PSYCHEDELIC SCHOOLDAYS

School In The Crosshairs, d. Nobuhiko Obayashi (1981)

I've been watching a lot of Japanese genre films* lately. They can occasionally be lurid, and are sometimes obviously driven by dramatic conventions that I'm not particularly familiar with. They veer between tasteful restraint and hyperbolic fantasy. There is lots of shouting, screaming and the metallic quivering and wet thunks of sword blades slashing at flesh. It's good value, and there's lots of it: dozens of mad movies about yakuza gangs, delinquent girls, women in prison, travelling samurai warriors, groups of kooky kids trying to find their own way in a mixed up, often dangerous world. 

School In The Crosshairs has an awful lot going on, and calls to mind a haphazard mix of Grease, The Omen and drugs. The story of a high school infiltrated by evil aliens who install a fascist prefect system, it was directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi, perhaps best known for horror comedy film Hausu (1977), a film that has wormed its way into the vocabulary of film hipsters all over the world. I don't say Crosshairs is a superior film, but it's just as much fun, and deserves to be better known. 

* I don't actually know what genre School In The Crosshairs is.

ROUGH SEA @

The Victorians had a thing for depictions of rough seas - not only on these oddly fragile postcards that mix photography and painting, but also in short films. Perhaps it was the allure of the primeval power of the elements being made small and safe and separate by technology, or just a new way of presenting an old obsession. Either way, I collect these odd artefacts in a casual way, and they fascinate me, so I thought I'd share a few from time to time.. The internet is all about sharing, isn't it? Whether you like it or not.

These rough seas @ Bournemouth, Eastbourne and Dover, respectively.