In the movie Curve, Dancing with the Stars dancer Julianne Hough gets trapped in a car wreck while a psycho killer stalks her. Her leg is stuck, so she isn’t going anywhere. This makes things pretty easy for the psycho killer, but there’s still about an hour of movie left, so a bunch of stupid stuff happens. The Curve I’m talking about is not that one.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at http://www.quartertothree.com/fp/2017/06/21/best-short-thing-youll-see-week-curve/
Thanks for posting this, Tom. I love the existential nature of “horror” like this and It Comes at Night. Much more interesting and thought provoking than some slasher, zombie horde, or gibbering fiend. Just pure dread of a character’s inevitable, untimely demise is pretty damn powerful all on its own.
Very nice! Reminded me of Cube, another film in which the protagonists fight back against a mysterious, unfeeling structure seemingly intent on murdering them.
Couple of quick questions, Tom: which letters would you recommend from the first ABCs of Death? We only watched the second volume because we heard it was ‘less patchy’. Hah! We’re in no rush to watch another patchy 26.
Which letters did you like from the second volume? Most of it was forgettable but we enjoyed the chocolate box nature of it still. Just looking over the A-Z now and the memorable ones for me were Deloused and Head Games (by virtue that they were both surreal and animated. Head Games reminded me of Jan Svankmajer’s work, while Deloused some sort of icky Tool video), Knell (stylish and enigmatic), Masticate (funny), Roulette (surprising and clever) and Wish (just stupid and funny). Zygote was quite the short to end on though. I recall Youth having some Gondry-esque visual flair.
Hmm, I kind of want you to just watch it and discover the good ones, because they’re nice surprises for that box of chocolates analogy you used. The good ones taste even better if you’re comparing them to the gross chocolate covered cherry abominations. :) But if you must fast forward, I really liked D and Q, and I think P is absolutely brilliant. I’d put it up there with Father’s Day in Holidays and Amateur Night in VHS. Hmm, now that I think of it, all three of them are notable in that they’re uniquely about proactive women.
Gosh, to be perfectly honest, I don’t remember. And now that I’m reading your descriptions, I’m thinking…wait? Did I even see the second one? Actually, I’m sure I did, because I remember the E.L. Katz one about the assassin in the ducts that starts off the anthology (Katz did a really grim movie I love called Cheap Thrills). And, yeah, I do remember Masticate. But mostly, I’m looking at that list and drawing blanks. I should probably give it another run-through at some point.
But your comments about the animation reminded me of the connective parts of an anthology called XX. Have you seen that?
I haven’t no, but almost anything that gets mentioned favourably here gets added to our ever burgeoning list. XX worth a look? We haven’t seen Holidays or V/H/S either, although the latter is on our metaphorical pile.
Haha, thanks for spoiler tagging your recommendations… we’ll give the first one a spin and report back. Now I’m intrigued to see if I can work out your two selections. :)
Yes! That was Amateur which was a pretty funny opener. Added Cheap Thrills.
Very cool! Believe it or not, I actually know that author. He has a whole series of comic books based on spirals that also feature the horrific idea of having your body twisted into unnatural shapes.
Really creepy stuff, freaky, part Lovecraft, part Clive Barker. Since Uzumaki takes place throughout an entire town, there’s much more of a sense of Japanese culture than in that short you linked. Highly recommended.
-Tom
(BTW, someone sent me Uzumaki as a gift, but they didn’t include their name! If it was one of you jokers, please let me know!)
