BLASTED
This 1995 play will be probably be viewed as beyond the pale nowadays, but the skill with which it was put together is undeniable
STAGE MANAGING CHAOS
An irresistible read for theater buffs, Fernando Arrabal fans and just about everyone else
Books You Should Be Reading
Many will disagree, but I say it’s a fact that my book reviews have in many cases helped inspire cults
PIEGE
A product of the late 1960s French avant-garde, marked by decadence, surrealism and a loose reworking of THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME
ANARCHY AND ALCHEMY: THE FILMS OF ALEJANDRO JODOROWSKY
A long-overdue volume, and in my view an essential one, a thorough study of the films of Alejandro Jodorowsky, arguably the premiere wild man of the cinema.
THE COMPASS STONE
Fernando Arrabal is Spain’s grand master of the avant-garde, a playwright, artist, filmmaker and sometime novelist. THE COMPASS STONE (LA PIERDA ILLUMINADA), translated by Andrew Hurley, is one of a handful of Arrabal novels available in English (the others are BAAL BABYLON, THE BURIAL OF THE SARDINE, THE TOWER STRUCK BY LIGHTNING and THE RED VIRGIN), and for me the standout, an astounding torrent of madness, perversion, hallucination and murder, but graced with a probing, boldly intellectual edge. It’s told from the point of view of an unnamed teenage girl living in a vast, crumbling mansion run by her father, known only as “the Maimed One”, who spends his days watching TV and decrying the decadence of modern society. “The Sisters”, two gluttonous handmaidens, are on hand to attend to his every need.
A BELL FROM HELL
A vaguely surreal, darkly comic and deeply shocking exercise in Euro-styled anti-bourgeoisie subversion, the Spanish production A BELL FROM HELL is a one-of-a-kind gem
2005: The Year in Bedlam
The following encompasses my picks for the year’s best and worst horror films released in the US in 2005
2002: The Year in Bedlam
Once again the year is over and it’s time for my annual look back at the year in horror
Sexuality and Religiosity and Violence and War and Love and Everything: The Cinema of Fernando Arrabal
Arrabal’s films are very much in the mode of Bunuel’s seminal UN CHIEN ANDALOU, which, you’ll recall, opened with a close up of an eyeball being slashed and continued in that vein, outraging, scandalizing and shocking cineastes the world over.