A brilliant surgeon, Dr. Génessier, helped by his assistant Louise, kidnaps nice young women. He removes their faces and tries to graft them onto the head on his beloved daughter Christiane... See full summary »
A married couple grieving the recent death of their little daughter are in Venice when they encounter two elderly sisters, one of whom is psychic and brings a warning from beyond.
Director:
Nicolas Roeg
Stars:
Julie Christie,
Donald Sutherland,
Hilary Mason
Two women kill samurai and sell their belongings for a living. While one of them is having an affair with their neighbor, the other woman meets a mysterious samurai wearing a bizarre mask.
The wife of a cruel headmaster and his mistress conspire to kill him, but after the murder is committed, his body disappears, and strange events begin to plague the two women.
Director:
Henri-Georges Clouzot
Stars:
Simone Signoret,
Véra Clouzot,
Paul Meurisse
A newcomer to a fancy ballet academy gradually comes to realize that the school is a front for something far more sinister and supernatural amidst a series of grisly murders.
A vengeful witch and her fiendish servant return from the grave and begin a bloody campaign to possess the body of the witch's beautiful look-alike descendant. Only the girl's brother and a... See full summary »
Director:
Mario Bava
Stars:
Barbara Steele,
John Richardson,
Andrea Checchi
A brilliant surgeon, Dr. Génessier, helped by his assistant Louise, kidnaps nice young women. He removes their faces and tries to graft them onto the head on his beloved daughter Christiane, whose face has been entirely spoiled in a car crash. All the experiments fail, and the victims die, but Génessier keeps trying.... Written by
Yepok
Was chosen by Entertainment Weekly magazine as one of the "100 New Classics ranking as #74 in the June 20, 2008 issue. The issue ranked the greatest movies of the previous 25 years. See more »
Goofs
When the doctor parks in front of the morgue, his front wheels are turned left from backing up to the curve. In the next cut, when he leaves the car, the front wheels are straight. See more »
Along with THE SHINING, THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN and PSYCHO, the best horror film ever made. Franju forsakes the usual signifiers of the genre - hurtling pace, quick editing, signalling music, hysterically scary scenes - in favour of a pace as funereal and petrified as its heroine's face. A soul-chilling film, seeped of all emotion, its scientific subject matter belies a timeless, complicated, non-judgemental Gothic fable about the destruction of innocence, the carelessness of masculine authority and the exploitation of women (especially in art). The many paralells with VERTIGO (the source novel was written by the same writers), the startling tree and animal imagery, the suspended dream logic and the perverse comic sense ensure this film as a classic, and makes one yearn for more Franju.
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Along with THE SHINING, THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN and PSYCHO, the best horror film ever made. Franju forsakes the usual signifiers of the genre - hurtling pace, quick editing, signalling music, hysterically scary scenes - in favour of a pace as funereal and petrified as its heroine's face. A soul-chilling film, seeped of all emotion, its scientific subject matter belies a timeless, complicated, non-judgemental Gothic fable about the destruction of innocence, the carelessness of masculine authority and the exploitation of women (especially in art). The many paralells with VERTIGO (the source novel was written by the same writers), the startling tree and animal imagery, the suspended dream logic and the perverse comic sense ensure this film as a classic, and makes one yearn for more Franju.