by the growing rise of “mo...

On this week’s annotated deep dive, The Cultists present Richard Kelly’s celebrated cult film ‘Donnie Darko’ (2001) and Richard Kelly’s ‘Donnie Darko—The Director’s Cut’ (2005), which, as it turns out, are two utterly different movies. In one film we have a surrealist indie flick about mental illness and the abstract nature of reality, the other is a superhero sci-fi film. London and Benji unravel...

On this week’s annotated deep dive, The Cultists present William Friedkin’s ‘Killer Joe’ (2011). Notable as the film that jump-started the brief but shinning “McConaissance," this charming humble tale tells the story of a group of morally bereft human trash-fire Texans who will do whatever it takes to kill mom. London and Benji explore how this “American southern-gothic, dark comedy, crime film” p...

On this week’s annotated deep dive, The Cultists present Paul Verhoeven’s 'Showgirls' (1995). Pitched as an epic MGM (no music) musical set in the seedy shadow of the Vegas Strip; boasting a screenplay about the cutthroat hierarchy of topless showgirls vs. strippers as written by the highest paid screenwriter in Hollywood history; and captained by a director with a unique aptitude for satire throu...

On this week’s annotated deep dive, The Cultists Present Roger Christian’s Battlefield Earth (2000). Based on L. Ron Hubbard’s novel of the same name, and officially hailed twelve years after its release as “the worst movie of the decade,” some viewers simply blamed Battlefield’s icy reception on its fundamental failures at filmmaking, while others remained further concerned about the film’s possi...

On this week’s annotated deep dive, The Cultists Present Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream (2000). Benji ponders Brooklyn’s flat A vowels, SnorriCam vision, and the plight of depressed grandmas, while London remains positively enthralled with the cinematographer’s abuse of gel filters. Featuring a most special guest, clinical psychologist Dr. Michelle Vaughan, to give us some professional con...

On this week’s annotated deep dive, The Cultists Present Tomas Alfredson’s The Snowman (2017). This highly anticipated Nordic noir notoriously still hit theaters after only filming about 85% of its script. Would the last minute recruitment of one of the most prolific editors in Hollywood be enough to pull a cohesive narrative together from the rubble of unfinished scraps? London and Benji set fort...

On this week’s annotated deep dive, The Cultists Present R.D. Robb’s Don’s Plum (2001). London and Benji look into the controversial “banning” of the Leonardo DiCaprio and Toby McGuire 90s “pussy posse” improv film—a movie that would have been easily forgotten and lost to the natural passing of time if embarrassed, entitled actors hadn’t thrown a legal tantrum over it. Episode Safeword: “relax”

On this week’s annotated deep dive, The Cultists Present Robert Eggers’ The Lighthouse (2019). Wildly experimental in both its technical ambitions (a full black and white feature film shot entirely with camera equipment from the 1910s—1930s); its cast (a complete roster of only two people); and it’s narrative arc (a set of lighthouse keepers who may or may not be loosing touch with reality, all wh...

On this week’s (somewhat lighter) annotated deep dive, The Cultists Present Claudio Fragasso’s Troll 2. London tries to contextualize where Troll 2 fits into its own film family tree and Benji, self-admittedly, is somehow even more manic than usual. Topics include: on set language barriers, the odd reality of the production, location, and casting choices, and the subsequent cult development and ap...

For our inaugural annotated deep dive, The Cultists Present Jonathan Lynn’s Clue (1985). Benji reveals the pernicious details of the original fourth ending, while London remains obstinately insistent that communism is NOT a red herring. Some other topics include: The 1980s nostalgia for the 1950s, Mccarthyism, Clue’s long list of early production turnovers, and why we can safely say that, diegetic...