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The Whip and the Body, a review by Danae Cassandra

The Whip and the Body (La frusta e il corpo)
Year of Release: 1963
Directed By: Mario Bava
Starring: Daliah Lavi, Christopher Lee, Tony Kendall, Isli Oberon, Harriet White
Genre: Horror

Overview:
Steeped in sadomasochism and lushly photographed in the vivid hues for which the director is known, Mario Bava's THE WHIP AND THE BODY is a Gothic thriller that far surpasses the API Edgar Allan Poe films that it was intended to emulate.

Christopher Lee (Dracula: Prince of Darkness) stars as Kurt Menliff, the sadistic son of a wealthy Count, who returns to the family castle, much to the dismay of his family, their servants, and the beautiful woman with whom he shares a fondness for the lash (Daliah Lavi). When Kurt is found murdered, it brings no peace to those who had feared him, as his vengeful spirit cannot be contained by the grave, and he returns to torment those unfortunate enough to remain within Menliff Manor.

My Thoughts:
Bava has a real talent for creating atmosphere. His use of light, the howling wind, the way he frames his actors. He really makes you feel the isolation of this family. Not just the isolation of their home, with its seaside view and rugged cliffs, but the isolation they have from each other. For all that they are family, it is in name (or blood) only.

Christopher Lee really stands out as well. His entire manner presents a threat in every move he makes in this film. Daliah Lavi equally portrays the increasingly unhinged Nevenka very well. The rest of the cast is solid, but unremarkable.

I enjoyed this quite a lot. I'd recommend it to fans of gothic horror or of Mario Bava. This is my fourth film of his, and it compares very well to Black Sabbath and Blood and Black Lace, both of which were very good.

Watched For: Hoop-tober 3.0, Horror/Halloween Challenge 2016

Bechdel Test: Fail
Mako Mori Test: Fail

Overall: 3.5/5

Horror/Halloween Challenge Films: 45/52

(From Horror/Halloween 2016 Challenge on November 1st, 2016)

(500) Days of Summer, a review by Tom

(500) Days of Summer (2009/United States) IMDb | Wikipedia Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment (Germany) Director: Marc Webb Writing: Scott Neustadter (Writer), Michael H. Weber (Writer) Length: 95 min. Video: Widescreen 2.35 Audio: English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, French: DTS 5.1, Portuguese: DTS 5.1, German: DTS 5.1, Italian: DTS 5.1, Spanish: DTS 5.1, Czech: Dolby Digital 5.1, Hungarian: Dolby Digital 5.1, Polish: Dolby Digital 5.1 Subtitles: Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Dutch, English, Estonian, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Other, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovenian, Spanish

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Stars:Plot:Zooey DeschanelJoseph Gordon-LevittAwards:
Won:

National Board of Review Awards, USA (2009)

Spotlight Award (Marc Webb)

Nominated:

Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards (2010)		Best Comedy Movie
Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards (2010)		Best Screenplay, Original (Scott Neustadter, Michael H. Weber)
Golden Globe (2009)		Actor in a Leading Role - Musical or Comedy (Joseph Gordon-Levitt)
Golden Globe (2010)		Actor in a Leading Role - Musical or Comedy (Joseph Gordon-Levitt)
Golden Globe (2009)		Picture - Musical or Comedy
Golden Globe (2010)		Picture - Musical or Comedy

Extras:

• Deleted Scenes
• Featurettes
• Music Videos
• Scene Access

I quite enjoyed this movie. I liked the non-linear narrative, which makes this movie refreshing. Zooey Deschanel is lovely as always. Also Joseph Gordon-Levitt was good. I can imagine Chloe Moretz winning the role of Hit-Girl because of her performance in this movie (I don't know if that was the case though).

Rating:

(From Tom's Random Reviews on February 4th, 2011)

Tom's Random Reviews, a review by Tom

The Vampire Diaries: Season One (2009/United States) IMDb | Wikipedia Warner Home Video (United Kingdom) Length: 889 min. Video: Anamorphic Widescreen 1.78 Audio: English: Dolby Digital 5.1 Subtitles: Dutch, English, Swedish

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Plot:
Dark, brooding, pulsing with bloodlust and transcendent with romance, The Vampire Diaries - which started as a series of must-read novels by L.J. Smith - has become a must-watch television hit. Season One offers unforgettable characters, living and undead. They are vampire brothers Stefan and Damon, one good and one evil; Elena, a double for the beauty both brothers loved some 150 years earlier; plus Jeremy, Bonnie, Matt and more denizens of Mystic Falls, VA. All are caught up in a spellbinding web of secrets, passion and terror.

Extras:

• Commentary
• Deleted Scenes
• Featurettes
• Outtakes

"Dawson's Creek" goes vampire. This is about the basic premise. It even is created by the same guy. At first glance, it looks like a Twilight TV series (although I have seen Twilight, I only can go on my impression on it). But it is based on a 1991 trilogy of books (pre-dating Twilight). But it was obviously made to cash in on Twilight's success.
Overall I enjoyed this series. Even though you do not really feel this series is something special, you cannot help to continue watching it.
This season's cliffhanger makes me want to continue with season 2. Although I am unhappy with a character's death in the finale
There is something which really bothers me, which doesn't really have to do with this series. Recently Microsoft pushes their product placement. That on itself doesn't bother me. Apple has done it for years. I first noticed in when I recently watched the ninth season of Smallville, where instead of seeing Apple logos on all notebooks we suddenly see Windows logos and the Watchtower computer all running with a fresh install of Windows 7. Then I saw Room in Rome, where they really pushed Microsoft Bing and a Google Earth like application. And in this series, all the characters are using the search engine Bing. So far so good. But one scene did go too far and pulled me out of the series. One character proclaimed, that she "binged" it, with the camera closing in the Bing website, so that you knew what the hell she was talking about. It was quite obvious that they are trying to bring this verb into the vocabularly of the viewers to compete with the success of "to google".

#	Episode	Rating
01	Pilot
02	The Night of the Comet
03	Friday Night Bites
04	Family Ties
05	You're Undead to Me
06	Lost Girls
07	Haunted
08	162 Candles
09	History Repeating
10	The Turning Point
11	Bloodlines
12	Unpleasantville
13	Children of the Damned
14	Fool Me Once
15	A Few Good Men
16	There Goes the Neighborhood
17	Let the Right One In
18	Under Control
19	Miss Mystic Falls
20	Blood Brothers
21	Isobel
22	Founder's Day

(From Tom's Random Reviews on February 13th, 2011)