This Week’s Underappreciated Movies

Every Monday, each of us will suggest a film that we feel too few people have seen.

apple

Melissa’s Pick of the Week: The Apple

Let me start out by saying that I am under zero delusions that this is a good film. I’m just saying that, as a connoisseur of exquisitely terrible films of yesteryear, I have a deep love of The Apple.

If you don’t follow trends in cheeseball film appreciation, here’s the pitch: The Apple is perhaps the craziest film that ever crazied its way out of already-crazy Cannon Films. It lurched to life in 1980, just after the death of disco, meaning it was extinct at the moment it was born. It’s a musical (!) set in the distant future of 1994 (!!) where two naive Canadian folk musicians (!!!) get sucked into a sordid dystopia that is lead by an evil music corporation (!!!!). You can literally watch the budget evaporate during the running time of the film. And yes, I love it. I LOVE IT.

I mention the film this week because I first saw the film on New Year’s Eve several years ago, and to me, it’s perfect for exactly that (perhaps because there is SO MUCH GLITTER). May your 2015 be filled with strange delights.

session9

Windy’s Pick of the Week: Session 9

A movie completely dominated by its setting – the Danvers State Hospital, inspiration for Arkham Asylum, and known spooky-spot – this is the story of an asbestos-removal crew being slowly influenced by their surroundings. New father Gordon has bid on the removal job in part to help shore up his shaky marriage. But neither he nor his employees are prepared for the slow mind-bending power of a place so dominated by the past. The session 9 of the title refers to tapes of psychiatric sessions one of the employees finds and listens to. The reveal of that tape’s contents naturally dovetails with the climax of the slowly building tension. A quietly effective film.

Leave a Reply

%d bloggers like this: