Eli Morgan Gesner’s Condemned, which stars Dylan Penn (Sean Penn’s daughter), Ronen Rubinstein and Lydia Hearst, opens theatrical and on Digital HD November 13th.
In the film, “Fed up with her parents’ bickering, poor-little-rich-girl Maya (Dylan Penn) moves in with her boyfriend who is squatting in an old, condemned building on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. With neighbors that are meth heads, junkies and degenerates, this depraved hell hole is even more toxic than it appears: After a virus born from their combined noxious waste and garbage infects the building’s residents, one by one, they succumb to a terrifying pathogen that turns them into bloodthirsty, rampaging killers and transforms their building into a savage slaughterhouse.”
We caught up with director Eli Morgan Gesner who shared his picks for the “5 Most Gruesome Movies”, which he defines “as something more psychologically disturbing than just ‘gross’ or ‘disgusting.’ So, there will be no Human Centipede. type movies on this list.”
Pink Flamingos (1972) John Waters
I grew up in NYC on the same block as the famous revival movie house The Thalia (made famous by Woody Allen at the end of ‘Annie Hall’) I was the annoying little mascot kid that everyone tolerated, ran the popcorn stand in a pinch, and had general free run of the theater. Because of this, I probably saw a lot of films that a seven year old kid should not have seen. The most potent one being ‘Pink Flamingos’. I remember everyone at the Thalia daring me to watch it through to the end. Which I did. And my life was never the same. This offensive, desperate, bleak, and yet defiantly glamorous vision of what Humans are capable of really opened up my little mind to just how fucked up we are as a species. After watching Pink Flamingos, all the horror and slasher films that came my way were a cake walk by comparison.
Audition (1999) Takashi Miike
Through the skateboard company I created, Zoo York, I was lucky enough to do business in and visit Japan regularly throughout the 1990’s and came to intimately know and appreciate Japanese culture. The Japanese view on life is beautiful, humbling, and cast in grace. But, to a Westerner, it can also be perverse and disturbing. Especially when it comes to sex and romance. ‘Audition’ captures all this in spades. As a visceral experience, Miike’s film is legendary. But as a comment on Japanese culture it is a stroke of genius. Miike uses the classic Japanese film genre, ‘kateigeki’ – Meaning ‘Family film’ or ‘Home film’ – To tell the simple story of a Widower finally finding love in his older years. Yet, slowly, it becomes more and more apparent that something is not quite right. The time invested in these characters as they try to find ‘love’ only makes the last act of this film that much more gruesome and potent.
Funny Games (1997 / 2007) Michael Haneke
A lot of people only talk about the original version of ‘Funny Games’ but I happen to like both versions of Haneke’s film, the German and American. How often (if ever) can one experience the same film made by the same writer / director ten years apart, in two different countries, in two different languages? ‘Funny Games’ examines our utter dependence on social mores and polite conduct as the glue that keeps our society operational and we humans from indulging in our more offensive proclivities. And to glorious unsettling effect. What’s wonderful to me about both versions is that the subtext reads entirely different in each film. The German version always gets me thinking about how the Nazi Party took power. Whereas the American version has me thinking about American Corporations and the ‘One Percent’.
Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975) Pier Paolo Pasolini
There really is nothing that can prepare you for your first viewing of ‘Salo’. Everything you might have heard about Pasolini’s masterwork is all true. But if you only watch this film once you will tragically miss the point. Gorgeous, wretched, and brave as fuck, Salo is banned in many countries to this day. After I saw ‘Salo’ for the first time and got over my virginal disgust at what I had just experienced, I knew that there was more to this film than simple shock value. Today, I treasure my well worn 25 year old Criterion Laser Disk copy of ‘Salo’. The genius of ‘Salo’ is that by its design, the viewer becomes equally as guilty as all the culpable parties in the film itself. I can not think of another film, or work of art for that matter, that so effectively transforms it’s own audience into the very monsters they despise.
Titicut Follies (1967) Frederick Wiseman
‘Titicut Follies’ is my favorite documentary. Hands down. It is another banned film, and for good reason. The horrific, tragic, disturbed, and foolish nature of man has never been so masterfully captured. ‘Titicut Follies’ documents the conditions that existed in the Bridgewater, Massachusetts State Prison for the Criminally Insane in the mid 1960’s. The craziest person, by far, being the Warden of this establishment. So jaw dropping are the events in this film that the Massachusetts Government banned the film for decades from being shown publicly to anyone but doctors, lawyers, judges, health-care professionals, social workers, and students in these fields. If you want to see truly masterful film making you must track down a copy of this film. Wiseman’s cinematic construction of the footage he shot at Bridgewater is without equal. As are the tragedies his lens revealed to the world.
