Welcome back to I Should Watch That, where we ask our favorite cool cats and dope dawgs to boot up their movie and TV wishlists and thoroughly dissect what it says about them as a person. They're told ahead of time not to get rid of any embarrassing choices, and not to load it up with Criterion Collection picks so as to impress anyone.

This time, we rung up Alex Neuse, CEO/designer of Gaijin Games, creator of the fine Atari-inspired, acid-laced games in the Bit.Trip series like Beat, Core and Void. (Beat just got ported to the iPhone/iPad, and the newest, Fate, just came out.) Neuse came clean to us about his contempt for modern horror movies and why he needs to watch more Westerns.

Currently checked out: Interstella 5555: The 5tory Of The 5ecret 5tar 5ystem

It's a Daft Punk movie. I haven't watched it yet so I don't know exactly what it's about but it takes their album Discovery and it's this animated feature film by Leiji Matsumoto, who I guess is a good anime artist. There's no dialog or sound effects, it's just like a big fat visualizer. [Laughs.] I'm a big fan of Daft Punk. I think it's their movie. They may have produced it or something, they're featured as the cast, and this dude made the animation. It might be some kind of collab between these folks.

I didn't even know this existed.

Dude, I didn't until recently either. We were looking at the Tron soundtrack, because they're doing the new one. Some of the dudes in the office were like, "Holy s***, you gotta check this movie out. It's not that great but it's worth seeing."

No. 102: The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly

I've never seen this movie at all. I understand that it is the Western to see. Let's see here. I don't even remember why I put this in here. I went through a phase where I was like-there are movies that sort of fall under this category of "you just simply have to see them," whether you want to or not. You have to. I think this fits into that, and another one would be the original Star Wars trilogy. If you're an American, you have to see this. I think this is one of those movies. I probably threw this in here just so I wouldn't forget, and now I've forgotten because it's No. 102. Though I am playing Red Dead Redemption now, to try to get all Westernized.

“...there are movies that sort of fall under this category of "you just simply have to see them," whether you want to or not. You have to.”

No. 34: The Devil's Backbone

What is this? Oh, it's a Guillermo del Toro movie. Do you know about this one?

No...

Me neither! [Laughs.] Okay, this one, I've got a story about. Well, it's not a good story. But it's a story. Rad. I know why I threw this one in here. It looks like it's kind of a horror movie. So, it takes place during the Spanish Civil War, which of course makes me think of Pan's Labyrinth. Someone was talking to me about this and it made me think of this other movie called Santo Sangre. Have you heard of this one at all? Holy s***. I can't find this movie anywhere. It's a Mexican film and I don't speak Spanish but it means "sacred blood." It is the most gory, most scary, but not like slasher film-it's just a horrible, horrible sad freaky movie that's really beautiful and wonderful. And this one reminded me of that, knowing nothing about it. But Santo Sangre? Whoa! Yes, oh my God. If I remember correctly, a woman gets her arms chopped off by her husband with a machete.

“If I remember correctly, a woman gets her arms chopped off by her husband with a machete.”

No. 80: Battlestar Galactica, Season 4 Disc 2

So, I was a big fan of the old Battlestar Galactica when I was but a wee lad, and the Cylons scared the s*** out of me. I wanted to watch this new Battlestar Galactica because I hear it's very good, and honestly I made it through season two all the way. And I kinda was getting bored with it. So, I haven't gotten back to it and it's fallen. I wonder if it's I got bored with it or if I felt like I just watching too much television. That could've been it, too. Seventy-three through 86 are all Battlestar Galactica.

No. 72: Night And Fog

It is the craziest. It's a documentary about the Holocaust.

So basically you were in a mood to watch something about the Holocaust and then also some sci-fi, when you were adding stuff?

The sci-fi is a chaser. It's like, "Oh, f*** what have I done to myself? Let's go back to happy times again." I've seen this movie and it is really hard. I'm almost brought to tears just thinking about watching it again. The crazy thing about this movie is that it-it's beautiful. You watch it and it is filmed in such a way that the art of the movie is gorgeous, but the content is reprehensible. And so it's all very weird. It's all in black and white. It's not like a documentary like we know documentaries today. It was filmed in 1955. It's like watching hurt. It's weird. I'm kind of in a depressive mood, so maybe I'll bump this up.

“I've seen this movie and it is really hard. I'm almost brought to tears just thinking about watching it again.”

No. 12: V for Vendetta

I have very low expectations for comic-book movies.

Have you seen Watchmen?

I did, yeah. Well, I liked the movie quite a bit. But I must say I wanted my squid with tentacles. I wanted the ending they had in the book, and that kind of ruined it for me in a way. I chilled out. At first I was like, "What? I don't even want to see it!" But I saw it, and I felt like it was a good adaptation of that story. Maybe not verbatim, but I think it was good in the end. I was never a big Watchmen fan.

Basically, for Vendetta, a lot of people recommended it. I want comic-book movies to be good, and they rarely are. So I just keep persevering and thinking I'll find one that's good eventually. This one is a hope for me, even though my expectations are really low.

“I want comic-book movies to be good, and they rarely are.”

No. 65: The Exorcist III

Watch Trailer on YouTube

The Exorcist is definitely one of my favorite movies ever. I was 15 and everyone said The Exorcist is the scariest thing you'll ever watch. And my friend Josh and I are like, "Come on. We've seen Nightmare On Elm Street and Friday The 13th. It's not gonna be that bad." So we rented it, and we were sitting on the couch, like on total opposite ends of the couch at the beginning of the movie. By the end of the movie, we were sitting right next to each other on the couch, freaking out because The Exorcist is the scariest thing you'll ever watch.

Okay, well here's the thing about The Exorcist: you need to see the one that's called The Version You've Never Seen. They released The Exorcist in 1973. It's the director's cut. It adds like 20 or 30 minutes back into the film, and what it does is it slows the pacing of the movie way down, but what it adds is so much more. It really is the better version. It is so scary. Let me tell you, man, it is frightening. Just be prepared for that.

This is a huge generalization, but are you still a big fan of horror movies today? Do you think they hold up to older ones like these that were a bit more restricted in terms of what they could show?

Yeah, I'm glad you asked because I have very strong feelings about this. I don't think they hold up. I think horror movies these days suck. Most of them are slasher films or movies about teenagers who f*** up somehow and get murdered. Like, The Exorcist is about a girl who gets possessed by a demon. And it's about her family. It's as much about her possession as it is about the family and how it deals with that. There are some moments in that movie where you are just genuinely so sad and scared for the family unit. And you don't get that in modern movies. Modern movies are all about: let's do this, now do that, hey, look over here, woah, what's that? It's so fast. In some of these older movies, in particular the best horror movies, they build slowly and the tension rises and it gets mildly creepier. You realize that you are creeping yourself out. And modern movies they just show you way too much right away. They give it away.

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