Blue Velvet (1986) Director: David Lynch Starring: Dennis Hopper, Kyle Maclachlan, Isabella Rosselini, Laura Dern
In 1985, David Lynch pitched Blue Velvet to his producer with a single sentence: "I told him I had always wanted to sneak into a girl's room to watch her into the night, and that maybe, at one point or other, I would see something that would be the clue to a murder mystery." Right from the start, Lynch knew what the core of the film would be - the disturbing, arousing and unforgettable scene in which Kyle MacLachlan's teenager spies on a nightclub chanteuse… and witnesses her getting mauled by Dennis Hopper's demented, gas-guzzling Frank. It's the dark heart of a textured and deeply freaky masterpiece.
Seven (1995) Director: David Fincher Starring: Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey, Gwyneth Paltrow
In the world of David Fincher's Seven, it never stops raining. Pretty much sets the tone, doesn't it? But really it's the stomach haemorrhages, forced self-mutilation and knife-dildos which really provide the movie with its atmosphere of repugnant dread. But Fincher plays it cool, preferring to mess with your mind rather than simply splay blood and guts across the screen. The killings are never shown. Instead, we only glimpse a series of grizzly aftermaths as seen through the eyes of Detectives Mills (Pitt) and Somerset (Freeman). The director's masterstroke is, of course, saved until the nerve-crunching end...
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