Eleven Days In

[handful_ofdust]

...to October, and I still haven't done all that much in terms of content generation. Maybe this is because most people start mainlining horror movies during this month, as opposed to (say) what I do every goddamn day--I don't think it's overstating the case to claim I probably watch more horror than anything else, whether onscreen, on BluRay/DVD,

Comments

[teenybuffalo]

"Exorcism Through The Ages" sounds like it would fulfill the same interests for me as "Compendium Maleficarum" did. The latter is like a "Case Studies and Eyewitness Accounts" companion volume to the Malleus Maleficarum and it's gross, prurient, riveting reading. I was lucky enough to get a cheap copy when I was younger and it was reissued by Dover. The focus is mostly on Italian cases since that's where the author was from. I'll bet the German cases are even more extreme. I'm curious--does "through the ages" mean it has accounts nearer the present day?

That's cool that your father-in-law knows you like this kind of thing and buys it for you.

[handful_ofdust]

It is kind of cool! Though the book itself originally cost $3.95 and was marked down to like a dollar, so.;)

None of the cases appear to be from any time more recent than the 1800s. A lot of them are from the 1600s, 1700s or earlier, including the case of Elizabeth Knapp of Groton, Massachusetts, diabolically possessed in the winter of 1671 to 1672.

[moon_custafer]

Does it have the one you told me about with the possessed apple on a bridge, which was eventually pushed cautiously off the bridge by a large crowd?

[handful_ofdust]

Haven't found it yet, if it does.

[sovay]

Thus far, my favourite section is "Demonic Encounters, by Caesar of Heisterbach," a collection of really short, open-ended, oddly provoking Mediaeval German exorcism cases.

You have to see Hell-Bound Train (1930). It's the work of James and Eloyce Gist, a married pair of Black evangelists who screened their movies as part of their sermons, accompanied live by James' preaching and Eloyce's piano-playing. The Devil drives a train to hell; he hands out tickets to impressionable youth; the fifty-minute film catalogues the cars by their contents of sinners like the circles of Dante's hell; the Devil drives faster and faster while Death signals frantically that the track is out, the train screams into a tunnel, cut to a flaming model train falling endlessly through the dark to break up in a bonfire scatter while the Devil laughs and laughs. It is no-budget DIY. 16 mm, natural light, no sound, cast of non-actors. The interiors of the train are the same front parlor with a little leaded window of colored glass (derspatchel shouted suddenly, "It's the

[handful_ofdust]

Wow, that does indeed sound amazing. Where did you get a hold of it?

Baskin is basically about four Turkish cops on the night-shift in a smallish town. They spend the first half-hour talking crap in the back of a local restaurant which appears to be receiving raw meat deliveries off the books; said crap is mainly about corruption, extortion and various sexual shenanigans. At a certain point, the youngest cop and the oldest cop start talking about hell, which the oldest cop says everybody carries around with them at all times. The youngest cop has a weird waking dream in which he falls under the table, through the restaurant's floor and into a deep lake of some kind. He resurfaces to discover they've all gotten a call from headquarters to go investigate potential cult activity at a nearby ruin, which they do, and a million gross things result. The back half of the film is pretty much non-stop Hieronymous Bosch performance art with extra blood, shit and frogs piled in on top. The youngest cop manages to get away, staggering down the

[sovay]

Where did you get a hold of it?

It's part of the Pioneers of African-American Cinema collection. The Blu-Ray version has another short by the Gists, but I have the DVDs, since I cannot play anything else on my computer. It was a complete 180° from the short we had previously watched, about a fast talker who gets in way over his head managing a mini-golf resort and then ends up in a golf-off with a professional player; it is probably a one-off, but Hot Biskits (1931) feels like the latest episode in the misadventures of the indefatigable Hot Biskits and his no-name friend whose intentions are much better than his attention span. We sort of started with the ephemera. I really want to see the feature films by Oscar Micheaux.

The back half of the film is pretty much non-stop Hieronymous Bosch performance art with extra blood, shit and frogs piled in on top. The youngest cop manages to get away, staggering down the road, or does he? Is the ruin in fact HELL?! Is hell in fact INSIDE OF HIM RIGHT NOW?!?!That also sounds amazing! I may just

[moon_custafer]

Found part of it on YouTube here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xnqHGtnfuMI
Looks as though it was all shot in winter.

Ooh! Also there are screen grabs here from Eloyce's Verdict: Not Guilty :https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.964640090223372.1073741829.964633840223997&type=3

[evewithanapple]

I remember that Malachai Martin book! I got it from a used bookstore, although I think I gave it away a few years ago. Most of what I remember from it is that he was extremely fond of exclamation points.

[handful_ofdust]

Malachi Martin and exclamation points are not soon separated, that's for sure. Still, there are at least three of those cases that gave me the severe willies, including the one called "The Smiler," and all of them remind me strenuously of what's been going on on The Exorcist: TV Edition.

[sovay]

Still, there are at least three of those cases that gave me the severe willies, including the one called "The Smiler," and all of them remind me strenuously of what's been going on on The Exorcist: TV Edition.

So how is that working? Is the series related to the films in the same manner as Hannibal, or Bates Motel, or what?

(My quest to see Psycho on a big screen with an audience who isn't there for the irony continues fruitless! The Coolidge is screening it on 35 mm-for Halloween, as a double feature with The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974). People will probably be throwing toast at the screen. I continue to feel this shouldn't be so difficult!)

[handful_ofdust]

The Exorcist: TV Version is definitely taking place within the same universe as the movie(s), in that one of the main characters Googles around and trips on an account of the Reagan MacNeill case pretty quick. However, none of the established characters have shown up (thus far), and the possession itself is taking a slightly different tack--it's a long game, not a short one, and seems to involve multiple already-possessed people beyond the immediate victim.