A Man Asleep (1974) by Bernard Queysanne - (7/10)

A wonderful (or more correctly accurate) portrait of depression that shows it just the way it is. It shows a french student who one day just decided to serve all contact with society. The actor never speaks but you hear what he is thinking, his endless ramblings. How he is trying to make sense of the world. How loneliness both seems like the only solution and is slowly killing him at the same time. How boredom grows around. For those who never experienced this, this as close as you will get inside the mind of someone suffering depression. Those who have will surely be capable of relating. As a matter of fact, this movie will seem nearly autobiographical to them.

Eraserhead (1977) by David Lynch - (7/10)

Eraserhead is one hell of a way to start a career as a director. It is a Freudian nightmare, made more horrifying by the fact that David Lynch allegedly didn’t remember writing it, David Lynch has said that that it is his most spiritual film and that no one understands it the way that he does and I am going to agree with because as far as I can tell it is about sexual repression.

It is a story about a simple guy Henry Spenser who is on vacation and lives in an industrial wasteland of sorts. His estranged girlfriend suddenly calls him up, invites him to dinner and after a pretty odd gathering he is notified that she is pregnant with what he is assured is a human child. She gives birth to something that one would be really, pressed to call human. The thing scream the whole night, eventually his girlfriend abandons them. Also he lusts after the woman living next door and at night the woman in the radiator sings that in heaven everything is all right. He winds up killing his child. I would say that sex and sexual desires are a bad thing. It is an unsettling experience to say the least even if your interpretations are completely different from mine. It doesn’t matter, Eraserhead is an unsettling but interesting place to be.

The Asphyx (1973) by Peter Newbrook – (5/10)

The Asphyx is a pretty good, unfortunately forgotten thinking mans (that is why it became forgotten) horror movie from what was probably the golden age of horror movies, the 70’s. I cannot really go into the details of the plot without spoiling the whole thing but it involves the quests for immortality that carries grave dangers and you guessed it, a very high price to pay. It doesn’t have any blood or guts, not withstanding some flaws, it is well thought out and interesting to follow. It is highly recommended for someone who either is interested in a good horror movie that doesn’t rely on gore or any fan of the genre. It is move Lovecraft than slasher.