Graphic Novels: 20 Off-The-Beaten-Track Selections
What twenty selections have in common is that, simply, all are well worth your time to read and/or track down
THE WARD
This may seem like just another trashy potboiler of the type you see dozens of each year, and in many respects that’s just what it is
MY FRIENDS NEED KILLING
A cheap, tawdry and, ultimately, extremely powerful exploitation film from the seventies
MOSQUITO
The full title of this 1976 Swiss curio is MOSQUITO DER SCHAENDER (MOSQUITO THE RAPIST), meaning it is NOT to be confused 1995’s big bug bummer MOSQUITO
MORGIANA
A memorable exercise in gothic excess whose fabulously baroque visuals and a deliriously melodramatic storyline make for an interesting and enjoyable viewing experience
THE MOOR’S HEAD
A somewhat uneven but undeniably affecting work from Austria that depicts a seemingly contented man’s descent into hallucination, paranoia and, finally, total insanity
THE MONK (1972)
A fumbled French made attempt at adapting Matthew Lewis’s gothic classic THE MONK to the screen
METAL SKIN
This is one of the finest Australian films of the past couple decades, and also one of the most underappreciated: a bleak and upsetting stew of post-teenage ennui, witchcraft, psychosis and death!
MARAT/SADE
Peter Brook’s infamous filming of Peter Weiss’ MARAT/SADE is one of the screen’s great depictions of unfettered insanity, as well as a historical drama with definite contemporary relevance
THE MANSION OF MADNESS
This phantasmagoric spectacle, loosely based on Edgar Allen Poe’s story “The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether,” remains a landmark of Mexican horror/fantasy