THE APPLE (USA/1980/MENAHEM GOLAN)

It’s a futuristic 1994, and the Worldvision Song Festival is underway. Alphie and Bibi travel from their native Canada to participate for their country with a spirited ballad, only to be met with consternation from the sizeable audience, who have had their expectations raised by the glitzy stage histrionics of the BIM, a heartless music corporation which will stop at nothing to win. Alphie and Bibi soon find themselves subsumed by BIM’s record label, and for a while Bibi rides the crest of celebrity. Learning the sinister truth about BIM, Alphie tries his hardest to liberate Bibi from the clutches of BIM’s leader Mr. Boogalow.

With a central concept based on a Eurovision Song Contest of the future, one has to expect an overdose of camp from The Apple, and by golly it delivers. From the glittery triangle appliqués to the abundance of gold, The Apple appears to be picking up on the extravagances missed out on by previous musicals, even outkitsching Rocky Horror Picture Show in its caricatures of the entertainment business. The allegory of sin is obvious but restrained, the apple motif only whipped out for a particularly saucy number, although the film’s conclusion takes on an overtly religious angle which almost substracts from the fun. Regardless of one’s susceptibility to this sort of film, The Apple is very impressive for its sheer scale and design, and it’s a shame it still hasn’t quite had its day. Look out for blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameos from Miriam Margolyes and Yma Sumac.

GUZOO (JAPAN/1986/KAZUO ‘GAIRA’ KOMIZU)

Opening with a sinister pan across an unidentified goo-spewing organism, Guzoo starts off as innocent as one could imagine. A group of female friends – Minako, Kazuko, Yuka and Mayumi, if we’re being formal – excitedly head for a trip to an isolated house in the country, little knowing what is about to befall them. The owner of the house, one Tomoko Kujo, is a researcher in the laboratory of Dr. Takamura, the archaeologist father of Minako. Once in their separate rooms, the girls experience strange phenomena, and Tomoko begins to get more shifty about the experiments she is conducting in a private room in the house. After Yuka sustains a bizarre injury in the swimming pool, the girls start to distrust their landlady – and rightly so.

Anyone who has seen the cinematic LSD trip that is Hausu might expect something similar from this film as the set-up is almost identical, but where Hausu starts to get hilariously psychedelic at the first hint of terror, Guzoo plays it pretty safe. The main attraction here is the camp design – Freudian tentacles emerge from unexpected places, and the soundtrack is pure 1950s B-movie – as besides that, there isn’t much to write home about. At just forty minutes in length, the film struggles to get the story out before overdosing on special effects. As a relic of low-budget horror in the VHS era however, Guzoo is of immeasurable value, and like the infamous Evil Dead Trap series, could eventually gain cult value through religious rewatching.

TALES FROM THE GIMLI HOSPITAL (CANADA/1988/GUY MADDIN)

Wistful Canadian director Guy Maddin’s debut feature takes place in the fictional Gimli Hospital, where two children are at their terminally ill mother’s bedside. The kids’ Icelandic grandmother, Amma, regales them with the story of Einar the Lonely, a former patient at the hospital. Einar, a fisherman afflicted with smallpox, finds comfort in conversing with his similarly poorly neighbour Gunnar, but the two men soon find themselves love rivals for the hospital’s waifish nurses. With his charming personality and fascinating past, Gunnar is the clear winner, but Einar plays the game by inventing stories even more bizarre and grotesque than Gunnar’s.

Using tropes from the silent era, as has become his trademark, Maddin creates a very textural, darkly humorous story whose conclusion is neither important nor welcomed. Thick Icelandic accents give credibility to the sham mythologies spouted by the two men, while visual motifs such as fish and a jewelled pair of scissors enliven the feverish imagery. But while one would instinctively describe the film by listing the names of directors pastiched by Maddin, the film feels startlingly novel in its design, as if German Expressionism was in need of being revisited. What is most remarkable about the film is that, while thematically it is macabre, one cannot help but be charmed by it. As outstanding and wonderfully cultish a debut as David Lynch’s Eraserhead, Tales from the Gimli Hospital is a winning combination of film styles, and Maddin’s unique manner of storytelling ensures that no single frame is wasted.

TUSK (FRANCE/1980/ALEJANDRO JODOROWSKY)

Set in turn of the century India, surreal director Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Tusk narrates the story of an English girl named Elise born into a rich family living in the British colony. On the day that Elise comes into the world, so too does an elephant named Tusk, and the two are to unwittingly share each other’s trials and tribulations throughout the rest of their lives. Both Elise and Tusk find themselves at odds with their circumstances, Elise rebelling against her parents’ expectations while Tusk tries to escape slavery. A chance meeting at a raucous parade brings the two to meet, and the superstitious Elise seizes her opportunity to free her kindred spirit from his situation.

Jodorowsky is said to have only taken the film on as a means of keeping busy before his ultimately defunct Dune project, and was reportedly so disappointed with the result of this film that he attempted to destroy all working copies of it. Those versed in Jodorowsky’s otherworldly cinematic imagination may be disappointed by the straightforwardness of this one, but in all honesty it isn’t that bad. Aside from the occasional fart joke, Tusk tackles the concepts of fate and serendipity with surprising maturity for a children’s film, and the parallels made between the lives of Elise and Tusk are sweet if obvious. Kudos for the story must go to Reginald Campbell, whose book Poo Lorn of the Elephants formed the basis of the film, but the interpretation is all Jodorowsky’s. A warm, colourful oddity.

7p., cuis., s. de b. ... à saisir (FRANCE/1984/AGNÈS VARDA)

Accompanying a shot of a celestially lit staircase, a man’s voice is heard musing on the suitability of an apartment which used to be part of a hospice. It soon becomes clear that the man is or was an estate agent, recalling the history of previous clients. As he narrates the story of a family who lived in the apartment twenty years ago, we see humans as well as waxwork figures enacting scenes from their life, the rooms decorated with still-life paintings. Colours, textures and lights transform the mood of different scenes, while age is conveyed solely through the faces and bodies of the actors. The film was made in the exhibition space of biologist and artist Louis Bec, who stars in the film as the aging father.

Agnès Varda, a mainstay of the French New Wave, appears to be channelling the Czechoslovak New Wave here, applying a theatrical, surrealistic mode of thinking to her use of the space, and a cheerful demeanour about the morbid subject of mortality. The family’s story is succinctly told through gentle vignettes, the nuclei of which are not solid events, but feelings and expressions. Varda uses different textures not only in the rooms, which are at different times covered in grass, feathers and soil, but also in dialogue – the phonemic richness of the father’s gerontological jargon is later mirrored in the children’s discussion about ‘bad’ words. Visually inventive and bizarrely touching, this Buñuelian short is a minor masterpiece in Varda’s impressive portfolio of work.

SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT III: BETTER WATCH OUT! (USA/1989/MONTE HELLMAN)

Ricky, the Santa Claus killer from the previous installments of Silent Night, Deadly Night, is in a coma after being shot by the police. Laura, a blind girl with premonitory powers, is asked to engage in an experiment that aims to find some form of communication with Ricky (the reason is never fully explained), but finds herself instead plagued by horrific nightmares about Christmas. When Laura takes some time off to visit her grandmother, Ricky is stirred awake by a tipsy orderly dressed as Santa Claus and begins his murderous spree again. When Laura suddenly feels something is amiss during her sojourn at Granny’s, she realises that the experiment may have been more successful than expected.

From the space-age cranial dome that Ricky supposedly requires in his comatose state, to the doctor’s parapsychological nonsense (“her body may be young, but her soul is old”), this dire sequel appears to take a laissez-faire approach to both science and horror, not to mention its overreliance on footage from the previous films to tell its story. Laura’s blindness is barely vital to the story besides supposedly giving credence to her psychic visions, which also seem too selective to be reliable. The film is not without its mildly amusing moments – Ricky hitchhiking with the dome still intact, for example – but it’s otherwise an abysmal experience with some unforgivably poor dialogue. Oddly enough, Lynch fans may recognise two of the film’s stars, Eric Da Re and Laura Harring, from Twin Peaks and Mulholland Drive respectively.

WÊND KÛUNI (BURKINA FASO/1982/GASTON KABORÉ)

In the middle of a dry stretch of land by the Volta river, a boy is found lying face down wearing threadbare rags. When a friendly traveller finds him, he is unable to recall his past or even speak. Taking pity on the boy, the traveller brings him to a nearby village, where he is entrusted to the care of Tinga and Lale, who rename him Wendkouni, ‘God’s gift‘ in the Mòoré language. Despite his muteness, Wendkouni manages to integrate surprisingly well, working hard alongside Tinga and growing close to adoptive sister Pognèré. When a hysterical villager named Bila hangs himself in a tree, the sight so greatly disturbs Wendkouni that he finds himself able to talk again, but with his first word being a plaintive cry of “Mother!”, revelation isn’t going to be easy.

Prior to producing Wênd Kûuni, the second film ever produced in Burkina Faso, director Gaston Kaboré had been disturbed by the simplistic representation of West African peoples in documentaries. In the character of Wendkouni, Kaboré finds a means of constructing an identity from scratch. Free of language or other cultural signifier, he is absorbed into a community which gives him purpose and love, and later helps him to articulate his pain. At the end of the film, he emerges from his chrysalis, stronger for his suffering and with newfound direction. Wendkouni’s relationship with Pognèré is particularly touching, as both young actors (siblings in real life) support each other through the painful process of growing up.

THE VIDEO DEAD (USA/1987/ROBERT SCOTT)

A TV arrives on the doorstep of Mr. Jordan, an unemployed layabout who has no recollection of buying such a device, given his scepticism regarding technology. In the middle of the night, the unplugged TV somehow switches itself on, becoming a portal for a series of zombies which had featured in a film Mr. Jordan had criticised earlier. A few years later, the house is occupied by a new family. Teen siblings Jeff and Zoë hold the fort while their parents are away, only to be delivered a TV that they didn’t order either! With the insatiable curiosity necessary to drive these sorts of narratives ahead, Jeff decides to play about with the TV in the attic, unleashing a barrage of zombies into the quiet neighbourhood.

As one might assume, there’s not much remarkable about this one, asides from the comical special effects and porn star acting. The zombies which emerge from the TV are far too human to present any significant threat – some of them are just a couple of eyeliner strokes from being New Romantics. In trying to create an original twist to the zombie genre, the film forgets pacing and plot, but more than makes up for it with some creative deaths – one unfortunate individual is stabbed (yes, stabbed) with an iron. Essentially, The Video Dead is no different from any other horror-comedy hybrid, but it does make an amusing (and surprisingly accurate) prediction about the future of televisual culture. A recommended watch when drunk or stoned.

LIQUID SKY (USA/1982/SLAVA TSUKERMAN)

On the night of a New Wave fashion show, a small UFO lands in an apartment belonging to Margaret, a drug-addled supermodel, and her dealer girlfriend Adrian. Its occupant, a small, shapeshifting alien, hides in the apartment unbeknownst to the couple, seeking a very unusual source of nourishment. Meanwhile, Margaret is grappling with her cocaine addict rival Jimmy, with whom she has arranged a rooftop photo shoot. At the shoot, Margaret finds herself unwillingly seduced by former drama teacher Owen, who collapses after sex with a sharp crystal protruding from his head. Perturbed by the thought that it was her fault, Margaret falls into a downward spiral, pushing Adrian away for her and unwittingly attracting unwanted attention, but

Made for just $500,000 by Russian ex-pat Slava Tsukerman, Liquid Sky shares similar production values with other low-budget sci-fi or horror films, including a stilted screenplay and lazy acting. Anna Carlisle, in the roles of both Margaret and Jimmy, is more likely to be remembered for being a poster girl for androgyny than a great actress, as her performance is led almost entirely by contrived stiffness. But what the film loses in technicalities, it gains in managing to crystallise the zeitgeist of the eighties, in both its superficial aspects and its deeper sociological implications. In this way, Liquid Sky is ripe for rediscovery – its independent spirit and unique approach to sexuality harmonises well with modern attitudes to cinema, and the hilariously mechanistic, synth-dominated soundtrack is a clear influence on the electroclash genre.

Hear a sample of the soundtrack here

THE SEVENTH CONTINENT (AUSTRIA/1989/MICHAEL HANEKE)

An affluent middle-class family in Austria goes about their daily duties. Father Georg works as an engineer, while mother Anna is an optician. When their young daughter Eva pretends to be blind at school, the couple begins to realise the suffocating monotony of day-to-day life. Anna, taking particular offence at the news of Eva’s charade, encourages her daughter to tell the truth under the proviso that she wouldn’t cause her any harm, but slaps her as soon as she admits what happened. This cycle of repressed feelings, pessimism and pronounced ennui continues over the course of three days, and a visit to Georg’s parents’ house proves life-changing for the family, as they appear to be fulfilling a plan to emigrate to Australia, the idealised ‘seventh continent’ of the title.

In many ways, The Seventh Continent is a very admirable first feature. Michael Haneke’s infamous awkward long takes are used here in the same way they have been throughout his career, establishing his immediately recognisable style. The same can be said for the film’s deceptive pacing – by the time it has finished, the viewer is left to wonder if they really saw everything they thought they did. More unusually, Haneke manages to keep the audience magnetised through what should be offputtingly dull and inaccessible. A sequence where a cashier frantically types in codes for a deluge of items on the conveyor belt succinctly delineates the family’s disillusionment with life, the aggressive sounds of the receipt printer serving as a death knell.

HATSU-YUME (USA/1981/BILL VIOLA)

Taking its title and cue from the Japanese belief that the first dream of a new year is premonitory, Bill Viola’s masterwork Hatsu-Yume shows the passing of a day over the course of an hour. Playing with video speed, dubbing and lighting, Viola choreographs what must have been a considerable library of footage into a wordless statement about life, inviting the viewer to absorb the tranquil beauty of time passing by. Opening with a dark shot of the tide, the film travels across Japan, taking in sights of land, water, sky and urban space. Details leap out where they wouldn’t have before - the filthy corner of a polystyrene crate, the subdermal iridescence of an octopus, raindrops on a windshield. No overwhelming link is made between sequences, save for the progression of light and the theme of mortality.

Created while Viola was artist-in-residence at Sony in Japan, Hatsu-Yume is, in its own way, thrilling. The static soundtrack, resembling the sound of a distant sea, sustains a dream-like sensation through the film, and allows the boundaries between sight and sound to disappear. When a coin being fed into a vending machine doesn’t clink, it feels as if this action is happening in a world beyond our control. Viola’s exploration of Japan and careful editing display a strong understanding of mono no aware, the Japanese philosophy of the transience of being. Though it should be watched as a projection, this meditative film is inviting enough that it could essentially be watched anywhere.

A SUMMER AT GRANDPA'S (TAIWAN/1984/HOU HSIAO-HSIEN)

When their mother takes ill, young siblings Ting-Ting and Tung-Tung are forced to move in with their grandparents who live in the country. As with every child, the pair spends the beginning of their summer sojourn pining for mum and dad, particularly as they both struggle to befriend the neighbourhood kids. Grandpa is a stoical character who is best known as the town doctor, but also takes great pleasure in teaching Ting-Ting and Tung-Tung occasionally, and the kids grow close to him over time. Through investigating this new landscape, they also learn about aspects of life completely alien to them, particularly the concept of death which has a particular poignancy when they reflect on their poorly mother back at home.

The film is completely carried by its two leads Wang Chi-Kwang and Sun Cheeng-Lee, who couldn’t be more adorable. Director Hou Hsiao-Hsien focuses most of his attention on the children’s convincing exploration of their environment, but balances the sentimentality with realism, as the adults openly discuss grave matters in front of the children. This hard-hitting sincerity is the film’s virtue, and it never verges on preciousness or sentimentality. The cinematography is beautiful - from the sun-baked train station steps to the crowded dinner table, Hou absorbs every facet of the countryside, much like his young protagonists. It is sad to think that such a gentle, sincere film is unlikely to ever be made in Britain, but A Summer At Grandpa’s is universal enough to fulfil a sense of childhood nostalgia.

RIKYU (JAPAN/1989/HIROSHI TESHIGAHARA)

Exploring the complicated relationships between the aesthete and the politician, Hiroshi Teshigahara’s penultimate film Rikyu is a respectful profile of one of Japan’s most revered masters of tea ceremonies, and chronicles his relationship with Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the contemporary daimyō who became remembered for uniting Japan’s politically diverse provinces. Having served the previous ruler with dogged diplomacy, Rikyu strives to focus on his role as tutor, but as he grows closer to Hideyoshi, his supposed political syncretism is pulled into question. When Hideyoshi asks for succour in his decision to occupy nearby China, Rikyu’s wavering is interpreted negatively by the daimyō’s other consultants, who plot to oust him from government.

Teshigahara, a master in the art of flower arrangement himself, approaches the subject with a delicacy which suggests where his sympathies lie, handling every scene as if it were a ceremony in itself. Legendary film composer and frequent Teshigahara collaborator Toru Takemitsu polishes sequences off with gentle flourishes of music, never stealing focus from the intimacy of the two lead characters. The film in some ways finds a modern sibling in Aleksandr Sokurov’s The Sun, which forms an uncritical portrait of Emperor Hirohito, or even Im Kwon-Taek’s Chihwaseon, which artfully explores the life of one Korea’s best-known painters. As with arthouse films in any country, Rikyu has an element of the alien that almost disallows outsiders access, but Teshigahara ensures that we do not see the film as just a cultural curio, and it serves as further evidence of his brilliance.