Edge of insanity
A festival of seriously psycho late shows
Kino, Melbourne till July 11
Previewed by Mario Giorgetti
Had a rotten day? Mad as hell in a heatwave? Don't throw a fit. This series, which includes some of the great "crazies" of film, will take you to the brink and back and leave you feeling much better about your life and your problems.
Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock's ultimate shocker, starring Anthony Perkins and Vera Miles, will take you to the infamous Bates Motel where Hitch will guide you through the spooky house next door. Never mind the simplistic plot; form and technique in this cinematic milestone were so different and innovative in 1960 as to be still influential.
Jacob's Ladder, directed by Adrian Lyne (Indecent Proposal), starring Tim Robbins as a mad Vietnam veteran whose hallucinations eventually plunge him into a nightmare from which there is no escape, will keep you riveted to your seat.
A Clockwork Orange, Stanley Kubrick's chilling exploration of amorality and the effects of brainwashing is a starkly brutal and repulsive film in which many social engineers and analysts have found insights of great value.
Night of the Hunter is Charles Laughton's allegorical thriller starring Robert Mitchum in a uniquely sinister performance as the psychotic preacher of love and hate. The film was banned in Australia for 15 years.
Barton Fink is a wryly comic look at dreamy Hollywood in the '30s where writers from the east coast could still lose their souls to cash and ephemeral success.
Light Sleeper, Paul Schrader's cool mystery thriller, is possibly the least insane of this selection. Looking at a changing drug-ridden underworld through the eyes of one of its outcasts, its protagonist, played by a moody Willem Dafoe, learns that morality and nobility, good and evil are no longer absolutes.
The Shining, Kubrick's adaptation of Stephen King's early novel of demonic madness in a snow-bound Colorado hotel, casts Jack Nicholson as the axe-wielding protagonist.
Henry: Portrait of a serial killer is director John McNaughton's controversial low-budget chiller. Silence of the Lambs is tame and soporific compared to this masterpiece of murder and gut-wrenching suspense.
Taxi Driver, directed by Martin Scorsese from Schrader's brilliant script about a Viet vet turned taxi driver (Robert de Niro) epitomises the sordid realism of post-Vietnam movies. Not pleasant to the eye but a brilliant modern classic. Cul de Sac, Roman Polanski's perplexing black comedy. An eccentric tale of sexual perversity unfolds when two criminals on the run take refuge in an old Northumbrian castle and confront its helpless occupants.
And if, after watching this parade of murder and mayhem, you still have your sanity, then wait till late May when Man Bites Dog, the blackest black comedy in cinema history, starts screening. It is guaranteed to push you over the edge.