Wednesday, July 22, 2009

My first experience with euro-cult...

I've always, since I was a child, been more interested in movies that are a little bit different than the usual mainstream- productions. I always prefered Jaws 2, 3 and 4 before the first one for example, because they had a trashier feeling and more... simple storytelling. Maybe I'm not that smart... But I've always had a problem to concentrate on to perfect movies, though I love big budget mega-blockbuster flicks to. It's just that I prefer the lowbudget way of style and story.
When my dad wanted to rent some high class miniserie, I always pushed for a Linda Blair-movie or something with jungle and explosions on the cover! When I was a teenager I started to collection videotapes, hunting the videostores for x-rentals and stuff that they wanted to throw away. So now my basement is filled with tapes that I have no room for. Shit happens.

The first eurocult-productions I saw was maybe the best beginning for me, and I still LOVE these movies. I hail them as masterpieces. Really. Contamination was wonderful. The swedish release from Walthers was cut a few seconds (but those seconds where in the trailer anyway) and it was such a different experience. Far from perfect, dark and murky, but creepy and wonderful settings. Around the same time I saw Atlantis Interceptors to, which was a fanastic experience. Love the action, the atmosphere, the (minor) gore, the rough style of filmmaking.

The third movie of this list would probably be Nightmare City. Of course it was a cut version, but it's a movie with an amazing pacing that never lets you down. Sure, it's cheap, nasty, silly and more silly... but it was love at first sight. Nowadays I have a signed letter from Umberto Lenzi on my wall and I collect all dvd-releases that I can find (+ of course a couple of different tapes).

Soon after this I saw Zombie Flesh Eaters, a fullframe version of Deep Red and a lot more... and the rest is history.

3 comments:

Patrick B said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Patrick B said...

It would be cool to see that letter! Umberto Lenzi is a master!

Ninja Dixon said...

Lenzi is the master, yeah! I will fix a photo it sooner or later. He actually just printed a piece of a homepage, with some info about a movie, and wrote some stuff on the paper... :)