News

To the mission tower once more!

Paramount Pictures has acquired rights to remake “Vertigo,” the James Stewart and Kim Novak-led Alfred Hitchcock psychological thriller that is considered by many critics to be the greatest film of all time.

The project is being developed by Team Downey, Robert Downey Jr.’s production company, and Steven Knight, the British writer-director-producer behind “Peaky Blinders” is attached to write. Knight also just landed a deal to bring “Star Wars” back to theaters after Damon Lindelof and Justin Britt-Gibson exited the franchise. Trade reports suggest that this is likely being packaged as a vehicle for Downey to star in.

“Vertigo,” based on a 1954 French novel by the team of Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac, was released in 1958 by Paramount and was nominated for two Oscars—sound and production design. On the one hand, it’s a simple crime mystery, but on the other it...

Layered psychological horror-thrillers that evade cliché tropes can be hard to come by. Classic thrillers such as "Psycho" and "Repulsion" come to mind, as these films managed to unsettle audiences with their unconventional twists and evocative visual language. However, the psychological thriller genre owes a massive debt to Henri‑Georges Clouzot, whose 1955 thriller, "Diabolique," etched a benchmark like no other. Unraveling like a maze with several dead-ends and false exits, the central mystery in "Diabolique" is exquisite to behold to this day. In fact, the film's legacy is so undeniable that several filmmakers, including Alfred Hitchcock, were inspired by Clouzot's work. "Diabolique" is a chilling murder-suspense tale that is still replicated in loose adaptations and contemporary remakes.

From the get-go, "Diabolique" sets up Michel (Paul Meurisse) as a monstrous figure whose cruelty knows no end. He's emotionally abusive toward the boys at his boarding school and treats his wife Christine (Vera Clouzot) with great disdain.

The movie considered by many to be Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece was also one of his most difficult productions. "Vertigo" stars Kim Novak as a woman who may or may not be playing multiple roles in a detective's (James Stewart) investigation. In an interview with Francois Truffaut, the "North By Northwest" director reveals that he once had Vera Miles set for "Vertigo," going through wardrobe, makeup, and several screen tests with her. Miles had previously worked with Hitchcock on the debut episode of his "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" TV series, followed by his 1956 noir "The Wrong Man" — part of the three-picture deal she signed with the director's Alfred J. Hitchcock production label. She would gain fame as Marion Crane's intrepid sister Lila in Hitchcock's "Psycho" in 1960, but it was her descent into madness in "The Wrong Man" that made her a strong candidate for the role of Madeleine Elster — the...

This year marks 50 years since the first episode of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! premiered on CBS, forever changing the landscape of pop culture and sacred Saturday morning rituals of cartoons and seemingly bottomless bowls of cereal. To celebrate a half-century of the curious Great Dane and his mystery-solving pals, Warner Bros. Consumer Products and Monlove previously announced the live stage show Scooby-Doo and the Lost City of Gold, and now they've revealed the dates and locations for the first leg of the worldwide tour.

Featuring diverse elements of live performing for an interactive theater experience, Scooby-Doo and the Lost City of Gold will kick off its global, multi-year tour in March of 2020 in Nova Scotia, Canada before moving to cities across the United States throughout the spring and summer. Voice actor Frank Welker, the original voice of Fred Jones in Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! (and nearly every installment in the...

SpongeBob starred on Broadway, so why shouldn’t Scooby-Doo hit arenas? With a mix of singing, dancing, puppetry, aerial maneuvers and “interactive audience response video,” the live entertainment spectacular Scooby-Doo and the Lost City of Gold will kick off a five-year, 30-country global tour of arenas, large theaters and performing arts centers next March.

Warner Bros. Consumer Products and the Montreal-based production company Monlove today announced a partnership to begin production of an original live Scooby-Doo mystery.

To be presented in large scale theaters, Scooby-Doo and the Lost City of Gold will feature an original concept, book, music and lyrics by Monlove’s Ella Louise Allaire and Martin Lord Ferguson, whose Ice Age Live! A Mammoth Adventure toured 48 countries and grossed more than $100 million, according to the producers.

Allaire, CEO and founder of Monlove, said in a statement that working on the Scooby-Doo project is “a dream come true,” and...

This September will mark 50 years since the first episode of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! premiered on CBS, forever changing the landscape of pop culture and sacred Saturday morning rituals of cartoons and cereal. To celebrate a half-century of the curious Great Dane and his mystery-solving pals, Warner Bros. Consumer Products and Monlove announced the start of production on the live stage show Scooby-Doo and the Lost City of Gold.

Slated to kick off a five-year global tour in March of 2020, Scooby-Doo and the Lost City of Gold will feature diverse elements of live performing for an interactive theater experience. Stay tuned to Daily Dead for more updates, and read the full press release below for additional details.

Press Release: Burbank, California / Montreal, Quebec – Celebrating 50 years of mystery-solving fun this year, Warner Bros. Consumer Products and Monlove announce today a partnership to begin production of Scooby-Doo and the Lost City of Gold,...

The uncanny Georges Franju strikes again, in an Agatha Christie-like thriller imbued with his special mood, the eerie music of Maurice Jarre and some great actors including Jean-Marie Trintignant, Pierre Brasseur, Dany Saval, Marianne Koch and Pascale Audret. If mood is the key, then Franju has found an ideal setting, a beautifully preserved castle in Brittany.

Spotlight on a Murderer

Blu-ray + DVD

Arrow Academy USA

1961 / Color / 1:37 full frame (1:66 widescreen?) / 92 min. / Street Date May 30, 2017 / Available from Arrow Video.

Starring: Pierre Brasseur, Pascale Audret, Marianne Koch, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Dany Saval, Jean Babilée,

Georges Rollin, Gérard Buhr, Maryse Martin, Serge Marquand, Philippe Leroy.

Cinematography: Marcel Fredetal

Film Editor: Gilbert Natot

Original Music: Maurice Jarre

Written by Pierre Boileau, Thomas Narcejac, Georges Franju, Robert Thomas

Produced by Jules Borkon

Directed by Georges Franju

Until a few years ago most U.S. fans knew of Georges Franju solely through the great...

Georges Franju’ Spotlight On A Murderer (Pleins feux sur l’assassin – 1961) will be available on Blu-ray May 30th from Arrow Academy.

When the terminally ill Count Herve de Kerloquen (Pierre Brasseur, Goto, Isle of Love) vanishes without trace, his heirs are told that they have to wait five years before he can be declared legally dead, forcing them to devise ways of paying for the upkeep of the vast family chateau in the meantime. While they set about transforming the place into an elaborate son et lumiere tourist attraction, they are beset by a series of tragic accidents if that s really what they are…

The little-known third feature by the great French maverick Georges Franju (Eyes Without a Face, Judex) is a delightfully playful romp through Agatha Christie territory, whose script (written by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac of Les Diaboliques and Vertigo fame) is mischievously aware of the...

Sometimes a movie is simply too good for just one special edition… Savant reached out to nab a British Region B import of Georges Franju’s horror masterpiece, to sample its enticing extras. And this also gives me the chance to ramble on with more thoughts about this 1959 show that inspired a score of copycats.

Eyes Without a Face (Bfi — U.K.)

Region B Blu-ray + Pal DVD

Bfi

1959 / B&W / 1:66 widescreen / 90 min. / The Horror Chamber of

Dr. Faustus, House of Dr. Rasanoff, Occhi senza volto / Street Date August 24, 2015 / presently £10.99

Starring: Pierre Brasseur, Edith Scob, Alida Valli, Francois Guérin,

Béatrice Altariba, Juliette Mayniel

Cinematography: Eugen Schüfftan

Production Designer: Auguste Capelier

Special Effects: Charles-Henri Assola

Film Editor: Gilbert Natot

Original Music: Maurice Jarre

Written by Pierre Boileau, Thomas Narcejac, Pierre Gascar, Claude Sautet from a novel by Jean Redon

Produced by Jules Borkon

Directed by Georges Franju

Savant has reviewed Eyes Without a Face twice,...

Special Mention: Werckmeister Harmonies

Directed by Bela Tarr and Ágnes Hranitzky

Written by László Krasznahorkai and Bela Tarr

2000, Hungary / Italy / Germany

Genre: Emotional Horror

Bela Tarr is a filmmaker whose work is a highly acquired taste, but as a metaphysical horror story, Werckmeister Harmonies is an utter masterpiece that should appeal to most cinephiles. The film title refers to the 17th-century German organist-composer Andreas Werckmeister, esteemed for his influential structure and harmony of music. Harmonies is strung together like a magnificent symphony working on the viewer’s emotions over long stretches of time even when the viewer is unaware of what’s going on. Attempting to make sense of Tarr’s movies in strict narrative terms is not the best way to go about watching his films; but regardless if you come away understanding Harmonies or not, you won’t soon forget the film. Harmonies is a technical triumph, shot...

In an odd turn of events, this list has a number of films that don’t have English-language titles. They just go by whatever the original title was. Good for us. What we do see in this portion of the list is a few movies that weren’t really created specifically to be horror films, but their themes and visuals made it so. In addition, we have some heavyweights of non-horror cinema creating horror films that push the genre all the more upward. “Thinking man horror,” if you will.

20. Le locataire (1976)

English Language Title: The Tenant

Directed by: Roman Polanski

Roman Polanski has made one of the greatest horror “trilogies” of all time with 1965′s British production Repulsion, 1968′s American production Rosemary’s Baby, and 1976′s French production The Tenant, completing his “Apartment Trilogy.” Unlike the other two, Polanski actually stars in The Tenant as Trelkovsky, a reserved man renting an apartment in Paris.

3. Eyes Without a Face

Written by Georges Franju, Jean Redon, Pierre Boileau, Thomas Narcejac, and Claude Sautet

Directed by Georges Franju

France and Italy, 1960

The idea of what a quintessential French horror film might be, especially in the middle of the last century, would be a conflicting concept, the French being culturally revered as the custodians of the high-brow, the poetically human, and the avant-garde (we even import the word in its French form); horror is a genre maintained to provoke the base and primal, better left to B-movie thrills. Enter Georges Franju, a co-founder of the Cinémathèque Française, to helm Eyes Without a Face, a work to arrive with scorn from both French and Anglophone audiences as it had not been crafted to either of their palettes, but rather an amalgamation of tastes and something completely new.

When Dr. Génessier (Pierre Brasseur) identifies the body of his daughter Christiane...

Every year, we here at Sound On Sight celebrate the month of October with 31 Days of Horror; and every year, I update the list of my favourite horror films ever made. Last year, I released a list that included 150 picks. This year, I’ll be upgrading the list, making minor alterations, changing the rankings, adding new entries, and possibly removing a few titles. I’ve also decided to publish each post backwards this time around for one reason: that is, the new additions appear lower on my list, whereas my top 50 haven’t changed much, except for maybe in ranking. Enjoy!

Special Mention:

Outer Space

Written and directed by Peter Tscherkassky

Austria, 2000

Outer Space has gained a reputation over the years as being a key experimental film alongside the works of such legends as Stan Brakhage and Michael Snow. Horror buffs will recognise the actress in the short as Oscar nominee Barbara Hershey.

I hadn't heard of Georges Franju's Eyes Without a Face until last year, following a screening of Holy Motors in Cannes when someone noted how Edith Scob was wearing a similar white mask (see here) to the one she wore throughout all but a few minutes of Eyes, where she plays the scarred daughter of a high profile Paris surgeon (Pierre Brasseur). Come to learn, the film's influence is more widespread than that, including films such as Pedro Almodovar's Skin I Live In, the mask for Michael Myers in John Carpenter's Halloween and even Tim Burton's Batman as Jerry Hall wears a mask to cover her face playing The Joker's secret lover, Alicia Hunt. Little did Alicia know, her plunge out the window was decided almost 30 years earlier. Described as a horror, the adjectives "lyrical" and poetic are also associated with this film and both are incredibly appropriate.

All great movies must be seen at least twice to understand how great they are. That is true in spades for Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 thriller Vertigo. The story is smart the first time through but it’s brilliant the second time through. Just last year, Sight and Sound named Vertigo in it’s ‘Critics’ Top 10 Greatest Films of All Time’ list, clocking in at an astonishing number 1! That was a huge surprise (heck, it only came in #8 in our ‘Top Ten Tuesday – The Best of Alfred Hitchcock’ article published in March of 2012 – read the complete article Here) but lucky St. Louisans will have the chance to reassess (or experience for the first time) Vertigo when it plays on the big screen at the Tivoli midnights this weekend as part of their ‘Reel Late at the Tivoli’ series.

Alfred Hitchcock and James Stewart reunited after the success of Rear Window to...

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Oct. 15, 2013

Price: Blu-ray $39.95

Studio: Criterion

The eyes have it: Edith Scob stars in Eyes Without a Face.

The 1960 horror film Eyes Without a Face was directed by the highly regarded French filmmaker Georges Franju (Judex).

The movie tells the story of a brilliant, obsessive doctor (Pierre Brasseur, Children of Paradise), who, at his secluded chateau in the French countryside, attempts a radical plastic surgery to restore the beauty of his daughter’s (Edith Scob, Summer Hours) disfigured face. The horrifying price of his mission comes in the form of the faces of other young women, whom he kidnaps so he can use their own features to replace those of his daughter’s.

Eyes Without a Face is rare in horror cinema for its odd mixture of the ghastly and the lyrical, and it has been a major influence on the genre in the decades since its release.

Throughout the month of October, Editor-in-Chief and resident Horror expert Ricky D, will be posting a list of his favorite Horror films of all time. The list will be posted in six parts. Click here to see every entry.

As with all lists, this is personal and nobody will agree with every choice – and if you do, that would be incredibly disturbing. It was almost impossible for me to rank them in order, but I tried and eventually gave up.

****

Special Mention:

Shock Corridor

Directed by Samuel Fuller

Written by Samuel Fuller

1963, USA

Shock Corridor stars Peter Breck as Johnny Barrett, an ambitious reporter who wants to expose the killer at the local insane asylum. In order to solve the case, he must pretend to be insane so they have him committed. Once in the asylum, Barrett sets to work, interrogating the other patients and keeping a close eye on the staff.

“When history is what it should be, it is an elaboration of cinema.” —Ortega y Gasset

“The key for me is finding some rhythm of the film, not so much in the plot from a traditional sense but, rather, from its internal rhythm.” —Matías Piñeiro

1

There are works of art that affect in bulk, all at once; these are the aesthetic experiences that unify, that impose boundaries on the license of eye and ear. Other works of art achieve a dissociated and dissociating stylistic program; these are the works that cannot be experienced or understood as feats of synthesis, or as products of a single point of view.

While much of the art of the past century might be described as an effort toward a radical disaffiliation of elements—word and image, depth and surface, form and content—awareness of a quarrelsome relationship between two presumably incompatible ways of making...

Eyes Without a Face

Directed by Georges Franju

Written by Boileau-Narcejac, Jean Redon, Claude Sautet and Pierre Gascar

France, 1960

At an Edinburgh Film Festival screening of Eyes Without a Face, seven audience members, according to L’Express, fainted and “dropped like flies”.

In response, director Georges Franju opined, in a particularly tactless exercise in foreign affairs, “now I know why Scotsmen wear skirts”.

To be fair to the Scottish, Eyes Without a Face is rather sordid, hideous, grotesque and morbid, but, to be fair to Franju, the film is also rather amazing. Unwelcomed and shunned in 1960 (to say the least), Eyes Without a Face has since been elevated to legendary status and is still as unsettling as it was when it was first released.

In a narrative sense, the film was seen as a pioneer of the mad doctor story, with Pierre Brasseur playing Dr. Génessier, a brilliant surgeon who...

Les Diaboliques

Directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot

Written by Henri-Georges Clouzot and Jérôme Géronimi

France, 1955

There are few who can claim to have beaten Alfred Hitchcock to the punch at anything, but French director, Henri-Georges Clouzot, proudly can.

When Clouzot decided to buy the filming rights to Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac’s novel, Celle qui n’était plus (She Who Was No More), he beat out the next highest bidder, the master of suspense himself, by only a matter of hours, and in Clouzot’s subsequent movie adaptation, we can fully understand their mutual interest.

Serpentine, bitter, manipulative, and cruel to an uncompromising extreme, Les Diaboliques is a masterpiece in its own right, but will be forever known as the greatest film that Hitchcock almost made.

At an all-boys boarding school, two female teachers struggle to survive under the oppressive and barbarous management of the despotic headmaster, Michel (Paul Meurisse...

Voting is currently underway on the Sight & Sound poll for the greatest film ever made, which takes place every ten years, and is generally seen as one of the most definitive of such polls. And one film that's near-certain to place in the top ten, given that it's been there in every poll since 1982 (and placed second in 2002) is Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo." The film was relatively poorly received on release, and indeed, remained unseen for twenty years, one of the five films to which Hitchcock bought back the rights to leave to his daughter (the so-called Five Lost Hitchcocks, which also include "The Man Who Knew Too Much," "Rear Window," "Rope" and "The Trouble With Harry"). But since its re-release in 1984, the film has grown into the great director's most acclaimed masterpiece, and is now one of the most examined, deconstructed and written about films in the history of the medium.

31 – Rosemary’s Baby

Directed by Roman Polanski

USA, 1968

Roman Polanski’s brilliant horror-thriller was nominated for two Oscars, winning Best Supporting Actress for Ruth Gordon. The director’s first American film, adapted from Ira Levin’s horror bestseller, is a spellbinding and twisted tale of Satanism and pregnancy. Supremely mounted, the film benefits from it’s strong atmosphere, apartment setting, eerie childlike score and polished production values by cinematographer William Fraker. The cast is brilliant, with Mia Farrow and John Cassavetes as the young couple playing opposite Ruth Gordon and Sidney Blackmer, the elderly neighbors. There is ominous tension in the film from first frame to last – the climax makes for one of the greatest endings of all time. Rarely has a film displayed such an uncompromising portrait of betrayal as this one. Career or marriage – which would you choose?

30 – Eraserhead

Directed by David Lynch

USA, 1977

Filmed intermittently over the course of a five-year period,...

25 – Halloween

Directed by John Carpenter

1978 – Us

A historical milestone that single-handedly shaped and altered the future of the entire genre. This seminal horror flick actually gets better with age; it’s downright transcendent and holds up with determination as an effective thriller that will always stand head and shoulders above the hundreds of imitators to come. Halloween had one hell of an influence on the entire film industry. You have to admire how Carpenter avoids explicit onscreen violence, and achieves a considerable power almost entirely through visual means, using its widescreen frame, expert hand-held camerawork, and terrifying foreground and background imagery.

24 – Black Christmas

Directed by Bob Clark

1974 – Canada

We never did find out who Billy was. Maybe it’s for the best, since they never made any sequels to Bob Clark’s seminal slasher film, a film which predates Carpenter’s Halloween by four years. Whereas Texas Chainsaw Massacre, released the same year,...

Time is an annoying thing, it ticks away, aging us all and leaving behind things we meant to do, but never got around to. This is a statement that can be related to just about anything in our short lives, but in this case it happens to be my opening for a large batch of Criterion Collection Blu-rays I, shamefully, never got around to fully reviewing after mentioning them in my weekly DVD and Blu-ray columns. For some of you that is enough, for others you would like more, this is my attempt to clean off the shelves and start anew.

Let's get started...

Diabolique

Thanks to my trip to the Cannes Film Festival I got so backed up with my Criterion reviews I was never able to recover, so I'm heading as far back as May 17, when Criterion issued brand new DVD and Blu-ray editions of Henri-Georges Clouzot's Diabolique,...

"Margot Benacerraf, now in her 80s, only ever made one feature-length film," begins Josef Braun, "but that film remains so extraordinary, so very nearly singular, that it merits an admiration on par with many more prolific and esteemed bodies of work. After studying and gathering numerous influential allies in France and elsewhere, Benacerraf returned to her native Venezuela, specifically to an island no one had heard of, though when was discovered by the Spanish 450 years earlier it was deemed a sort of paradise on account of its abundance of one resource: salt, as valuable back then as gold. We can see the ruins of colonial fortresses erected to protect the island and its salt marshes, once the center of piracy in the Caribbean, during the prologue of Araya (1959). But historical context quickly gives way to the seeming timelessness of hard labour, to Benacerraf's lyrical approach to depicting the life of a community that was,...

By Raymond Benson

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The Criterion Collection has upgraded and re-released their excellent edition of Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Diabolique (officially titled Les Diaboliques—The Devils—but it’s been known simply as Diabolique in America since it’s 1955 release), issuing the film with a new digitally restored edition on DVD and for the first time on Blu-ray. Based on a novel by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac, the pair of mystery/thriller writers who provided Alfred Hitchcock with the basis for Vertigo, Diabolique was a project that the master of suspense almost filmed himself. In fact, Hitchcock had bought the rights, but Clouzot snatched them immediately after making The Wages of Fear in 1953. Needless to say, Diabolique is just the sort of thing Hitchcock would have done well—but Clouzot did it exceptionally well.

It’s a truly suspenseful chiller that takes place...

Story. Story. Story. Behind every great film is a polished script. Just ask two watershed movies from the 80′s: The Hitcher and Near Dark. Both have a lot more room upstairs than your average fright flick, and thanks to screenwriter Eric Red, they showed the genre could be visceral and classy. Eric has since gone on to direct the werewolf thriller Bad Moon and the J-Horror inspired 100 Feet. This brings me to Body Parts, a picture that met many obstacles upon its release some twenty years ago, and now is considered a cult classic in many circles.

Jason Bene: The Hitcher and Near Dark are both masterpieces of the horror genre, but they are more than that, as they address the darker aspects of human nature. Those themes continue with your 1991 movie Body Parts. Where does that no-nonsense approach to terror come from?

Eric Red: I try to go...

I became aware of Les Diaboliques as part of my Uni based Hitchcock obsession, and the discovery that rights for the novel by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac were almost bought by Hitch ensured that I had to track down this film.

That the film took me out of my self imposed exile on Planet Hitchcock is testament to the power at play here, the film seduced me from the outset and twisted my emotions and expectations through the story of murder, paranoia and terror. Revisiting the film on this beautiful Blu-ray, released today, compounds my feelings on the film. It still has that power.

Henri-Georges Clouzot cast his wife Vera opposite the immaculate presence of Simone Signoret as the wife and mistress of the domineering and abusive headmaster Delassalle, played by Paul Meurisse. They hatch a plot to murder the man, to free themselves. I can’t go into...

Between 1942 and 1960 Clouzot directed several of the best thrillers ever made, including Le corbeau, Quai des Orfèvres, The Wages of Fear and this one, made in 1955 and based on a novel by Boileau-Narcejac, the same duo who wrote the equally ingenious D'entre les morts, the source of Vertigo. Superbly acted, Les diaboliques is as effective a thriller as Hitchcock's film, if lacking the depth and resonance.

ThrillerPhilip French

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds...

Alfred Hitchcock, 1958

The rehabilitation of Hitchcock's Vertigo is now fully complete – its reputation is as assured as that of Citizen Kane, and can only have been helped by a long period in which it was out of circulation – but what an oddity it is. Viewed as a conventional thriller, this adaption of Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac's 1954 novel, Sueurs Froides (D'Entre les Morts), is hardly the tightest of constructions. And there is also the notorious left-field touch of giving away the twist some distance before the end. But then, plot matters far less in Vertigo than the machinations of desire and obsession – and about those there is no finer film.

James Stewart plays Scottie, an acrophobic private eye who receives an unusual assignment: to follow Madeleine (Kim Novak), the wife of an old friend, who is drifting around San Francisco in a dazed funk. She seems to be under...

It's a wrap! The Martin Gropius Bau is empty and the final pickups follow. This is a work in progress and readers are invited and welcome to contribute. Presales have returned in reaction to the reduced number of finished films on offer over the past two markets. Presales applies across the board from Us to French and even Italian films. English language films are increasingly coming out of the major non English language territories but local product is impacting sales on Us films internationally. Business was quickly wrapped up but it was done with a healthy number of buys reported. Lower prices have become accepted but the market must have product as this event proved.

Adriana Chiesa has licensed Federico Moccia’s teen trilogy to Savor to Spain. The first title, Sorry If I Love You (Scusa Ma Ti Chiamo Amore) grossed $27m when released by Medusa on 600 prints in Italy.

Above: An heir is electrocuted by an arc light. Smoking.

Pleins feux sur l'assassin, (loosely, "Open Fire at the Killer") is the 1961 film directed by Georges Franju and written by the team of Boileau & Narcejac (Vertigo, Les diaboliques) after Eyes without a Face. As is the way with Franju's oddly disjointed career, the film is as unknown as the previous collaboration is celebrated/infamous (after a screening of Eyes at Edinburgh Film Festival caused several patrons to pass out, Franju tartly remarked "Now I understand why Scotsmen wear skirts,") but it's touched by both its writers' cunning plot mechanics and its director's dark poetry.

Any discussion of Franju ought to begin by admitting that he's one filmmaker whose shorts are better than his features, which is not to disrespect Eyes or La tête contre les murs or Judex, but simply to attest that his short films are among the greatest ever made.

The Vault of Horror's Brian Solomon has struck again! This time, he's compiled various horror bloggers' top 10 foreign horror films into a list that he calls The Top 20 Foreign Horror Films of All Time!

http://thevaultofhorror.blogspot.com/2009/02/return-of-cyber-horror-elite-presenting.html

Here's the list that I submitted, with explanations added just for Fangoria.com's readers...

10. Horror Of Dracula (1958)

Horror icons Christopher Lee (as Dracula) and Peter Cushing (as Van Helsing) face off in the first full-color "re-imagining" of Bram Stoker's classic (far too many liberties were taken to call it anything other than a "re-imagining"). If all it did was save the world from more bloodless vampire movies, it would have earned a spot on my Top 10 list. As an added bonus, it's still effective half a century later.

9. Haute Tension (a.k.a High Tension, 2003)

With a twist-ending that few people could have predicted (and has divided audiences ever...