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The Menu, one of the most popular films of 2022, is currently streaming on Netflix, much to the delight of the many patrons who found it satisfying and satirically delicious. Public acclaim aside, The Menu lacked the subversive nature that thrives in some of the best allegorical satires and was rather dull in addressing its themes. The same cannot be said about a film released in 1966 that made much better use of a similar setting to address the dynamics of power and subjugation, A Report on the Party and the Guests.

Directed by Jan Němec, one of the members of what’s now known as the Czech New Wave, A Report on The Party and the Guests takes a simple premise of a picnic and turns it upside down into a political satire that depicts control and conformity under a dictatorship. Banned by the government upon release, it features some of...

In the late stages of this year's awards season, the experimental arthouse horror film The Zone of Interest has emerged as the unlikely talk of the town in Hollywood. Steven Spielberg just called it "the best Holocaust film since his own." The Zone of Interest explores the sociopathic occupational horror of operating Auschwitz, but did you know that 54 years ago, there was already a horror film made about the same themes, albeit in a totally different style? Enter Juraj Herz's The Cremator, in which the Czech New Wave director uses flashy, eccentric cinematographic tricks to unearth the unraveling mindset of a soon-to-be Holocaust manager.

"These are not just worthwhile films to see. These are the instances of forgotten films which truly belong within the highest echelon that the art has to offer. This is a celebration of cinema." There is always more to watch! Always. But have you seen these films? Probably not. While every movie website prides itself on finding & highlighting the best films you haven't seen, there's always more. Lost in the mix, forgotten by most, but not by everyone. The Greatest Films You Don't Know is a video essay made by "The Cinema Cartography". They highlight nine great films, and includes a brief intro and discussion about each one (and why they're so special). Out of all of these, I've only ever heard of one before: The Cremator, directed by Czech filmmaker Juraj Herz. I actually was lucky to see this one at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival a few years back during a retrospective.

Bouncing back in live form after two cancellations caused by Covid safety measures last year, the 55th edition of the Karlovy Vary Intl. Film Festival has kept its core values intact but with significant new formatting.

Kviff’s most radical departure from long tradition — ending its dedicated documentary section and blending non-fiction films into the Crystal Globe and East of the West competition sections — was “a serious decision, which took us a few years to make,” says artistic director Karel Och.

But, he says, the fest is satisfied that the documentaries now being weighed by the two juries are worthy of their new role.

“Considering the types of documentaries we aim to highlight, the ambition, the level of script and directing,” says Och, they are “absolutely comparable with the non-docs. The distinction and a separate doc ‘ghetto’ was no longer necessary.”

Another challenge in a year full of them was...

Actress Carrie Coon joins Josh and Joe to discuss the Best of what she’s been watching during the pandemic.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

The Nest (2020)

Gone Girl (2014)

The Philadelphia Story (1940)

Sabrina (1954)

The Bridge On The River Kwai (1957)

Apocalypse Now (1979)

Opening Night (1977)

Husbands (1971)

Too Late Blues (1961)

Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

Faces (1968)

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976)

Gloria (1980)

Mephisto (1981)

The Cremator (1969)

Zama (2017)

Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts (2017)

Wanda (1970)

Blue Collar (1978)

The Lunchbox (2013)

63 Up (2019)

To Sleep With Anger (1990)

Killer of Sheep (1978)

The Glass Shield (1994)

My Brother’s Wedding (1983)

Rita, Sue and Bob Too (1987)

Rio Bravo (1959)

Chilly Scenes of Winter (1979)

Cutter’s Way (1981)

Scenes From A Marriage (1973)

The Magician (1958)

The Silence (1963)

The Magic Flute (1975)

The Last House on the Left (1972)

The Virgin Spring (1963)

Summer with Monika (1953)

The Seventh Seal (1957)

Wings of Desire (1987)

Black Girl (1966)

Fat Girl (2001)

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)

Parasite (2019)

Jesus of Montreal (1989)

Other Notable Items...

Albert Hughes takes us on a wild journey through the movies that made him, then explains why he’s not a cinephile (Spoiler: He is). Heads up – you’re going to hear some words you’ve never heard on our show before, and only one of them is Metropolis.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Gremlins (1984)

A Christmas Story (1983)

The Candidate (1972)

Menace II Society (1993)

Die Hard (1988)

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Scarface (1983)

Goodfellas (1990)

Full Metal Jacket (1987)

A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Midnight Cowboy (1969)

Raging Bull (1980)

Taxi Driver (1976)

Alpha (2018)

Battleship Potemkin (1925)

Metropolis (1927)

True Romance (1993)

Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988)

The Matrix (1999)

Man Bites Dog (1992)

Looney Tunes: Back In Action (2003)

A Serbian Film (2010)

Scarface (1932)

The Book of Eli (2010)

The Departed (2006)

Infernal Affairs (2002)

The Godfather (1972)

Casino (1995)

JFK (1991)

Dead Presidents (1996)

Eve’s Bayou (1997)

Basic Instinct (1992)

Psycho (1960)

The Cremator (1969)

The Firemen’s Ball (1967)

Halloween (2018)

From Hell (2001)

Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)

Hoffa (1992)

V For Vendetta (2005)

Spartacus (1960)

You Were Never Really Here...

Carrie Coon has spent most of quarantine catching up on classic movies with her husband, playwright and actor Tracy Letts. Every night after putting their 2-year-old son, Haskell, to bed, the couple retreats to their basement to watch episodes of “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman,” followed by a feature film like the Robert Duvall drama “Tender Mercies” or the 1969 Czech black comedy “The Cremator.” For an actor who has spent much of the past few years on the road, starring in TV series like “The Leftovers” and “Fargo,” it’s been a rare respite — and a silver lining in an otherwise bleak time. One of Coon’s pre-coronavirus jobs, a starring role in the domestic drama “The Nest,” opens on Sept. 18.

Why did you want to make “The Nest”?

When it comes to leading lady parts, what attracts me to the project is that they want me to do it. It’s so rare.

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options—not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves–each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Bungalow (Ulrich Köhler)

Ulrich Köhler remains underseen—even by the standards of Berlin School brethren Christian Petzold and Maren Ade—and a 4K restoration of his 2002 debut Bungalow comes at the right time: its story of isolation, frayed connections, and romantic infatuation foreground an only idyllic-seeming summer getaway. 18 years on, not a shred of it feels dated or resolved, down to a conclusion that puts one in mind of ’70s American classics.

Where to Stream: Grasshopper Film

Czechoslovak New Wave

A period of creative fervor and political deconstruction like few others in cinema, Czechoslovak New Wave is now getting a spotlight on The Criterion Channel. Selections includes Black Peter (Miloš Forman,...

Criterion restores a cornerstone of the Czech New Wave with Juraj Herz’s classic The Cremator, a chilly dark comedy set in 1930s Prague which features a morbid, fanatical crematorium manager who embraces the rise of Nazism. Featuring an eerie performance from Rudolf Hrusinsky, its paralleling of totalitarian ideology aligns with the rising nationalistic fervor spanning the globe today.

Shot and edited with striking, idiosyncratic frames by editor Jaromir Janacek and cinematographer Stanislav Milota, it’s an exercise in elegant morbidity, a Kafkaesque classic on the cyclical formations of dangerous regimes.

Based on a novel by Ladislav Fuks, crematorium manager Karel Kopfrkingl (Hrusinsky) finds himself swept up by the radicalization beginning to sweep Europe.…...

Horror films aren’t only about vampires and goblins — Czech director Juraj Herz’s mind-chilling study of a Fascist opportunist communicates truths about aberrant psychology and Fascists, that audiences would never read in print. A bourgeois burner of cadavers leverages his Reich-useful trade into his own little warped empire of evil. Karl Kopfringl’s modus operandi hardly needs to change, to conform to Nazi standards — the elitist hypocrite already has both his family and employees passively accepting his sick ideas about cremation as the solution to all human ills. Cinematically brilliant, this late picture from the Czech New Wave is one of the best movies ever about conformists, collaborators, and assorted other ghouls.

The Cremator

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 1023

1969 / B&w / 1:66 widescreen / 100 min. / Spalovač mrtvol / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date April 21, 2020 / 39.95

Starring: Rudolf Hrusínský, Vlasta Chramostová, Jana Stehnová, Miloš Vognič, Zora Božinavá.

Cinematography: Stanislav Milota

Film Editor:...

For the most part, films take many years to create, marinate, produce, and release upon the world, in varying steps.  Filmed in 1968 and released in 1970, The Cremator was Czechoslovakia's submission to the 1970 Academy Awards (Foreign Film) before winning Best Film, Best Actor, and Best Cinematography at Sitges in 1972. This film was adaptated from the novel of the same title by Ladislav Fuks. A bit more background, which may help one understand this film: The Cremator was helmed by Czech New Wave director Juraj Herz, who was a Holocaust survivor.  The film itself centers on the... antihero and titular cremator, Kopfrkingl (Rudolf Hrusinsky,...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Since any New York City cinephile has a nearly suffocating wealth of theatrical options, we figured it’d be best to compile some of the more worthwhile repertory showings into one handy list. Displayed below are a few of the city’s most reliable theaters and links to screenings of their weekend offerings — films you’re not likely to see in a theater again anytime soon, and many of which are, also, on 35mm. If you have a chance to attend any of these, we’re of the mind that it’s time extremely well-spent.

Film at Lincoln Center

“Another Country: Outsider Visions of America” offers films by Raúl Ruiz, Straub-Huillet, Wenders, Verhoeven and more.

Eternal Sunshine plays for free Friday night on Governor’s Island.

IFC Center

The rather staggering Abbas Kiarostami retrospective continues, with screenings of the Koker trilogy, Ten, Taste of Cherry, Certified Copy and more.



Metrograph...

Criterion Reflections is David Blakeslee’s ongoing project to watch all of the films included in the Criterion Collection in chronological order of their original release. Each episode features panel conversations and 1:1 interviews offering insights on movies that premiered in a particular season of a year in the past, which were destined to eventually bear the Criterion imprint. In this episode, David is joined by Martin Kessler, Jordan Essoe, Doug McCambridge, Jason Beamish and Trevor Berrett to discuss six titles from the Winter of 1969: Jaromil Jires’s The Joke, Juraj Herz’s The Cremator, Wim Winders’s Silver City Revisited, Fellini: A Director’s Notebook, Luis Bunuel’s The Milky Way and Pierre Etaix’s Le Grand Amour.

Episode Time Markers: Introduction: 0:00:00 – 0:09:47 The Joke: 0:09:48 – 0:36:30 Silver City Revisited: 0:36:31 – 0:54:30 The Cremator: 0:54:31 – 1:17:...

Hi there, readers and listeners! This post is just a quick update to let you know about the plans I have to take my blogging and podcasting hobby in a new direction. Since 2009 I’ve been working my way through the films of the Criterion Collection in the chronological order of their release in my Criterion Reflections blog, which I started on Blogspot and transitioned over to this site last year. I’ve also had more than a few side projects and diversions along the way, like The Eclipse Viewer podcast and dozens of review essays I’ve written for CriterionCast.

Now that I’ve run out of Eclipse Series movies to talk about, I need a new task to throw myself into. So I’ve decided to transform my blog into a podcast, where I will pick up right where I left off in my most recent Criterion Reflections review of Mr. Freedom,...

Horror films form a very niche and minor part of Czech cinema. Despite boasting a small list of interesting horror films, such as Juraj Herz famous The Cremator or his gothic tale Morgiana, contemporary endeavours failed to please audiences and critics alike. Leaving the debate about the state of genre production in small countries aside, recently two films hit the dark rooms across the country; one armed with a heavy advertising campaign, while the other appeared seemingly out of the blue. This latter film follows a group of students investigating an abandoned -- and naturally haunted -- asylum, Saint Nicolas (the asylum and title of the film), and was done with almost no budget after a failed crowdfunding campaign, by a director lacking vocational training....

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

★★★★☆ Many a film fan may have gone through life thus far without lavishing an abundance of attention on the cinema of Czechoslovakia - or even, for that matter, being aware of the Czech New Wave. This movement saw films of previously unseen quality coming from the country in the 1960s, including highly regarded work from directors such as the acclaimed Miloš Forman. Now, esteemed UK world cinema distributors Second Run are releasing a collection of three titles from this period: Diamonds of the Night (1964) directed by Jan Němec; Ivan Passer's Intimate Lighting (1965); and The Cremator (1969) by Juraj Herz.

Read more »...

The 11th annual Lausanne Underground Film Festival is packed to the gills with outrageous cinema from all over the world, featuring several filmmaker retrospectives and movies screening in competition at several locations on Oct. 17-21.

The big guest of honor this year is the legendary John Waters, who will be attending the fest with several of his own classics, such as Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble and Desperate Living, as well as showing some of his favorite B-movie inspirations, such as William Girdler’s blaxploitation demonic possession flick Abby, Armando Bo’s Argentinian sexploitation Fuego, Robinson Devor’s controversial bestiality doc Zoo and more. Plus, Waters will perform his acclaimed “This Filthy World” one-man show.

Other Luff special guests include Christoph Schlingensief, the confrontational German filmmaker of 100 Years of Adolf Hitler, The German Chainsaw Massacre, The 120 Days of Bottrop and more; Richard Stanley, the South African genre filmmaker of the cult...

This year London’s Czech Film Festival, ‘Made in Prague’ celebrated its 15th edition (10-27 November). The theme for 2011 was ‘Film and Literature’, and included hard-to-find retro delights such as the 1959 adaptation of Jaroslav Hašek’s comic novel, The Good Soldier Švejk, and Czech New Wave classics like Jiří Menzel’s Capricious Summer (1967), adapted from a novel by Vladislav Vančura. More recent productions included A Walk Worthwhile (2009), directed by Miloš Forman and his son Petr Forman, based on a jazz opera by Suchý and Šlitr, and Of Parents and Children (2008), an adaptation of a novel by prize-winning contemporary writer Emil Hakl.

Czech New Wave director Juraj Herz attended the festival to present his famously dark The Cremator (1968), as well as his most recent film, Habermann (2010). Based on a story by Josef Urban, it joins an increasingly long list of films examining the mass deportation of Germans from Czechoslovakia following World War II.

Errol Morris, London

The esteem in which this documentarian is held can be judged by the people interviewing him on stage: BBC Storyville producer Nick Fraser, Adam Curtis, Franny Armstrong and the Guardian's Xan Brooks. Each Q&A is preceded by a screening of Morris's latest, Tabloid, which marks a return to his eccentric terrain after recent films on Abu Ghraib (Standard Operating Procedure) and the Vietnam war (The Fog Of War). Tabloid revisits the very British scandal of Joyce McKinney, a Wyoming beauty queen who allegedly kidnapped and sexually enslaved her beau – or did she rescue him from the Mormons? Morris gives us the story from all sides.

Brixton Ritzy, SW2, Sat; Bafta, W1, Sun; Gate Notting Hill, W11; Screen On The Green, N1, Tue

French Film Festival, On tour

There's a tinge of nostalgia to the festival's big draws this year. Special guest Daniel Auteuil harks back to...

New Czech Cinema 2010, London

Strangeness never seems to be far away when it comes to Czech cinema. It's as if their film-makers have to pass some eccentricity test before they're entrusted with a camera. All of which makes this annual round-up more intriguing than your average national jolly. Jan Svankmajer, for example, is on agreeably surreal form in his latest live-action/animation oddity, Surviving Life, while a double bill of unsung 1960s/70s gothic horrors, The Cremator and Morgiana, recognises the unique vision of Juraj Herz. Even the historical dramas have a twist. Nazi-era Protektor benefits from retro cinematic stylings, while Three Seasons In Hell examines the impact of Communist occupation on an unrepentant bohemian poet.

Various venues, Sat to 26 Nov

Encounters Short Film Festival, Bristol

The films are short, so there are more of them, which means more film-makers. Therefore, Bristol's harbourside becomes a seething mass of film people,...

Juraj Herz is best known for The Cremator (1968), a grim Kafkaesque tale about the rise of fascism in 1930s Czechoslovakia. In 1972, Herz went in a completely different direction with Morgiana. The film -- now available from Second Run DVD in R2 Pal format -- is a weird take on 19th century gothic horror. Morgiana lacks the narrative or symbolic depth of The Cremator, but its visual richness and dramatic excesses make for a grand viewing experience.

Klára and Viktoria -- both parts are played by Iva Janžurová -- are sisters. Their father dies, leaving most of his property to Klára. To add insult to injury, Klára becomes involved with a man with whom Viktoria is smitten. Eventually Viktoria decides to eliminate Klára. Her murder plot does not go smoothly.

Morgiana is based on novel by Russian author Alexansder Grin and plays with psychological themes of duality and madness. Klára and...

Second Run DVD is a boutique label out of the U.K. that has built an extremely interesting catalog of world cinema titles. Their releases, many of which are Region 0, are immediately identifiable by their uniform packaging --  clean minimalistic covers with the title and director's name at the top in a sans serif font -- and attention to detail in transfers and supplements.

Much of the label's output has been focused on classic 60-70s films from Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. This includes the upcoming release of Morgiana, a 1971 film from Czech filmmaker Juraj Herz. This is the second Juraj Herz film that Second Run has released; The Cremator from 1968 was the first.

Morgiana is described as "a twisted Czech take on Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" The story is as follows:

Morgiana, based on a short story by Aleksandr Grin, (the 'Russian Poe'), is the story of two sisters,...

Before the world descends into football fever why not catch up with all the latest film chatter with your weekly edition of the Mouth Off podcast?

Bit of a special one tonight as we have an exclusive interview with the director of the forthcoming film Death and Cremation, Justin Steele, whose generosity and candour was a breath of fresh air and the stories he tells of getting an original horror film made, as well as working with Brad Dourif and Jeremy Sumpter are really worth a listen.

We’d like to thank Justin for his time, you can find the interview at the end of the podcast, or you can download the MP3 right here. The trailer for the film is included below and I’d point you to the official website here.

In addition to the interview we’ve got reviews of Noah Baumbach’s Greenberg and Christopher Smith...

It’s time for another update on horror-film screenings for the Halloween 2009 season and beyond; you can track back through our previous items starting here. The most exciting news is the addition of a very special show to the Scary Movies 3 series currently unspooling at New York City’s Lincoln Center: Trick ’R Treat with Michael Dougherty (pictured) in attendance!

The All Hallow’s anthology feature unspools at the Walter Reade Theater (165 West 65th Street, upper level) this Wednesday, October 21 at 8:30 p.m., followed by a Q&A with Dougherty. Trust us: You want to see this one on the big screen. Full details on Scary Movies 3 can be found here. In addition, adventurous genre fans will want to check out Juraj Herz’s The Cremator when it shows as part of Lincoln Center’s The Ironic Curtain: Czech Cinema series on Tuesday, Oct. 27 at 9 p.m. This black...

We reported on the teaser for Tma at the end of April, with its weird comical music and all, and I wasn't too sure about this one. But after seeing this trailer (which is Nsfw), I can now easily say it looks utterly fascinating and brutal as hell. Juraj Herz did the fantastic flick The Cremator and has a lot of stuff to his name, so be sure to check this out.

Mark, a young man from Prague, decides to quit his hectic and superficial town life and moves to the countryside, to the house where he spent his childhood, but was forced to leave under bizarre circumstances. His intention to start a new life and devote his time to the painting is constantly disturbed by odd events and happenings. A lost girl, tacit apprehensions and uneasiness of the village people, legends about burial place, death of his parents in...

My first introduction to Czech filmmaker Juraj Herz was the recent R1 dvd release of The Cremator an I've been keeping an eye on his next, Darkness. Apparently he had 5 other screenplays written but had to go with this one because those were political in nature. Written by Martin Nemec the story is one of a very popular nature lately, a family retreating to a house out in the middle of nowhere where supernatural troubles ensue.

Mark, a young man from Prague, decides to quit his hectic and superficial town life and moves to the countryside, to the house where he spent his childhood, but was forced to leave under bizarre circumstances. His intention to start a new life and devote his time to the painting is constantly disturbed by odd events and happenings. A lost girl, tacit apprehensions and uneasiness of the village people, legends about burial place, death...

I get lots of lovely lurid stuff in the mail that sometimes I just don’t have the time to write about and the stacks of sick flicks are starting to pile up. So just to ensure that these occasionally spectacular new release/ reissue titles don’t slip through the creepy cracks, allow me to insert this little dark entry in ye old Bloode Spattered Blogge and lay some love on a slew of pictures that recently rocked my world.

Ready? Here we go…

The Centerfold Girls

I first sort of picked up on the myth of Andrew Prine back in the late 80’s, when I caught a screening of Charles Band’s ho-hum sci-fi action cheapie Eliminators on late night TV. His presence failed to register, but the name for some reason seemed to stick in my skull. The deeper I sunk into my never ending obsession with grittier strains of horror cinema,...

We watch a lot of films here at Quiet Earth and, as you know, we even review some...actually, kind of a lot of them. Our correspondents are always hard at work taking time out of their real lives to attend some fest or another and bring us the good (or bad) word on cool genre movies and we wanted to make sure that their hard work got a little extra attention. They deserve it. So, until we develop a full-fledged review database (something that's slowly but surely becoming less of a twinkle in out eyes) we decided to do a "review roundup" post at the end of every month, listing the films we saw and linking to their reviews. This one for March comes a bit later than expected but better late than never.

Full list of films reviewed in March after the break.

Films we saw in March:...

Just a few days ago we gave you a review of the recently R1 released cult classic The Cremator by Juraj Herz who continued to pump out film after that, that is until 1997. His latest will be his first feature since then and it's titled Tma. The story revolves around a man escaping city life for the countryside but can he face his past or the lost girl who shows up? Admittedly the stills don't really show anything but they give me an excuse to share news of the project with you.

Mark, a young man from Prague, decides to quit his hectic and superficial town life and moves to the countryside, to the house where he spent his childhood, but was forced to leave under bizarre circumstances. His intention to start a new life and devote his time to the painting is constantly disturbed by odd events and happenings.

Year: 1969

Directors: Juraj Herz

Writers: Juraj Herz & Ladislav Fuks

IMDb: link

Trailer: link

Review by: quietearth

Rating: 6.5 out of 10

The Cremator is not for your average horror fan. It's for cinephiles and those who love weird films as it doesn't fit into the horror category directly, it takes a much longer and more existential route. First appearances belie the very nature of the film, that our very creepy main character Kopfrkingl has something going on right from the beginning, and he may, but not in the way that is obliquely suggested. For the long ride taken with Kopfrkingl and the countless devious deviations, this film works out like a cross between Hitchcock and the kind of Twilight Zone they wouldn't let Rod Serling air. It's a little hard to follow and confusing at points, but if you pay attention and are patient, you will be rewarded.

I say the film is confusing for many reasons,...

Juraj Herz's The Cremator is coming to DVD courtesy of the fiends at Dark Sky. Released in 1969, it went on to win Best Actor and Best Cinematography at the 1972 Sitges Film Festival. The Cremator tells the tale of Karl Kopfrkingl (Rudolf Hrusinsky), who works at a stately crematorium in Prague. Obsessed with his duties, he believes he is liberating the souls of the departed. With Nazi forces gathering at the Czech border, Karl descends into a mania that allows him to wholly enact his disturbed beliefs. No one is safe from his quest for salvation, not even his own family. The disc streets on March 31st.

Dark Sky Films just announced the release of a movie I honestly never expected to see in the United States. Not because it’s overly violent or bizarre, but just because it’s so damn obscure.

The film is Juraj Herz’ 1969 film The Cremator, the story of a man named Karl whose profession is to cremate the bodies of the recently deceased in Prague. He believes wholeheartedly that the only true path to salvation is by releasing the soul through cremation; if you don’t your soul is stuck inside your body until it eventually turns to dust of its own accord.

As Nazi forces approach the Czech border, Karl descends into a madness that forces him to do some pretty horrible things to his friends and family for the sake of their salvation. I reviewed a Region 2 release of The Cremator a while back and liked it quite a bit,...