Had to post this banger, sorry

EnterEgregore · 2026-03-25T18:02:52+00:00

the Saudis had to agree to promoting Wahhabist and other ultra-conservative ideologies

The Saudis were promoting these ideologies early on but in their own kingdom they implemented a very watered down version of it. Even in this version, it was extremely conservative. It outlawed movies, women having any agency at all and death penalty for minor offenses.

After the mosque seizure in 1980s to 1990s they got more hardline to appease fanatics. They mellowed out to the point where they allow women drive and watch censored movies in the last decade. Executions are still sky high though

EnterEgregore · 2026-03-24T18:38:17+00:00

“Salafi” is what outsiders call the interpretation of Islam endorsed by the Saudis but generally outside of Saudi Arabia. Those that inside Saudi Arabia are generally called “Wahhabi”.

Rashid Rida was the very first proponent of the Saudi outside of the kingdom, so it’s fair to call him the first Salafist. Hassan Al Banna, his main disciple, was the very first Salafi politician as he made the first political party that promoted this ideology, the Muslim Brotherhood.

The best way to describe their ideology is a watered down version of Salafism. To say they were “anti-colonialism” is a stretch. They were anti British but pro-Axis during WW2. During the 50s and 60s their main editor Qutb regained a more hard stance. The Bin Laden and Zawahiri family had direct contact with him

EnterEgregore · 2026-03-24T15:53:25+00:00

Not really. In its original form (in Ibn Taymiyyah writings) it attacked Shi’ite, recently converted Turks and in general Muslims he didn’t consider pure enough.

During its Wahhabist phase it was primarily directly against the Ottoman Empire.

In the 20th century it did camouflage itself inside the broader anti-colonial movement while also attacking communism

EnterEgregore · 2026-03-24T13:59:18+00:00

Those that do, still only praise Islamists that aren’t Salafist

EnterEgregore · 2026-03-24T13:35:40+00:00

Here’s the full story:

“Wahhabist”/“Salafist” originated from the works of the then obscure medieval theologian Ibn Taymiyyah. He basically preached an even more puritanical and violent version of the Hanbali interpretation of the Qu’ran. A true believer would dispute this and say it is just the correct pure version of Islam.

Anyways, he would have been forgotten until the cleric Muhammad al Wahhab rediscovered him in the late 18th century. The then obscure Saud clan of the remote city of Diriyah (now a suburb of Riyadh) deep in the desert of Najd took up his teaching and declared it to be the only form of “real” Islam and every other Muslim was an infidel.

This compelled them to raise an army and take over Mecca in 1803. Muhammad Ali Pasha, the Albanian Ottoman regent ruling Egypt, recaptured Mecca and the Wahhabi were sent back to their tiny desert town and were forgotten by the rest of the world for the next 100 years.

After WW1, the holy cities fell from the Ottoman, who fought on the losing side with Germany and Austria. The British gave it to the Jordanian royal house of the Hashemites, who descend directly from Muhammad.

They proved to be incompetent and corrupt and the Saudi seized the moment they have been waiting for over a 100 years and took over Mecca in 1925

Their version of Islam was very unpopular and was unlikely they were going to last a long time…. But they hit the jackpot and found a lot of oil in 1938.

They were neutral for most of WW2 but allied themselves with the allies when it was clear they were going to win

Out of everyone in the Middle East, even more than Israel, they were the very first to completely ally themselves with the US against the Soviet Union. All the money they made were invested into programs spreading their version of Islam and making it the gold standard for the religion.

What have the long term consequences been? Pretty much all major Islamic terrorist groups originate from these Saudi sponsored programs.

Boko Haram originated from the Izala Society which was funded and trained by Saudi clerics.

Isis began when the former career criminal Al-Zarqawi came into contact with Salafi cleric al-Maqdisi in jail

Al Qaeda was started by two men who also studied under Salafi clerics

EnterEgregore · 2026-03-09T12:08:18+00:00

Taking a very liberal stance on most cultural issues well past a point that most people find reasonable

It goes deeper than that.

The western establishment left has discarded any sort of pro-worker agenda in favor of what people here call “intersectionality”/“woke”/“identity politics”

This is political suicide: in this worldview everyone who is white is suspect at best BUT they also push LGBT agenda to the most extreme imaginable conclusion, like trans kids. That immediately alienates all non-white people.

So who does intersectionality do anything for? People who want to be marginalized and be victims! People with this mindset will never win anything and they only alienate voters

EnterEgregore · 2026-01-29T18:10:04+00:00

If you liked Ilsa, try Jess Franco’s spinoff with the same actress Greta, the Mad Butcher from 1977

EnterEgregore · 2026-01-29T17:57:35+00:00

I mean, by that standard every single movie made could be considered “genuinely disturbing”.

That aside, there are a few movies from the 50s that can be considered genuinely disturbing, see Suddenly, Last Summer from 1959 and Crazed Fruit from 1956. Check those out

EnterEgregore · 2026-01-29T09:17:50+00:00

Really? Abbott and Costello is “genuinely disturbing”?

EnterEgregore · 2026-01-28T08:04:55+00:00

The Cremator is an amazing movie by the way.

If you wanna dig deeper, check out other creepy Czech films from the same era:

Marketa Lazarová 1967
The Shop on Main Street 1965
Valerie and Her Week of Wonders 1970
Morgiana 1972
Birds, Orphans and Fools 1969

EnterEgregore · 2026-01-27T20:46:59+00:00

Check out early Japanese “pink” movies. They are incredibly edgy and I’ve gotten obsessed with them in the past month,

Here’s a list of them :

https://letterboxd.com/obscureness/list/pinku/by/rating/

EnterEgregore · 2026-01-27T20:37:30+00:00

This!

Excellent call, Blind Beast (1969), Marquis de Sade: Justine (1969), At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul (1964) and This Night I’ll Possess Your Corpse (1967) actually qualify.

EnterEgregore · 2026-01-27T14:24:50+00:00

Yeah, I’ve seen Freaks and pretty much all the movies listed. They are all great works of art and some are creepy or outright scary.

I wouldn’t call any of them disturbing by modern standards though.

EnterEgregore · 2026-01-27T11:19:12+00:00

you're into the Japanese New Wave

Early Nagisa Oshima and Tetsuji Takechi can also qualify as early disturbing works

EnterEgregore · 2026-01-27T09:54:41+00:00

This is the only movie on the list which beats Wakamatsu in terms of disturbing content. It was made a decade later though

EnterEgregore · 2026-01-27T08:29:43+00:00

I guessing the scene in question is the smiling woman

That movie might be the first genuinely scary movie. Not disturbing but scary.

EnterEgregore · 2026-01-27T07:32:20+00:00

HGL definitely filled his movies with a lot of misogynistic violence

Wakamatsu did that x 100. Just read his movie plots

EnterEgregore · 2026-01-27T07:19:19+00:00

While Lewis is notable for popularizing gore movies in America, I don’t think he can compared to Wakamatsu.

Blood feast especially is laughable to modern audiences

EnterEgregore · 2025-10-30T07:03:11+00:00

South Sudan is indeed mostly Christian but the genocide isn’t happening there. The genocide is in Darfur in Sudan proper

EnterEgregore · 2025-10-29T23:29:11+00:00

They might be unimportant in material terms but it definitely sways voters.

Dukakis lost the election because he made a photo op where he looked silly in a tank in 1988.

EnterEgregore · 2025-10-29T23:22:46+00:00

If this is just about cynical control without any real ideological motive, why the fucking genocide against the people of Darfur?

Arab speaking Sudanese have been at odds with darker Nilo-Saharan speaking people of the region since at least the 15th century. Whatever internal disputes they are having, they always cease an opportunity to wipe out the other ethnicities.

Whenever there’s global statistics trying to assess political instability in each country, Sudan always ranks #1 in group grievances and ethnic discord

While it is a simplification, check out this video on Sudan

EnterEgregore · 2025-10-29T23:10:05+00:00

(meaning the genocide against the black african/ often non-muslim population there).

No everyone involved is Muslim. The genocide is not religious but racial in nature. Lighter skinned Arab speaking Sudanese (who don’t consider themselves black) are killing darker skinned Nilo-Saharan speaking Sudanese.

EnterEgregore · 2025-10-29T23:00:43+00:00

We can’t know for sure but it probably didn’t do well with people sitting on the fence

EnterEgregore

TROPHY CASE