Directed by Iván Zulueta • 1979 • Spain
Starring Eusebio Poncela, Cecilia Roth, Will More
Hailed as “an absolute modern classic” by Pedro Almodóvar, this legendary cult film by underground Spanish filmmaker and movie-poster designer Iván Zulueta is the final word on cinemania: a dimension-shattering blend of heroin, sex, and Super 8. Horror-movie director José (Eusebio Poncela) is adrift in a sea of doubt and drugs. As his belated second feature nears completion, his reclusive bubble is popped by two events: a sudden reappearance from an ex-girlfriend and a package from past acquaintance Pedro (Will More) containing a reel of Super 8 film, an audiotape, and a door key. From there, the boundaries of time, space, and sexuality are erased as José is once more sucked into Pedro’s vampiric orbit. Together, they attempt the ultimate hallucinogenic catharsis through a Möbius strip of filming and being filmed. A towering feat of counterculture cinema, ARREBATO (“Rapture”) creates a genre all its own.
Up Next in Art-House Horror
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The Brood
Directed by David Cronenberg • 1979 • Canada
Starring Oliver Reed, Samantha Eggar, Art HindleA disturbed woman is receiving a radical form of psychotherapy at a remote, mysterious institute. Meanwhile, her five-year-old daughter, under the care of her estranged husband, is being terrorized by a...
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Wolf’s Hole
Directed by Věra Chytilová • 1987 • Czechoslovakia
Starring Miroslav Machácek, Tomás Palatý, Stepánka CervenkováVěra Chytilová’s subversive take on the 1980s teen-horror movie assembles a gaggle of bratty adolescents for a mysterious skiing retreat at a snowbound cabin where they find themselve...
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The Vanishing
Directed by George Sluizer • 1988 • Netherlands
Starring Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu, Gene Bervoets, Johanna ter SteegeA young man embarks on an obsessive search for the girlfriend who mysteriously disappeared while the couple were taking a sunny vacation trip, and his three-year investigation dra...
