The other feature I want to call direct attention to is the 135-minute interview with artist/actress Penny Slinger at the Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies. It’s similarly exhaustive and involves a conversation with Slinger, charting her work with Jane Arden and her own interests in sexual surrealism. This feature makes the set valuable alone. House of Psychotic Women is an autobiographical exploration of female neurosis in horror and exploitation films. Anecdotes and memories interweave with film history, criticism, trivia and confrontational imagery to create a reflective personal history and examination of female madness, both onscreen and off. The last disc once again starts off with an introduction by Kier-La Janisse. This one runs for nine minutes and covers Jane Arden's career, how Janisse came to know of the film, the film's depictions of psychiatry, her thoughts on the movie after seeing it for the first time going in blind, the stage play that Arden worked on that inspired the movie, how the movie is the only British film on record to have been directed by a woman in the seventies, the collaborative nature and energy in the movie, the use of LSD on set and what she's learned about the movie since including it in her book. What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (weirdly, everyone remembers this wrong; it’s not camp, it’s bleak and somber, and brilliant) Beginning in 2012 the book formed the basis of film retrospectives in Austin, Montreal, Los Angeles, Brussels, Amsterdam, Melbourne and more. The book was responsible for the re-popularization of many forgotten films, and since its publication, “House of Psychotic Women” has been referred to as a film subgenre unto itself.

HOUSE OF PSYCHOTIC WOMEN PIONEERING HORROR MEMOIR “HOUSE OF PSYCHOTIC WOMEN

Since I have been a great fan of the late Spanish Horror/Exploitation legend Paul Naschy for many years now, and the Italian Giallo is (along with Gothic Horror) my favorite Horror/Suspense sub-genre, I have long been anticipating this film which is a Spanish Giallo starring Naschy. And I was not at all disappointed when I finally saw "Los Ojos Azules De La Muñeca Rota" aka. "Blue Eyes of a Broken Doll" (1973) recently, as this weird, sleazy and brutal little film truly delivers what we Naschy fans want to see. Directed by Carlos Aured, who, in the same year 1973, made two other, more widely known films starring (and co-written by) Naschy, "El Espanto Surge De La Tumba" ("Horror Rises From The Tomb") and "El Retorno De Walpurgis" ("Curse of the Devil"/"Return of the Werewolf"), "Blue Eyes of a Broken Doll" is a film that no Naschy fan should consider missing. Shot in a remote mining community in Wales with a low budget and a lot of LSD, The Under Side Of The Underneath is almost unclassifiable. As unique an experimental film as you’re ever likely to see, the movie is as compelling as it is fiercely angry. Shot with a rough and tumble style that almost seems better suited for a documentary, the movie isn’t always an easy one to watch, but it’s fascinating regardless. With many of the cast members on acid and clearly under the influence of the psychedelic drug, and its director reportedly heavily intoxicated throughout most of the shoot herself, the movie makes great use of a score that is heavy on strings and which somehow adds to the overall feel of insanity that Arden and company capture with the project.It all started with Possession. Zulawski’s film, formally speaking, is perfection – its deep blue hues, its labyrinthine locations, the hypnotic cinematography of Bruno Nuytten. But that’s not what drew me to return to it again and again. There was something terrible in that film, a desperation I recognized in myself, in my inability to communicate effectively, and the frustration that would lead to despair, anger and hysteria.”

Home - House of Psychotic Women

women, alucarda, diabel, carrie, la novia ensangrentada, femina ridens, let’s scare jessica to death. all these films bring me a deep sense of belonging, my own scarred psyche share something with these women - paranoia, desperate anxiety, apocalyptic hysteria; films that focus on the experience of being a woman and not being shamed for having such destructive emotions. i remember reading a blog post called “horror movies are one of the few places women are told their fears are real”, which it resonates deeply with me and the internalization of anxiety and guilt i sometimes feel for being a “crazy bitch.” and that’s where my personal appeal for extreme cinema comes from. Imagine my surprise and delight when I first encountered Kier-La Janisse's "House of Psychotic Women," a book that seamlessly blends film analysis with memoir. By using movies to help her understand her own life, Janisse leads both herself and the reader to more meaningful conclusions than any piece of detached academic writing ever could. Early on, she writes, "We have more patience, or perhaps even empathy, for fictional characters than we do their real-life counterparts. Faced with neurosis in film or literature, we want to investigate rather than avoid." By combining the two genres, Janisse breathes life into the "psychotic women" we see on screen by explaining how they fit into her own narrative. It's a book that still feels radical in its methodology and vulnerability, even ten years after its first release. The book is worth reading for its discussion of "Possession" (1981) alone. The disc also includes a commentary with Kamila Wielebska, Actor and Co-Editor of A Story Of Sin: Surrealism In Polish Cinema. It’s unconventional and very dramatic in its delivery, opening with a Bela Lugosi impersonation, but genuinely interesting and frequently quite humorous. It’s definitely worth a listen as she goes over how the film plays with audience expectations in terms of its horror movie branding, the visuals on display in the movie and much of the set design, thoughts on the different characters that populate the movie, elements of Polish history and society that shaped the movie, literary influences that work their way into the movie and quite a bit more. In 2003, she founded the Bloodshots 48-Hour Filmmaking Challenge, an annual independent filmmaking contest in Vancouver that ran until 2012. The Other Side of the Underneath; The Brood; Possession; Szamanka; Man, Woman and Beast; AntichristPaul Naschy was also known as Jacinto Molina and starred as a werewolf in 12 different films in his native Spain. He and director Aured collaborated on a number of such horror films. Naschy plays Gilles, an ex con, who gets employed as a handyman in a mansion owned by three very dissimilar sisters, Claude (Dina Lorys) who has a heavily scarred arm, the gorgeous nymphomaniac Nicole (Eva Léon), and the wheel-chair-bound Michelle (Inés Morales). Needless to say that he soon gets sexually involved with more than one of them. Around the same time, an unknown maniac is stalking the area, killing merely blonde teenage girls, and cutting out their blue eyes...

HOUSE OF PSYCHOTIC WOMEN SEVERIN ANNOUNCES NEW BOX SET ‘HOUSE OF PSYCHOTIC WOMEN

Named after the U.S.-retitling of Carlos Aured's Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll, HOUSE OF PSYCHOTIC WOMEN is an examination of these characters through a daringly personal autobiographical lens.I Like Batsis presented in 1080p from a 2K scan of the only 35mm print known to exist. And well, that might give you a hint as to how good of shape the print was in. There’s some pretty noticeable damage that shows up infrequently, but the encode handles it all capably without detracting from how just how beautiful the film does look in high definition. Shadow definition is a bit limited because of the damage, yet that’s not due to any digital tinkering. This still looks good for what could have essentially been a lost film without this print being scanned. Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror, House of Psychotic Women: An Autobiographical Topography of Female Neurosis in Horror and Exploitation Films, The Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies In 2017, Janisse and producer Andy Starke of Rook Films pitched a television series based on the book at the Frontieres International Co-Production Market. [22] Film work [ edit ] In this pioneering work, anecdotes and memories interweave with film history, criticism, trivia and confrontational imagery to create a reflective personal history and an examination of female madness, both onscreen and off. Tim Lucas of VIDEO WATCHDOG called it “groundbreaking,” no-wave icon Lydia Lunch called it “a masterpiece,” and Molly Ringwald said she “devoured this compelling, surprising, and moving book.” She contributed to Destroy All Movies!! The Complete Guide to Punks on Film ( Fantagraphics, 2011), Recovering 1940s Horror: Traces of a Lost Decade (Lexington, 2014) The Canadian Horror Film: Terror of the Soul ( University of Toronto Press, 2015) and We Are the Martians: The Legacy of Nigel Kneale (PS Press, 2017).