Repulsion: The strange attraction of dark emotions, vile acts and messed up characters
To coincide with the BFI’s extended run of Roman Polanski’s Repulsion, we look at the repellent anti-hero of Maniac in our Comic Strip Review, the disgust caused by the hellish David Mamet-scripted Edmond, and vomit in film. Our Reel Sounds column is on the beautiful score to the shockingly disturbing Cannibal Holocaust.
Kôji Wakamatsu: Porn, politics and provocation
This month we honour the late Kôji Wakamatsu, great provocateur and ‘godfather of the pink movie’, who mixed sex, violence and politics to explosive effect. We have reviews of Violent Virgin, Running in Madness, Dying in Love, Go, Go Second-Time Virgin, Secret Acts behind Walls, Pool without Water and Caterpillar, as well as a Comic Strip Review of Naked Bullet and a Reel Sounds column on the Ecstasy of the Angels soundtrack. An article taken from Behind the Pink Curtain by Jasper Sharp looks at Wakamatsu’s career and we have an interview with the man himself on his Mishima film, 11.25. The Day He Chose His Own Fate, one of his last to be completed.
Creatures: Ancient beasts, mystical monsters, sleepwalking murderers
As winter sets in the creatures come out of the dark: The Golem is conjured up, Conrad Veidt is the puppet of a sinister hypnotist in The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, a primitive beast terrorizes Trans-Siberian passengers in 70s Spanish horror movie Horror Express and we have a feature on ‘Female Creatures and Science Experiments Gone Amiss’. In Alter Ego, Sam Hawken is Underworld’s Selene while our Comic Strip Review is on Fritz Lang’s Die Nibelungen.
