A viscous whirlpool of nautical-themed alcoholism, father-daughter sexual abuse, seaside dive bars, prescription drugs, echoplexed castration-murder, the LA Rams, walk-in tattoo appointments, bad tv, The Little Mermaid, z-grade 70's Melodrama, severe mental illness totally overdriven to top-echelon bonker-ness in an era of supreme psychosexual bonker-ness, this yarn unravels and unravels until probably the most bonkers of them all. Weirdly entirely of its time and out of all times that are, there is nothing like 'The Witch Who Came From The Sea', now or ever again. Like if the oyster crackers turned out to be quaaludes, and it all started to go dark...

What in the hell did I just watch? Did that really happen? You can keep your Serbian Film and Human Centipede because The Witch Who Came From the Sea is a PERFECT example of how a shockingly-disgusting story should unfold on screen. Incestuous childhood abuse is never an easy pill to swallow but it goes down a bit easier when there's fantastic writing, acting, sound and camera-work. A hallucinogenic look at Molly the Mermaid. Definitely art-house friendly.

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

Almost an inversion of the typical psychokiller movie where a male antagonist oggles female bodies and associates sex with death due to some traumatic childhood experience, but this peculiar Matt Cimber project doubles down on selling the trauma and gets deeper into the weird personality defects that result (including the occasional homicide) in the female protagonist. It's also frightfully absurd and funny, which saves it from being a feel bad slog. Doris (Peggy Feury) the sassy barmaid, in particular, is always a hoot when she's on screen, as is the character with a twitchy eye named Jack Dracula ("that's my real name"). Keep your guard up, though, it'll turn from silly to spine chilling in an instant.

"Buck" Flower report: does not play a bum or a redneck!

💀HOOPTOBER 7.0💀
💀DECADES - 1970s💀
💀FILM 36/36💀

Anger stemming from being abused as a child drives an alcoholic's daughter to kill as an adult.

My final film for this years Hooptober is also potentially the worst. Sorry, but this is just trash. I got my hopes up after seeing the poster, but that’s a totally different movie.
Nice Poster, shame about the movie.

Spooky Scary Horrorthons 7 - Film #32

A gnarly mixture of sex and violence. Tragic and very disturbing. Everything feels so violently distorted and irregular. Men appearing on TV show up dead shortly after partaking in sexual affairs and it is never quite clear if the sexual manslaughter that is shown to us is real or not. The only thing that seems for certain to be real is the child abuse that led to the violence taking place in the later adult life. Whether or not the violence shown onscreen is the violent fantasies of a victim or the work of a serial killer is largely left up for the viewer to decide.

I don't have a lot of coherent thoughts to put forth about this one. The Witch Who Came from the Sea must be seen to be believed. Pretty cool of Cinemonster to bring this to my attention.

… Supalonely

(Sorry. Delayed speed Alaska trademark internet. that joke took three months to get here)

Weird is probably the word to describe this but at the same time, it's pretty standard per exploring women's trauma through a male lens with a dash of sludgy psychedelia thrown in.

lewd, slewed and tattoo-d.

Hooptober 3/31

Now this was something. Easily the most artistic of the video nasties that I have seen and perhaps the one most deserving of the list? It takes a lot to creep me out to the point of having to look away from the screen but this film managed it. The very definition of highly suggestive it shows enough to put extremely graphic images in the mind without "fully" showing the heinous act. Still showed more than I was comfortable seeing though. The films illusory aspects and lead performance really kicked this up to another level as well. All in all it's not a perfect execution but it sure as hell made an impression from the first scene on. For better or worse in 10 years this will likely be the one I remember the most of Hooptober 7.

Would recommend.

i fell asleep half an hour in. maybe it was the vaccine i took earlier, but maybe it was not

Giving this extra points for having the courage to tackle a taboo subject (even for the 1970s) as parental pedophilia and sexual abuse, plus how victims can become victimizers.
But Perkins isn't a strong enough actress to give the character any true depth (though in fairness to her, she does what she can with the thin script), and director Matt Cimber struggles to raise the film above an aura of exploitation. If this is an art film, it's a crude one.
And the appropriation of the shrieking shower scene musical motif from Psycho is inexcusable. I almost cringed with embarrassment when it was used.

there are no witches in this film 🌊

Very sad horror movie. I always find it more interesting when the killer in the movie is also a victim, and when they are the protagonist. More people should watch this.

A surprisingly cerebral film that touches on a lot of elements of LA celebrity culture. The murder sequences are very well executed, but the dive into madness felt a little bit light and randomly put together. 

My apartment. TV. Criterion Channel.

two for two (season of the witch being the first) on 1970s witch movies where an unconventionally beautiful, crazed, and often nude protagonist is motivated by a disturbing incest plotline to kill men. other similarities include referring to sex mostly as "balling" and really freaking me out after I smoked a half-birthday joint.

not sure what do with this but the nephews being named "tadd and tripoli" really made me chuckle

Criterion Channel

A truly bizarre movie. Everyone talks like they're performing The Glass Menagerie on Dilaudid and they all barely feel like people. Yet it still feels absolutely horrifying once you start putting the pieces together about Molly's life. This movie includes some of the most disturbing images of child abuse I've ever seen on film and, in fact, I had to fast forward through a scene.

Perhaps why I'm willing to forgive the shoddy characterization in what is really a character study is it does capture the horror of abuse. That sort of droning, foggy feeling of your life as a melodrama full of symbols only you understand (Molly's mermaid tattoo for instance) is in my experience very accurate.

I still found myself wishing someone with a bit more care to building a narrative was at the helm. You can have the strongest gas in the world and I still have to dock you if you still it everywhere.

Rough but worthwhile ride. Feels like shit lol.

A strange fever dream

An uncomfortable art-house psuedo-slasher that is actually a pretty unsettling depiction of deteriorating mental health. It's a lot. "Maybe they do a little dope, but no one pinches your bottom, no sir!" is a great sentiment though, shame more people don't live that way.