Fortean Films

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I caught Magnolia and I wan't really impressed - it was okay - but are there any really great Fortean films out I should check out?
 
'The Nature Of The Beast' - ABC in a Northern post-industrial lanscape. Can't supply you with any more details yet (Not to be confused with a film of the same name made in 1995 - US thriller).

Awaiting permission to post on N&Q for more info.
 
'Bram Stoker's Dracula'

It's a classic Drac' film. Gary Oldman is a fantastic Dracula, its really graphic and freaky to watch. You may need to watch it a couple of times before you understand it!
 
Did anyone else think Pi was a really fortean film? All about the interconnectedness of all things, and coincidence, and patterns, and sequence, and the links between mathematics and religion...
 
what about cannibal holocaust

ha ha only kidding :D

i think the best fortan films is the stand,close encounters and stigmata
 
From FT49:54. Compiled by Mark Chorvinsky.:

-2001 (1968, Stanley Kubrick)
-The Birds (1963, Alfred Hitvhvock)
-The Last Wave (1977, Peter Weir)
-Picnic At Hanging rock (1978, Weir)
-The Shout (1979, Jerzy Skolimowski)
-The Man Who Fell To Earth (1976, Nicholas Roeg)
-Don't Look Now (1973, Nicholas Roeg)
-The Lost world
-Koyaanisqatsi
-The Haunting.
-Quatermass and the Pit
-The Elephant Man
-Nomads
-The Ten Commandments
-Curse of the Demon

He writes:
"While there are hundreds, if not thousands of films that deal with fortean subjects and contain fortean motifs, very few of these films reflect a fortean philosophy on the part of their creators. When a film about forteana is directed by a director with fortean sensibilities or tendencies, the result may be a work that can truly be labeled fortean."
Click to expand...

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There is also a film called Endangered Species from 1982. I kept the TV listing, it reads:

"Cattle are being mysteriously killed and mutilated in Colorado. Sheriff JoBeth Williams and visitor Robert Urich suspect the nearby secret government plant run by Peter Coyote. A low-voltage conspiracy thriller in which director Alan (Trouble In Mind) Rudolph makes the mistake of being more interested in his easy-going characters than his rambling plot."

I seem to remember seeing some pretty weird scenes, but it was late one night in 1994 when I saw it .

-Justin.
 
Sinister celluloid

I liked MAGNOLIA! It rained frogs at the end, and Julianne Moore is nice to look at.

Fortean films - THE LAST BROADCAST. Blair Witch stole it's thunder and (some say) plagerised the general idea, but LAST BROADCAST is more coherent and better made. Worth seeing.

Also, if you can wait a few months, my little movie outfit MALLEUS should complete WAKING FOR GATRI - then you can watch it FREE on the internet and find out exactly what The Holy Grail was and were it was hidden...

A shameful plug, I know, but MalleuS are very Fort-driven!
 
"The Ring" series are truly terrifying indeed. Its in japanese though(subtitles) and unlike the American counterparts, no apparent (cheesy) computer effects are used. The American horror film makers can learn a lot from this one.
 
The Passion of Darkly Noon is quite sweet in a cult survivor taken in by rednecks sort of way.
 
I definately agree with Evilsprout about 'Pi' - an excellent film, maths, madness, religion, chaos, kabbalah...

No one has mentioned 'The Wicker Man' yet!! Pagan ritual, a Christian copper, two worlds colliding, sacrifice... I love it! The story surrounding it's making is also quite fortean in itself.

Bye
 
Oh yes!

How could ANYONE forget The Wickerman! Such a great movie - oh, and if anyone has AN UNCUT version on VHS mail me!

We overlooked COMMUNION, too.

And HAMMER's THE ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN by Nigel "Quatermass" Neale...based on the TV show of the same title.
 
'Wicker Man' & 'Pi' definitley - also 'Quatermass and the Pit' - scared the crap out of me when I was a kid. I especially like the way that it does the history of 'Hob Lane'. and the explanation as to why demons have horns.

I'd also nominate 'VideoDrome' - really good 'collapse of reality' film. I especially like the fact that it doesn't have a pat explanatory ending.

Also 'Repo Man', 'The Navigator' (Mediaval English peasants escape the plague by tunnelling to 90's New Zealand!), and I guess, even though I personally hate it, 'Don't Look Now' must be up there in the top 10.
 
I think I have the most uncut version you can get... Somewhere. It's rather good!

Bye

Martin
 
Of recent films I have seen recently (!) that are of broadly fortean interest I would recommend Memento, about a guy (Guy Pierce infact huh huh) with no short term memory ... the whole thing is filmed in scenes backwards so you sort of share his lack of understanding of what is going on but unlike him you do get to build up an overall picture eventually) and The Ninth Gate, which was a hoot ... proper devil-summoning, evil-tome-hunting nonsense, but not directed by a complete idiot like so many "horror" films are (Stigmata, Bless The Child *cringe* etc)
 
How about 'The Sixth Sense'?

For good tongue-in-cheek cryptozoology, 'Tremors' has charm. Another film with pretty good sfx without a huge budget.

Also 'The Evil Dead' for a good twist on the reading-the-forbidden-book legend.

On TV

Ultraviolet - How to do a vampire series, never use the word and do it with STYLE

The Prisoner - How paranoid are you? Seminal!

Edge of Darkness - ostensibly a nuclear thriller, but some interesting fortean elements

No order of preference in the foregoing, just as they ocurred

8¬)
 
It's time for the weekly David Lynch post:

Eraserhead and Lost Highway have both got to be up there. Particularly for the timeslip motif and the alternate personalities. Moreover, the idea that nothing is completely explicable runs through both, which makes 'em well and truly Fortean as far as I'm concerned...

Don't watch Eraserhead while you have your tea, though.
 
even though I'll get shouted at for watching hollywood crap,

I have to say that I like these films, they all have a basis in factual fortean.

The Craft
Practical Magic
The lost boys

I know its all romanticised but Im an old romantic at heart.
 
Don't Look Now with Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie (dead creepy) and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang spring to mind!!!
 
The Korean version of 'The Sound of Music' must rate - apparently, they cut all the songs :)
 
A truly Fortean film would be one which had no background
data available. I remember sitting through Rollin's Rape of the
Vampire, with no prior information. It's a pity to see it
dismissed online as culty arty porno-schlock, because it is does have some
poetry in its weirdness. The later Rollin films also have their
moments but more tits than a Carry On film. There is also the
fun of films that have been so cut to shreds that they make no sense.
I once saw an Argentine? horror that contained no horrors at
all - they had all been removed as too ghastly. What remained was
impossible to follow as the characters disappeared one by one without
explanation.

As a kid I was spooked by a very odd film in which people were
brainwashed by being put in draws. It is called something like The
Metal Monster. It would probably just raise a laugh now.

It was in an attempt to get the full weird fix of the movies that the
early surrealists would dash from cinema to cinema, trying
not to understand the plot.

For some reason it is not an authentic surreal experience to channel
hop from the comfort of your sofa. And it is not a Fortean coincidence
to find drivel on every channel. :(
 
How about the Green Mile.
OK so its got Tom Hanks in it and its 3 hours long and its based on a book by Stephen King but its slightly supernatural and its a great film done by the same guy that did the Shawshank Redemption.

callisto
 
I always liked the film 'Poltergeist', does anybody know when this is getting releaded on dvd?
 
The Enigma of Kaspa Hauser (still not seen it!)...
Many David Lynch films! Eraserhead, Twin Peaks, The Elephant Man, The Straight Story...
Pi (of course)...
Krystof Kieslowski's Dekalog, and moreso La Double vie du veronique...
Wong Kar Wai's Chungking Express just seems really fortean to me... can't put my finger on why, but the same with his In The Mood For Love
Almodovar's Matador... just watch to the end...
Jaws(!) - c'mon, giant animals, mass panic in a small town...
Brazil
Monty Python's Life of Brian
Elisio Subiela's Man Facing Southeast
 
I think Cube needs a bigger mention.

It's creepy, in a stark minimalistic sort of way, it's got nutcases, geniuses, savuants, cool viscious killing devices, and was filmed using a small budget (compared to standard hollywood budgets).

And it's got the kind of ending that all fortean films need, a 'come to your own conclusions' sort of ending.

My sort of film.

(whispered) I also liked Ladyhawke with Michelle Pfeiffer and Rutger Hauer, but don't tell anyone, cos it's a chickflick.:rolleyes:
 
Can anyone help me?

Anyone know about a film called V?

All I know is what my folks told me about it which is -

Aliens invade the planet, they look human but they wear masks and look reptilian, and they eat rats.

Anyone got any info about it like who made it and such?

luce
 
V

Dallas with rat-swallowing.
Robert Englund as a 'cute' reptoid.
Worst monster baby since Larry cohen's 'It's Alive'.
I watched it all, g*d help me!
 
Dallas with rat swallowing!

Gross! I can't stand Dallas. Big hair and huge shoulder pads, yuck!
Now the rat swallowing I can handle.

luce
 
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