What are your favorite eccentric/morbid cinematic romances?

[DerekG]

"All the best people have bad chests and bone diseases. It's all frightfully romantic." --Julia, "Heavenly Creatures"


Q: What does "The Bride of Frankenstein," "Psycho," and "Revenge of the Sith" have in common?

A: The exploding laboratories, blood-drenched showers, and iron lungs were borne out of love, baby.

Suffice to say, I never got into the Meg Ryan or Sandra Bullock rom-coms. But I love an unorthodox romance, whether its tone be whimsical or gothic (or both), or its characters lovely or repulsive.

What are your favorites?

[Kire]

1. Lula: You move me, Sail. You really do. You mark me the deepest.

Sailor: Rockin' good news.

[ghostsofgiants]

2. Good answer!

[Wetzelbill]

3. "Rebel Without A Cause"

James Dean and Natalie Wood.

Her boyfriend died, so Dean wins her over, then his only friend dies too. Weird movie, great of course, but I always felt it was a weird love story, if that is what you could call it.

[XemaSab]

4. Especially if you read it as

the kid, whatsisname, is gay and has a thing for JD.

[Wetzelbill]

5. yeah, exactly nt

[DerekG]

6. I was thinking of Sal Mineo's character, too

Wonderful film.

[glaeken777]

7. here's a few

HAROLD & MAUDE - definitely eccentric and morbid

BLADE RUNNER - morbid.

SATURN 3 - morbid. (take your pick... Farrah Fawcett being lusted after by Kirk Douglas, Harvey Keitel, or a homicidal robot)

[CBHagman]

14. You're going to hate me for this, but....

...I've seen Harold and Maude too, and the film, while focused on eccentricity and morbidity, is actually rather...life-affirming. Aargh! I said it.

[leftofthedial]

8. The Dude and Maude

in The Big Lebowski

[HeeBGBz]

16. Oh, I thought you were talking Harold and Maude

I was about to agree with you.

[Terran]

9. Does "Sunset Boulevard" count?

That was pretty twisted, if a bit one-sided.

[Wetzelbill]

12. that's the first one I thought of

[Dogmudgeon]

10. Ghost World

Yep.

--p!

[DerekG]

11. I forgot to mention mine: Caligula/Drusilla from "I, Claudius"

An incestuous affair that sure doesn't end well.

File this one under "twisted."

[peekaloo]

13. Sid & Nancy

[HeeBGBz]

15. Edward Sizzorhands and the klepto

How sad.

[Chovexani]

17. I was just coming in here to say that!

I first saw Edward Scissorhands when I was eight years old, and it was the first movie I ever cried at.

To this day, when Winona walks away from the mansion with the extra scissorhand, and tells them Edward's dead...and then when she's old and talking about the snow and you see him snipping the hedge sculpture of her...gah, it kills me! Every time.

I'm a sucker for star-crossed, tragic lovers. Always have been.

[Spock_is_Skeptical]

18. bladerunner...edward scissorhands

On edit... Fight Club had a morbid romance as well

[Chovexani]

19. Lestat de Lioncourt and Louis de Pointe du Lac

From Interview With a Vampire, of course. Oh god, I love those two...they're just like a twisted old married couple. Especially when Louis burns down his plantation in a fit of typical Louis emo tears, and Lestat's all like, "this is why we can't have anything nice." And at the very end when Lestat bit Daniel in the car, and the tape of Louis' interview is playing in the car stereo...Lestat's snarking about how Louis whines all the time and he had to listen to that for decades. Ha! At first Lestat was just looking for a sugar daddy but I think he really came to love Louis, and didn't realize it until he was gone.

Even though it wasn't in the book, I also loved the scene towards the end when Louis comes across a decrepit, frail Lestat in the cemetary and Lestat is begging Louis to come back to him...but Louis just pulls away. You know, I hate Crazy Tom Cruise now and he never was much on an actor, but he really nailed that scene. It makes me cry every time I watch it, even though they do briefly get back together later on in the books. I'm a sucker for tragic love stories and you can't get much more tragic than a couple of vampires who can't seem to get along for too long...

One of the many, many reasons I loathed the Queen of the Damned movie was that they completely ignored Louis and tried to kill Lestat's bisexuality (even though in Rice's universe all vampires are bisexual)...they completely left out his boyfriend Nicky when he was mortal (Magnus, the vampire who turned Lestat actually grabbed him out of Nicky's bed and then turned him) and turned the whole thing into some Mary Sue story where Lestat's in love with Jesse...argh I hate that goddamn movie.

[Kire]

20. Chuck & Buck

greatest gay stalker film ever