Welcome to The Penny-Pinching Cinephile, a weekly spotlight of the best free flicks on the web. ‘Cuz sometimes you gotta eat.
1.) The Evil Dead
The Evil Dead‘s beauty lies in its simplicity. To wit, one of my favorite IMDb synopses ever: “Five friends travel to a cabin in the woods, where they unknowingly release flesh-possessing demons.” Done. Simple. Kids, woods, demons. Got it. Released just in time for the remake/re-imagining/new version of Evil Dead (no “The” this time), Hulu’s got Sam Raimi’s original, B-movie horror classic available for free. Featuring a (cult) star-making performance from Bruce Campbell, The Evil Dead is essential viewing for horror aficionados.
2.) The Devil and Daniel Webster
Continuing this week’s demonic theme, the Criterion Collection on Hulu presents “The Dark Side,” a collection of fools selling their souls, witchcraft and all sorts of devilish shenanigans. My pick is 1941’s The Devil and Daniel Webster, William Dieterle’s film about a poor farmer who sells his soul to the Devil for seven years of success, and then hires local legend and legal whiz Daniel Webster to defend him in front of a trial of the damned. You might know the story better from its Simpsons parody. Featuring a dazzling performance from Walter Huston as Mr. Scratch (aka El Diablo) and a stellar, Oscar-nominated score from frequent Hitchcock collaborator Bernard Herrmann, this is a great example of classical Hollywood filmmaking at its best.
3.) Black Narcissus
Now to exorcise those demons, how about a few nuns? Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger’s classic Black Narcissus is about a group of English nuns who take over humanitarian duties on a remote, cliff-side temple in India and must deal with the native population and their own anxieties about the exotic, forbidding surroundings. Long singled out for Jack Cardiff’s stunning Technicolor photography and special effects lensing (as seen above), Black Narcissus is a sumptuous feast for the eye. Full of erotic tension, the film is a slow burn that more than earns its reputation as a great piece of psychological drama.
4.) Husbands
John Cassavetes’ film follows a group of middle-aged men who are shaken after the death of a fourth friend, and then decide to go on a days-long bender to commiserate. Shot with Cassavetes’ signature verite realism, most of the dialogue was improvised by the actors (including Cassavetes himself), revealing a deeper truth about their own thoughts on middle class, suburban life. The results are pretty bleak. Not so much a film as an exploration of the characters’ psyches, Husbands is a sometimes tough to watch portrait of lives unsatisfied.
5) To Die For
Nicole Kidman plays an over-ambitious newswoman who hires three teenagers to murder her husband in this razor sharp satire from Gus Van Sant. Loosely based on the sensational real-life trial of accused killer Pamela Smart in the early ’90s, Van Sant’s film takes a much more wry, black comedy approach to the situation, condemning the media hype around such cases and the furor that the population has for fame and success. Featuring one of Nicole Kidman’s coolest (and best) performances, this underrated gem also features performances from a very young Joaquin Phoenix as her teenager lover and Casey Affleck as his high school accomplice.
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