The Hourglass Sanatorium (Sanatorium pod klepsydrą) (1973)
Based on the novel by Bruno Schulz. Recently re-reissued by Mr. Bongo films.
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This music video and song scares the shit out of me in the way Silent Hill does.
Being John Malkovich and Rear Window are direct inspirations for Silent Hill 4: The Room.
So, that fits!
I feel like The Re-Cycle counts, it starts out like a typical Asian horror movie like The Ring, then shifts to a kind of weird fantasy world full of zombies and fetuses growing out of walls etc.
Also Angel’s Egg seems like a good fit to me, I don’t think anyone else mentioned it…
Also bumping this topic hoping people post some more stuff, I bought a bunch of the movies posted here and need some new things to watch
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A couple more that I like:
Picnic at Hanging Rock
On a school outing, there’s a mysterious disappearance. A nice, haunting atmosphere accompanies attempts to locate the missing and discover what happened.
The Innocents
A new governess is hired to take care of two children and comes to suspect that they live in a haunted house. Based on “The Turn of the Screw” by Henry James.
This one for sure. In fact, a lot of Asian Horror films (and I guess horror in general) have these elements.
The first part of Re-Cycle is clearly inspired by Silent Hill 4. To remove any doubt, one of the deleted scenes on the disc version has her playing actual Silent Hill music on her apartment stereo.
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I just watched this and now I am very confused.
It feels like the world in this movie is where the girls from Picnic at Hanging Rock ended up after they disappeared
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A lot of Mamoru Oshii’s films have that surreal, dreamlike quality to them. Some of them, Red Spectacles in particular, are literally set in a dream:
I was going to post the trailer for Talking Head, but I can’t seem to find it so here is Avalon instead:
Oh man, I bought a Mamoru Oshii live-action DVD box set at an anime con once on the strength of that cool-ass soldier character design. It was not what I expected.
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NB Avalon is basically unwatchable and Oshii’s live action work is of questionable worth at best
“not what I expected” applies to everything he has made in my opinion. I find most of his movies improve on repeated viewings though, Avalon in particular. Stray Dog is pretty bad though, and Assault Girls seems like a kind of weird self parody.
I have a pretty high tolerance for pretentious wank, so I guess that explains why I can enjoy these movies
Last Shift (rookie policewoman is tasked to guard a dismissed police station for the night) borrows heavily from SH down to basic elements including what’s wrong with this radio and this phone shouldn’t work… and characters that pop out from nowhere like in a cutscene.
Pretty mediocre, reasonably promising till 1/3 then exposition time. Still a decent time, ehi I miss the games ok
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Phone being dumb. Did anyone mention Carnival of Souls?
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I watched this tonight. Despite some rough edges (some of which I found refreshing in a way), I liked the atmosphere and visuals. The not-so-subtle soundtrack is fun, too. I sure didn’t know what to expect as the story went along, and that’s something I always appreciate. I guess I should get around to seeing Suspiria as well one day.
Another thing I saw a few months ago that maybe fits here (or maybe not) is Hard to Be a God. It’s based on the story by Arkadi and Boris Strugatski, but it doesn’t tell much of a story. Instead, it just presents a long journey through relentless filth and unpleasant crowded and bewildering interactions.
I don’t watch movies very often, but I’m still looking forward to seeing some of the other titles in this thread that I am not yet familiar with.
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The weird thing is that Hard to Be A God actually follows the book very closely, but, whereas the book is very readable (as all the Strugatski stuff I have read is), the movie is so dense with stuff going on that it’s hard to follow even as someone who’s read the book.
I would recommend both, but they are shockingly different experiences.
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Speaking of the Strugatsky brothers, I guess Stalker is relevant to this topic too? It has a very ominous, dreamlike quality to it and the environment it is set in feels somewhat sentient and hostile.
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I guess I have another thing to add to this list now.
Mother!
I went into this knowing almost nothing about it other than that Darren Aronofsky directed it and that people have complained that it gets too bizarre toward the end (which I took to mean that it was just the movie for me). I liked that there were several different overlapping themes at once (even if the symbolism was a little heavy-handed at times) and I appreciated the nightmare imagery.
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I do appreciate the fact that Aronofksy was just like “fuck it” I’m gonna dive head first into all my worst tendencies and see what happens. There’s so much going on in this movie and all of it just ping-pongs off each other and it’s weird and entertaining at times.
Lemora has a bit of a surreal, dream-like vibe. Very low budget and goofy at times, but everything is very dark, people are strange with questionable intentions, weird creatures are wandering outside, et cetera.
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I watched this last night, and I think your description is accurate. The writing and performances were a little painful in places, but I definitely liked the imagery and some of the turns that the story took.
Also, I keep thinking about how Mother! is just the sort of thing I wish would be made more often. I listened to a conversation between Aronofsky and Jodorowsky the other day in which Aronofsky mentioned that he had complete control over the film. I hope in the end it’s considered successful enough to allow him and maybe others to take more such risks. I guess I should go ahead and see more of Jodorowsky’s films.
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