I watched Cabin Fever while I ate breakfast. I watched Audition while I ate lunch. I watched Inside while I ate dinner. Maybe I am some sort of cannibal or something but I’ve been at this horror thing now since I was a little kid. Nothing phases me. I am more grossed out by seeing someone put ketchup on a hot dog than have ever been by anything in a horror movie. Ketchup on a hot dog is a gourmet faux pas; not to mention the Freudian implications. There could never be a movie made that would freak me out. Under the pressure of the spectacle my psyche was invincible. I really believed this. And then I saw Dans Ma Peau (US title: In My Skin). I have never squirmed and cringed as much watching a movie as I did watching this. What a glorious experience. What an insane and all around gloriously brilliant movie. What an insanely amazing performance by Marina de Van (who also directed). Will you marry me, Marina? You sick goddess!

Marina de Van

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If we’re all going crazy we should at least have a little fun along the way…

Top 5 Japanese Existential Horror Movies of the 1960s
By Juan Mateo

Contemporary Japanese cinema has fallen flat with its cardboard surrealism, assembly line horror and banal historical romances. Of course there are always exceptions and for the most part Japan can be proud it has a few talented and seriously disturbed quacks in its film industry. But there certainly was a time when the films produced in Japan were dripping with that brain sauce that oozes out of the ear of the truly mad. These were not mere movies but rich tasty desserts of poison lovingly baked in the ovens of hell. This was the Japan of the 1960s.

1. Matango (1963)

Matango is one of my all time favorite films. The film is based on a short story by the sadly neglected turn of the century horror writer William Hope Hodgson and directed by Ishiro Honda, who directed the first Godzilla movie as well as the insanely good Godzilla Versus Mothra, which introduced the Shobijin, the tiny twins that sing to Mothra. Matango is literally Gilligan’s Island on mushrooms; a group of castaways find themselves on an island where all they can find to eat is a resilient mushroom that has taken over the island. What follows is a fun descent into madness and terror.

Trailer:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_q40cvm0Fwc[/youtube]

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