what, yeah, no, I’m not following you into that dinner, man, miss, okay, whatever, no, no, I follow nobody, you hear me, no one, you sure, you’d let me take the cheesy fries and stuff, hmm ’kay, can I have some chili fries, then, you see, I had this, ahem, friend, acquaintance, I know a guy is what I’m saying, a hobo guy, always used to say : nuthin is free, you’re being given something, you take it, yeah, I’d take the french fries with that, still not sure why you being all kind and almighty but thanks, ouuuuh, that’s what you want to talk about, that ain’t a pretty subject, tho, and it was a lifetime ago, I mean, I wasn’t there when it happened is all I’m saying, ain’t sure I’m the one you should be talking to, okay, so I wasn’t on the streets back in those days, I mean those were the times before derek left or before quentin hanged hisself in his mother’s garage, still, it was after francys had died, we all knew him, y’see, small town and all, but he ain’t got no part in all of that, we were, wow, we were quite a bunch in those days, eight, I’d say, sure, sometimes we’d be joined by a partner a boyfriend a girlfriend or whatever, but most of the times there was only the eight of us, let see, there was sandra, of course, oscar, josh fo sure, and quentin riding along, add to that sammy and sophie and me and you got the whole bunch, I think, we used to hang around the spot clay had found, strong body, quiet type and now that I think of it he used to hang around with us too, it was he who had discovered the stone circle, in ma head, it was like rocky fingers coming out the ground but I guess my brain’s messy, but still, there was like this stone table we used to sit on in the middle of it, a rock sittin’ on top two small pillars, like stonehenge but smaller, see, we used to joke this shit was built for sacrifices and stuff, the slow stream which ran next to it didn’t help, though, I mean, quentin had read this book, fight club, where it says women used to make their laundry right next to sacrificial altar, which used to be build right next to small streams of water, see, back in the days, so quentin and oscar, they were pretty sure those stones had seen some shit, what, no, no, we never sprayed the damn things, there never was any art student in the crew, well, not through those times anyway, used to be a guy named sebastian, sad fucker used to talk to aliens via his phone, ended up in the loony bin, my parents, my parents, they didn’t have the money, for the internment, y’see, and they were fuckin’ tired of me stealing and, their money and shoes and perfume, to try and buy some heroin, but that ain’t the point, right, so, yeah, sandra, she used to date josh back in those days, called her rachel for some time but that nickname didn’t stick, it was a friends thing, you see, she dated him for a little over a year, a year and a half top, see, josh becoming an adult, he had begun to work, to dress sharply and shit, and the truth is, all through high school, this douche had been obsessed with sandra, I remember him, driving blind drunk during prom night, all covered in vomit, yelling and screaming that he was gonna end his fucking life ’cause sandra had gone to prom with another guy, named robert, and that the guy was surely fucking her this very night, josh’s words, not mine, dude was so obsessed but those were the days, I mean, clay had stalked a girl more than once, even quentin once stayed three nights in a row underneath his ex’s porch asking her to get him back and shit, poor fellow had to be taken in by the cops, I swear, still that’s how it was done in those days, y’see, we knew of this girl right, dora, she once sucked an entire party just to piss off her ex, stoubid shit like that, you know, but josh, josh was on another level, man, you see, sandra, she dated this guy robert all through high school but I guess something happened during the holiday or some shit, well, after that you’d turned up almost every time at sandra’s parents’ house and you’d find josh, which was kind of crazy ’cause the guy had a job at the time, still, it was as if every minute of every second off from work the guy had to be near sandra, quentin AND Oscar both complained to me about it, it was like water eroding a rock, you see, like sandra didn’t want him but he would tire her in the long run, kind of, and truth is, he eventually did, dear god were they a shitty couple, but at least with them being with us, we got to see sammy, you see, sophie, sammy’s girlfriend, she really didn’t like to hang around with us when sandra wasn’t there, I mean, I think she had a problem with quentin and josh, and I know she knew josh from before she started dating sammy, she let that slip once, at the famous blowjob party, but I guess with josh being all over sandra and shit, she kinda felt safe, I don’t know, man, I’m not a girl, y’see, truth is, those were the best days ‘fore sandra dumped him, it all went to the shitter after that, see, before that they both used to talk about sex, so much, and then yell at one another, but after that, wow, they fought, I mean really fought, at least three times, three times I saw, I mean, people used to hang around with their heads down when their love story was over, ’cause everybody knew, each evening would have its fair share of shit and yell, and scratching and stuff, but you see, sandra, I guess she took a liking to us, and to angie, she was quentin’s girlfriend at the time, and to sophie, if she ever thought josh could hurt her, no, I think not, she just liked the company, the crew, and with her problems with her mom at the time, she sure deserved a little time off, if I remember when she disappeared, sure, I even recall her mom calling me in the middle of the night, crying and shit, she found my phone number in her daughter’s jeans, thought I might help, I might, t’was clay who found the blood on the stone table, and we knew this were bad news, there, there was so much blood, you wouldn’t believe it, they didn’t find the body, you see, but blood in our usual hanging spot, and then we all got talked to by the cops, and we all searched for a body, but there was no body to be found, sandra, she had just vanished, tis all, still she had left behind this big pool of scarlet liquid, I liked her, you know, not in a romantic manner, but I still think she was a funny girl, wouldn’t hurt nobody, I didn’t find her as beautiful as josh said she was, but she kinda was family, y’know, truth is, after this shit my parents never looked at me the same and, I mean, yeah, I may have hit my little sister every once in a while but I wouldn’t hurt no girl, you know what I mean, we have to leave now, I know my fragrance tend to offend customers, you good, you’re not cold or anything, where were we, yeah, ok, see, when sandra disappeared, the cops, they would not let josh off the hook and it became worse after quentin offed himself, truth is, there was no traces of sandra in their respective cars, which, I might say, is weird, considering how much they used to fuck, with josh I mean, and then quentin hung himself just like francys had done back in the days, and I’m still sure this idiot took the idea from him, so there was no sandra, no quentin left, is all, josh never went to trial, truth, there was a problem with the paper work or I don’t know what, deputies had raided his house before they got a warrant from the prosecutor’s office or some shit, I don’t know, what I do know is that oscar started hanging with sammy and sophie way more often, and then he went on to college, they both still live here, though, if you wanna talk to ’em, they tend to get me some food every once in a while, josh, josh he someday had this big amount of money poured into his bank account or something, it was like Sandra disappeared and BAM, error of the bank in your favour, ka-ching, I take it that’s how he got a lawyer able to get him out of his shithole, I don’t know, as for the spot, well, no, I can’t show it to you, you see, they build over it, anyway someone had destroyed the altar waaay before the construction began but still, sometimes, I wonder, you know, d’you think a day will come when a dude’s gonna rock his girl a little too hard, maybe she’ll fall and hit her head on the living room table or something, right on the spot where the altar, and the blood, used to lay, d’you think this guy’s gonna escape justice, too, d’you think he’s gonna get some money out of it, maybe get lucky and some money will appear on his bank account, ka-ching, bank error in you favour, haha, I don’t know, my brain gets weird sometimes like that but still, you should talk to clay, saw him fairly recently, told me josh’s wife had those saddest eyes, you see, you should talk to him, plus, he’s the one who actually found the body is all I’m…
Donnie Darko stands in the list of my top 3 favorite movies. Richard Kelly’s first (and probably best) full-lenght feature stars alongside Dirty Dancing and the Goonies. Yup, weird choice for a horror fiend but that’s how life rolls. This also probably explains why I know who Franck is. You know Frank, the man in the rabbit suit. Frank is actually Donnie’s sister’s boyfriend. I distinctly recall discovering this while watchin the deleted scenes on the DVD. A single shot of the top of the stairs with Maggie Gyllenhaal holding a phone, talking to Frank.
Donnie Darko stands in the list of my top 3 favourite movies. Richard Kelly’s first (and probably best) full-length feature stars alongside Dirty Dancing and the Goonies. Yup, weird choice for a horror fiend but that’s how life rolls. This also probably explains why I know who Franck is. You know Frank, the man in the rabbit suit. Frank is actually Donnie’s sister’s boyfriend. I distinctly recall discovering this while watching the deleted scenes on the DVD. A single shot of the top of the stairs with Maggie Gyllenhaal holding a phone, talking to Frank. This was one of my first foray into the army of bonuses physical media used to offer. I won’t lie, I was of those consumers who would buy “Ultimate” and “Limited” and “Prestige” edition of movies for their plethora of bonus but never watched them. Donnie Darko was special. I was young, hadn’t set a single step on any movie set. At the time, I could not even comprehend how weird it was for a deleted scene to be edited. …
The more I study French genre movies for this series the more I come to the conclusion that horror and fantasy have always been part of France’s dreamscape. Makes sense since a lot of modern pop culture can be traced back to the French serials of the 18th and 19th century. Yet, genre fiction have become a rare breed after WWII, and if, we except the revival of the New Wave of French Extremism, efforts have been few and far apart. A reality which collides harshly with the striving forces the genre bore in previous era.
Take Alfred Machin for instance. Machin was first a photographer before becoming a director of photography on documentaries. As some sort of colonial adventurer, the young man explored some part of Africa by riding the Nile on boat and shooting his encounters with wild animals — according to sources going dangerously close to the beast s— through hunts and fiction. Sadly, the trip took so long, only two movies could be made out of it for the films came back to France in horrible condition. …
Disclaimer: This paper contains spoilers for Terminus (1987), Moon (2014), The Invention of Morel.
In 1987, Pierre-William Glenn released on the French silver screen a movie named Terminus. A post-apocalyptic flick, in which Johnny Halliday — probably France’s most famous singer even though he is actually Belgian — plays a trucker with a bionic arm. Did anyone say Furiosa? Anyway, I once watched this movie in a small theatre thanks to a rare screening from an even more rare magazine named Distorsion.
This séance was presented by the filmmaker himself. I would bet you a ton of money, that I do not have, that Halliday would have never set foot in some tiny shithole in order to promote a movie that didn’t make its money back. The director’s foreword was interesting nonetheless. It taught me the movie was shot à l’italienne — meaning they shot a scene in one language before shooting it in another tongue back to back. But I also learn that the filmmaker lost almost all his money because of this. For he sunk and sunk big dollars in it thinking this post-apocalyptic German-French road-trip would be the next big thing. …
To be honest, Jack never liked working in this station.
See, he used to do it, every damn day, of every damn month, of every damn year. But the few occasion on which one of his colleagues was sick, and he’d have to occupy another station, Jack saw as a chance. Sure, he’d have some mates saying that this wasn’t the worst place across the whole subterranean network “if you was working with ’em junkies and ’em rats, you’d know what I mean” they’d sometimes say but Jack wasn’t so sure.
The terro,r it had slowly crept on him as the years flew by. At first, he felt mildly disturbed in the bowels of the station, slightly annoyed. A fingertip searching where to scratch without ever finding it. But, as days flew by -and night, do not forget the nights- the forty-something male had more and more difficulties to close the station. It was not because of the usual hobos you’ve got to explain yourself with when you close a subway entrance, no, homeless persons knew better than to sleep in the entrails of the station. It was something in the air, as sour as bad breath of weird people in the morning. …
In France, we’ve got this manga Mishima Boys, it’s been written by Eiji Otsuka, yup, the writer behind MPD Psycho or Leviathan, and it exists solely in our country. Mostly speaks of three young men wanting to change Japan and their hidden link to Yukio Mishima. Series was never finished, first tome got released four years ago. Another mangaka who wrote about Mishima was Bonten Taro. Taro wasn’t just an illustrator/writer throughout his life, he was a rock singer, a soldier, a tattoo artist. In 1971, Taro released Between Cold Blood and Insanity, a 15 pages long gekiga recounting the death of Yukio Mishima, asking the question: Can modern Japanese really judge Mishima? It might be useful to remember that both men were friends and actually trained in the same gym together. …
In the late 90s, producers were starting to remake of old series such as The Fugitive or Wild Wild West. This fashion wasn’t only an American thing. In France, production companies tried to remake famous tv shows such as Belphegor. It was in the Zeitgeist. Hence why Dominique Farrugia and Olivier Granier once approached Jean-Christophe Grangé who was making a name for himself writing thriller novels at the time. They might have heard that the writer was currently developing one of his novels The Crimson Rivers with Matthieu Kassovitz, we’ll never know. What we do know is that they asked Grangé to write a screenplay about Vidocq. This would be his first original script but the duo of producers had few restrictions except that it had to be about Vidocq. Main problem was, they wanted to ride on the success of those old tv show remakes but they had not any rights to adapt the ancient series. Grangé knew what he had to do. …
Jean Ray once said that he wrote to H.G Wells in order to tell him that his idea for the Invisbile Man was ludicrous. What with light not being able to fall upon the cornea if one had been rendered transparent. In otherwords, an invisible human being had to be as blind as a bat.
Jean Ray was a liar and I already touched upon this on my paper on the Big Scare. Hence why I didn’t believe his story when I first heard it. But there’s another reason for my distrust. Maurice Renard once actually wrote The Man who Would be Invisible. A pastiche wherein an old man is sure that Wells’ story had to be based upon facts and scientific evidence, so he tries to recreate said experiment. The failure of the endeavour leads to him becoming blind leading his whole family to act as if the poor soul had genuinely become invisible — for he KNEW that cecity would be a consequence of such a transformation — in order for ur old chap not to mournthe loss of his eyesight. …
There was something weird with Boris and it wasn’t that he was raised by ants.
Sure, this simple fact was quite out-of-the-ordinary but this wasn’t the point.
Boris was your typical Caucasian teenage boy which meant he watched too much porn, had a second account on twitter which served him to act as a troll and a seriously fucked up love for a girl named Alice. Typical, I said.
But the dude was weird, I mean it. Like it wasn’t just that people would say to girls : Do not date this weirdo, he’d bring you to his house for his parents to eat you. …
At age 8, Michael Reeves said to his mother that he wanted to become a movie director. Age 11 was when he made his first short film Carrion, the story of young boy assaulting a handicapped girl, which already starred Ian Ogilvy and was co-written by Tom Baker. According to Ogilvy, the boys had to learn to make travelling with a tea trolley for Reeves wanted not only to make movies but “Hollywood movies”. The boy would go on to release two other movies, Down and Intrusion, but only the latter can be found on the world wide web. A weird story of two robbers entering a house and terrifying a lonesome girl, again. …
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