The Cult Movie Challenge on Letterboxd consists of weekly themes for the entire year. It’s in its fourth year, but it’s my first time participating. See the master post here via Justin Hullinger’s page. Each week has a different theme and the challenge is to watch one movie per week. I’ve made it a personal goal to watch at least one movie per theme. One reason why I’m participating in this Letterboxd challenge is because I’d like to broaden my cinema horizons. I already watch a lot (almost exclusively, if I’m being honest) horror films, but mostly popular, well-known films. Because of its setup with a new theme every week, the Cult Movie Challenge explores a lot of subgenres, most of which I have little to no knowledge of.
As of the writing of this post, we’ve just passed week ten so I figured it would be a good time to hit pause and list the most enjoyable movies I’ve seen so far.
Basket Case
Frank Henenlotter Week
For this week – the first week in the challenge – we had to watch a movie directed by Henenotter. I went with Basket Case, which I’ve previously seen. I hadn’t seen it since high school, though, so I remembered very little about it. The gist is that our main character and his conjoined twin had been separated against their will when they were young, and now they want vengeance on the doctor who performed the surgery. Oh yeah, the deformed twin is carried around in a basket. The film features a backdrop of a gritty NYC and is a fun watch, especially when the twin gets out of the basket and trashes the hotel room.
Anime Week
Anime is not something I normally watch; nothing against the genre, but I normally stick to horror and sci-fi. So I was actually quite excited to tackle anime for the challenge. However, I was disappointed at the lack of availability of the anime that I wanted to watch, and really disappointed that two anime I had planned on viewing had awful English dubbing. I can’t stand dubbing for the most part and will avoid it like the plague. Luckily though, Paprika was available to stream – and it didn’t let me down. Of course right away I noticed a similarity to Inception, a movie I really like. Throughout the film I was floored at how much had been borrowed for Inception. Paprika really captured the dream world in ways that most films can’t, and the result is haunting and beautiful.
Shaw Brothers week
Embarrassingly, I’ve never seen a Shaw Brothers film prior to this challenge. For those who don’t know, Shaw Brothers was a Hong Kong film company that produced a TON of movies, particularly martial arts. I picked this one because I recognized the name. I instantly fell in love and ended up watching four other Shaw Brothers films that week, but this remains my favorite. The reason why I liked it was because it had a compelling story (during an attack, the main character, Lui, manages to escape and wants revenge) and I enjoyed seeing the training scenes in which Liu endured difficult obstacles in each chamber. It was a captivating watch. And yeah, I know I just wrote that I avoid dubbing like the plague, but with Shaw Bros films, it seems to be impossible to avoid.
Shaw Brothers Week
In total, I watched five Shaw Brothers films in all for this week’s theme. Vengeance was my other favorite; not only did David Chiang look great in that white suit, but the story was good and the violence was even better. It’s a revenge plot (duh) with Chiang’s character avenging his brother’s death. Tons of knives are thrown (the film is mostly knife fighting) as Chiang kills his way through henchmen to get to the top boss. So if you’re looking for a bloody good time, watch this. Just be aware that there’s not a lot of kung fu in this one.
Giallo Week
StageFright, also known as Deliria. Sometime last year I came across a picture of the killer in the owl mask and I knew this was a movie I needed to see. Until this challenge, though, I never got around to watching it. StageFright definitely surpassed my expectations and it’s now one of my favorite movies. It’s a stylish, fun slasher that takes place in a theater where stage actors are locked in, rehearsing their musical. They’re rehearsing despite the fact that a killer is on the loose and has murdered cast members – the musical production is lead by a greedy man who insists the show must go on. Of course, the killer, who is wearing the iconic owl mask, is locked in the theater with them. There are some great kills here and some fantastic cinematography.
Giallo week
I managed to watch four giallo films for this week and I must mention my other favorite, The Perfume of the Lady in Black. It’s as if a giallo was made by David Lynch with touches of Argento (keeping in mind that Perfume predates the release of Eraserhead). It’s a gorgeous film that makes up for its plot flaws with amazing cinematic style. It’s incoherence at times only adds to its appeal, creating a nightmare-ish feel. The aesthetics are colorful and so 70s; the framing – many shots looked like paintings; the score – the soundtrack sounded like a creepy music box; and a captivating lead – Mimsy Farmer, who played her part perfectly. The ending is a shocker.
Video Nasties Week
Even though I watched five video nasties for the week, I really only loved A Bay of Blood. (The only other video nasty that I liked was The Witch Who Came from the Sea, but I’m not officially including it in this list because I think the childhood trauma scenes were completely inappropriate and shouldn’t have been filmed.) Anyway, I think Bay was my first Mario Bava film – incredible, right? What I liked about this wasn’t the plot, for that was convoluted and nonsensical at times, but the body count: An impressive amount of people are killed in this film. The ending is a shocker and what I remember most from my viewing.
Bleeding Skull week
Bleeding Skull is a horror movie site that reviews budget, obscure, bizarre, etc films. This week’s theme was to watch a movie that Bleeding Skull reviewed. I picked two to watch and The Slumber Party Massacre was definitely the superior one. Going into Slumber Party Massacre I was excited to watch it because it’s a slasher written and directed by two women. It was my first woman-directed film in the challenge (and to date, still the only one). I was a little surprised at how male gaze-y the shots were in the beginning (shower/locker room scene). The last 20 or so minutes were the best part of the movie. I do have to say that I’m disappointed because I streamed this via Prime, which appears to only have the edited version. The runtime for the version on Prime is slightly shorter than the official, and the death scenes seemed edited. I was left wanting by some of the death scenes, unfortunately. But! All that said, still a really fun slasher.
Category III week
Category III films are basically the Hong Kong equivilent of NC-17. So this means violence and/or nudity. This theme was difficult because not a lot of these films are available to stream legally. The Untold Story was a bit hard for me to rate; I ended up giving it three and a half stars. I would’ve rated it higher but the sexual assault scene was super disgusting. I went into the film knowing very little, and had I googled it, I would’ve been slightly more prepared for the scene. I should have just fast forwarded through it, but oh well. So: HUGE content warning for rape. That said, the film overall is one I won’t forget any time soon. It’s based on a true story (although I’m sure the film took many liberties) and the lead actor, Anthony Wong, put on such a disturbingly real performance, which made the graphic violence all the more difficult to watch. The dumb male humor prevalent throughout the first half of the film gave me a few chuckles and, even though I can’t stand sexist humor, was a bit of a reprieve from the dark, gory crimes. About halfway through the film the comedy slipped away, but the tonal shift worked. The Untold Story definitely held my attention and shocked me in ways that movies lately haven’t been. As of this posting, currently available on Prime.
Category III week
There’s a power struggle in a Hong Kong triad, and will honor and trust prevail or will self-interest? Election is not particularly explicit in its violence, but still manages to be brutal. I thought this movie had good direction, good performances, and good pacing. I liked the music too. There were quite a few funny moments, which never felt forced or corny. Great, bleak ending; I had a little bit of a heads up because I looked at reviews before I watched the film, so if you don’t want to know what happens you should avoid Letterboxd, etc. Someone in their Letterboxd review mentioned that the violence is more interesting when none of the characters have guns and I think that’s true. The violence throughout is creative and visually interesting to watch. Great music, too.
In about another ten weeks or so, I’ll be back with more highlights from the challenge. I’m currently in the middle of the Category III week and I plan on watching at least one more movie for that.
Here’s my official Letterboxd list for the challenge, continuously being updated.
Feel free to follow me on Letterboxd!