I could give a "respectable" list of films including 'Blade Runner', 'Brazil', 'Eraserhead', 'A Hard Day's Night', 'Taxi Driver' and 'The Good, the Bad & the Ugly', but I'm not trying to make myself sound classy to anyone. I'm dedicated to - and aim to work in - pure schlock and that's what my list represents.
1. 'The Return of the Living Dead' (1985)
Quite simply the movie which kickstarted my love of cinema at a very early age. The production design is fantastic, the special effects are outstanding, it's got a visual aesthetic and style all its own, the story is clever and original, the tone strikes a perfect balance between comedy and horror, the acting is far better than it really needs to be, the characters are all unique and likable (the #1 oft-forgotten rule of writing good horror: make the characters likable enough that the audience roots for their survival instead of waiting to watch them die), the soundtrack is awesome...as far as schlocky '80s horror-comedy goes, it's fundamentally perfect.
2. 'The Toxic Avenger' (1985)
Troma are the punk rockers of cinema: they opened my eyes to the fact that you could make an entertaining and SFX-heavy movie on a shoestring budget, and more so that in the world of independent film, you could do whatever the hell you wanted no matter how tasteless or offensive. 'Toxie' is cheap, gross, stupid and doesn't play by any rules of logic or convention and that's exactly why it works. In 2008, I actually moved from California to New York to work for Troma for a while. Has a movie/film studio ever made you pack your bags and travel cross-country?
3. 'Evil Dead 2' (1987)
Find an American horror filmmaker who says they weren't influenced by 'The Evil Dead' or 'Evil Dead 2', and you'll find a liar. 'The Evil Dead' is an utter masterpiece, especially from a filmmaking perspective, but 'Evil Dead 2' is on a whole other level, a comic cavalcade of carnage. At age 8-10, I'd never seen a gruesome horror film which was so heavily steeped in slapstick and pure comic book fantasy (at least until Peter Jackson's 'Dead Alive'); it left an indelible impact on me and own writing. I believe this was the only VHS I owned which I literally wore out from countless re-watchings.
4. 'The Thing' (1982)
Aside from being incredibly atmospheric, superbly directed and genuinely terrifying, it has arguably the greatest special effects ever committed to film. This was the first movie where I didn't take the blood and gore for granted and actually started looking into the art of SFX work. Now I can make bloody props and masks, and 'The Thing' was the catalyst to developing that hobby.
5. 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' (1981)
Well, I had to include something which didn't involve disembowelment (melting Nazi heads aside). I respect people who use the medium of filmmaking for meaningful and challenging art, but for me, a movie is escapist entertainment. It visually takes you to exciting new worlds and fantastic stories and larger-than-life characters and situations. 'Raiders' epitomizes that type of movie magic which captivates the human imagination. As much as I do love 'Temple of Doom' and 'Last Crusade' (too bad there were only three Indy films, right? Too bad they never made a fourth one, right?!?), 'Raiders' is just perfect in ways few films can achieve.
As an aspiring filmmaker, of course I couldn't narrow it down to just five. Heck, I've technically listed 11 films so far, and it took a lot of self-control just to narrow it down to the following additional movies which hugely influenced me: 'Alien', 'An American Werewolf in London', 'Basket Case', 'Beetlejuice', 'Big Trouble in Little China', 'Blue Velvet', 'Dawn of the Dead' (1978), 'Ed Wood', 'Freaks', 'It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World', 'Jaws', 'Matinee', 'Metropolis' (1927), 'Network', 'Nosferatu' (1922), 'Psycho' (1960), 'Repo Man', 'Saturday Night Fever', 'The Shining', 'Stop Making Sense', 'Street Trash', 'The Texas Chain Saw Massacre', 'Videodrome' and 'The Wicker Man' (1973).
01 Dec 2014, 2:44 am
I saw that one once more than 20 years ago. I loved how they wanted to free the poor sea turtle, but I worried about how it would manage on its own when it wasn't used to finding its own food.
