Trickster

Here are some horror films where the representatives of fine arts have gone to great lengths to achieve immortality, often at the expense of the lives of others. Dedicated to the upcoming All Hallows Eve.

When Mr. Svengali, a two-bit hustler and a hack pianist, spots a young model Trilby, he feels so inspired that he hypnotizes her to take total control over her mind and body and put her on stage to sing opera and achieve world fame.

It’s been debated if “Svengali” is a horror film but given today’s context where the R. Kellys and P. Diddys exercise absolute power and control over the weak, “Svengali” has never been more timely. And yes, it is a horror story. The legendary thespian John Barrymore plays the title role with such intensivity though, that he han even inject a sizable dose of empathy into the character. A startling realization that is only an indication of a wonderfully liberal pre-code drama. Magnificent set design in the prime German expressionist style earned Anton Grot an Oscar nomination, as well as the cinematography to Barney McGill.

No-one is going futher in the name of art than Mark Lewis (Karlheinz Böhm) who takes steamy photos of his models and then captures their last minutes on film when he kills them. A photographer and a documentarist in one? A man of everyone’s dreams!

After making a series of quintessentially British comedies and dramas of pure genius together with Emeric Pressburger, Michael Powell struck out on his own to conjure up this deeply disturbing account of a voyeur-maniac. Using POV shots to great effect, “Peeping Tom” is almost too close to the skin, begging the audience to ask themselves: am I feeling it too? The unwanted desire?

“Peeping Tom” was almost universally vilified upon release but has become one of the prime examples of complete revision, when the majority of film lovers have figured out its exceptional nature over the decades.

“Peeping Tom” has won. There is no horror list complete without it.

Painter Adam Sorg has an insurmountable problem – he has no talent. Panned by critics who mock his lack of sense of colour, Sorg is looking for the perfect red when, after cutting his finger and smearing the canvas, understands that human blood is exactly the shade of red he’s been looking for.

Directed by the godfather of gore, the creator of the splatter genre Herschell Gordon Lewis, “Color Me Blood Red” is a very early sample of generous bloodletting on screen that left the audiences shocked and bewildered. After just three early splatter films by Lewis together with the producer David F. Friedman, Friedman decided that the splatter subgenre has been completely exhausted and it’s time to try something else. Man... If only you knew.

Today, when it is harder and harder to evoke any disgusted reaction from the hardened viewer, and “Smile 2”, “Terrifier 3” and “The Substance” are fighting for dominance in the mainstream box office, it is time to go back and see where all the crimson madness began.

A blind sculptor who has become a slave to his obsessions, kidnaps a young lady to use her as the ultimate epitome of beauty. His warehouse studio is a maze of female forms of countless models, sculpted from memory. A game of cat and mouse ensues while the scuptor’s accomplice / mother looks on. The game gets out of control fast when the woman is deprived of her sight as well, and rediscovers the power of human touch.

Yasuzô Masumura is absolutely one of the most underrated Japanese directors whose bold visions of individuality didn’t have any place in conformist Japan where everyone must obey the rules and norms of society. With “Blind Beast”, Masumura sculpts a completely unorthodox expression of will and desire that is destined to piss people off even today.

Hilariously entertaining and sufficiently bloody film has a failed stage actor Edward Lionheart go off the rails and murder his critics in the vein of various scenes from Shakespeare plays that the critics in question had lambasted. Hence, the eight members of the London Critics' Circle who have denied him a Best Actor of the Year award, are doomed to fall in the most illustrious ways.

You get your dose of Shakespeare and inventive murder, with Vincent Price in the lead role giving us a very good idea how he is perfectly suitable for both Shakespeare and Hammer Horror. Although not a Hammer production (two short lived production companies Cineman and Harbour), it shares Hammer’s penchance of saturated palette and theatrical approach. It’s a film to heartily recommend to all the familiar theatre critics. The ultimate revenge film for a misunderstood artiste.

Fresh daily news from Estonia have brought fourth stories of misuse of power in the modern dance facility “JJ-Street”. Wait, did you think JJ-Street was bad? You should enlist to Freiburg Tanz Akademie and, under the guidance of madame Blanc and Miss Tanner unlock the arcane gateways to demonic entities via dance.

Dario Argento’s “Suspiria” has become the landmark of Seventies Italian giallo-horror. Its violent reds and the jarring, hypnotic score by the inimitable Goblin take us further and further away from sense and reason until we’re left alone with existential angst and abundant murder.

Did you say your daughter wanted to study dancing?

Although the protagonist here is a hapless insurance investigator John Trent, rather than a tortured artist, he is unlucky enough to be hired by Arcane Publishing to investigate the disappearance of a horror writer Sutter Cane. Soon enough, Trent will find out that Cane’s horrifying literary fantasies might have more to do with reality than it seemed. Or is is reality? What reality?

Carpenter’s “In the Mouth of Madness” successfully evokes the spirit of H.P. Lovecraft, notoriously hard to bring to the screen - even its title is inspired by a Lovecraft short story “At the Mountains of Madness”. How do you depict the fathomless, all-encompassing evil? Here, Trent’s mind simply becomes a playground to unspeakable horrors that have to “meaning” or grander agenda. It is not up to us to know why we are merely playthings in the hands of higher powers. A truly unsettling proposition.

Architecture plays a great part in horror. The films wouldn’t be the same without the creepy ambience of the Amityville House, Overlook Hotel, Arkham Asylum or Miskatonic University. Places hold dark magic, but rarely is the architect mentioned. Compared to these wonderful locations, Jack’s house is a somewhat more ephemeral one – a structure made of human remains – but as such, it stands as a testament to a failed architect and a failed serial killer that Jack is.

Lars Von Trier’s murder fable mixed with Dante’s has infuriated the audience since its release in … Is Von Trier a misogynist? A maniac? Some simpletons are still convinced that he is a nazi. Well, he defies categorization as always and, like him or not, “The House that Jack Built” has scenes in it that are very hard to forget.

We all need a dose of Sydney Sweeney in our lives. Even as a hyper-competitive bitch who will let nothing stand in her way to musical greatness, not even her more talented sister. All you need is a demonic instruction manual into the deeper secrets of understanding the music and the light beyond.

“Nocturne” might be a simple story of musical possession that come dime-a-dozen but it is also a frighteningly accurate depiction of the competitiveness and pressure that permeate the world of classical music. A mandatory viewing for all those unfortunate souls caught in the web of studying, teaching or playing classical. This is a bonus request piece just for you.