STALKER
I say this is the masterpiece of Russia’s late Andrei Tarkovsky, an unforgettable trip through one of the cinema’s most vivid and unsettling dreamscapes
THE SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE
Far from standard horror fare, the 1973 Spanish film SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE is an extremely difficult, uneventful mood piece that requires multiple viewings—in short, an Art Film
SOMBRE
A product of the “New French Extremity” by director Philippe Grandrieux, who provides a highly artful and immersive account of a serial killer loose on the back roads of France
THE SKIN I LIVE IN
A rare attempt at genre filmmaking by Spain’s Pedro Almodovar, who provides a visually ravishing exercise in Cronenbergian horror
SIX DAYS, SIX NIGHTS
It’s time for a trip to the art house. SIX DAYS SIX NIGHTS, imported from France, is an art film with lots of heavy talk about the nature of love. But it’s also a thriller of sorts, one with enough outright macabre touches to categorize it as psychological horror
SISTER MY SISTER
A terrific British film about the notorious Papin sisters, French maids who in 1933 murdered their female employer and her daughter while carrying on a torrid incestuous relationship
SINGAPORE SLING
SINGAPORE SLING contains nearly everything we’ve come to expect in “cult” cinema: mind-boggling weirdness, unapologetic perversion and a steadfast refusal to play by any rules
THE SARAGOSSA MANUSCRIPT
Possibly the farthest the screen has ever taken the ARABIAN NIGHTS story-within-a-story motif, this distinctly literary exercise is not a film for the uncommitted viewer
ANGELS AND CHERUBS
The first and most famous feature directed by Mexico’s Rafael Corkidi, who seems destined to be known primarily as the cinematographer of EL TOPO and THE HOLY MOUNTAIN
THE ANGEL AND THE WOMAN
A Canadian art film from the seventies with supernatural overtones, pornographic interludes and a stern message about the downside of free will and the futility of violence…or something