January 02, 2008

Three Visions of Hell

Before we begin, let's turn down the volume on the video selections and set a more appropriate mood with some Coil: First up is "Dante's Inferno" from 1924. Shot on soundstages, this sequence involved 4,950 technicians, architects, artists, carpenters, stone masons and laborers, 250 electricians and 3,000 extras. Unavailable on video. For sheer delirium, it's hard to top this scene from "Esta Noite Encarnarei no Teu Cadaver" by Brazilian auteur Jose Mojica Marins. And of course, the insane "let's mess with peoples heads" ending from Disney's "The Black Hole". Just think what a great ride this could've been at Disneyland. Honorable mention goes to "Haxan" and Dio's "Last in Line" music video.

3 comments:

Lance Ehlers said...

Excellent choices. That scene from the Black Hole really DID screw me up as a kid. Was it supposed to be another dimension? Was it supposed to be hell? Was it a strange planet? It's the scene I remember most vividly.

stexe said...

What I love about that ending is its fuck-all attitude towards closure. I think maximillian, the evil dude, enters the black hole alongside his killer robot, and the two become fused into a single being ruling over a section of hell. But no explanation is given. The next shot is of ernest borgnine and company flying their ship into the same black hole, then they just end the movie there and the credits roll. It's a movie that allows the audience to imagine all sorts of endings, unlike all successive disney movies which seem engineered to stifle imagination and enforce mediocrity. It's a film worth seeing again.

hot funk said...

I remember seeing it at North Riverside Mall, but I really don't remember that end, it freaky to me now.

Thanks for making want to watch Black Hole again, errr....