Ace in the Hole - MatthewHunt

Tetsuo: The Iron Man
(Shinya Tsukamoto, 1989)
Industrial-strength metalhead film-making as a salaryman office drone becomes "infected" by
bizarre mechanical growths after being involved in a hit and run incident. This short feature
practically attacks the viewer with grotesque imagery and a screeching soundtrack, but it
displays great imagination and ingenuity at every turn.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
(Tobe Hooper, 1974)
"Who Will Survive... and What Will Be Left of Them?" Hooper, in Hitchcock/Jaws style, holds
his cannibalistic monsters back for a full 40 minutes of agonising build-up, and then
unleashes them with sledgehammer suddenness (and with an actual sledgehammer,
naturally). Notable for its lack of blood, its unnerving sound-design, and the best title ever.
Thelma & Louise
(Ridley Scott, 1991)
The ultimate chick-flick road-trip movie, this one has it all: feisty gun toting Southern women,
murder, rape, armed robbery, a Thunderbird convertible on the open road, a killer soundtrack,
a high speed car chase, and the world's introduction to Brad Pitt's torso. Teenage slumber
parties couldn't ask for a more complete package.
There's Something About Mary
(Peter and Bobby Farrelly, 1998)
The Farrelly brothers made themselves the kings of the non-PC 1990s with their distinctive
brand of outrageous and offensive comedy, which, apparently, they alone were allowed to
perpetrate with impunity. A guy finds that he is still in love with a girl with whom he had a
catastrophic prom date in high school. This is Mary, played by Cameron Diaz: whose beaming
face, framed by a semen-encrusted hairstyle, became a classic image.
These Are the Damned
(Joseph Losey, 1963)
Unusually bleak sci-fi horror from Hammer studios with American director Losey on board -
he, at the time, was living a life of self-imposed exile to avoid the McCarthy witch-hunt.
Radioactive kids bring death to whoever the come into contact with. The downbeat ending is
memorable as are the twisted Elisabeth Frink statues that populate the scenery.
They Live by Night
(Nicholas Ray, 1948)
The finest American directorial debut after Citizen Kane, Ray's adaptation of Edward
Anderson's 1935 Bonnie-and-Clyde novel Thieves Like Us outlines the poetic humanism and
romantic fatalism that would characterise nearly all of his later work. Farley Granger and
Cathy O'Donnell are cinema's most affecting doomed young lovers.
The Thief of Bagdad
(Ludwig Berger, Michael Powell, Tim Whelan, 1940)
An English production, with some shooting in Hollywood, this was the Korda Brothers' view of
the Arabian Nights. It has Sabu, Conrad Veidt, June Duprez and Rex Ingram as the mythical
figures. But it's the magic that touches you, and one of the magicians was Michael Powell.
The Thin Blue Line
(Errol Morris, 1988)
Morris's riveting and groundbreaking documentary - it ignored all the then-prevalent rules of
the form by using speculation and reconstructed sequences - secured the release of its
incarcerated protagonist by pressuring the real killer to acknowledge his crimes. The injustice
of it all will have you screaming with anger.
The Thing (From Another World)
(Christian Nyby, 1951)