Psychic TV: First Transmission

Genres

DocumentaryHorror

OverView

For over 30 years, the so-called First Transmission video from Psychic TV, has been the stuff of, well, “snuff film” legend. First advertised in the back pages of Thee Grey Book , The First Transmission was an ultra weird touchstone of the underground VHS tape trading scene of the 1980s.

Others

Budget

$--

Revenue

$--

Status

Released

Original Language

English

Runtime

240 mins

Rating

6.8/10

Release Date

01 January 1982

Country

United Kingdom

Cast

David Tibet

Genesis P-Orridge

Cosey Fanni Tutti

Peter Christopherson

Jim Jones

Self (archive footage)

Brion Gysin

Similar Movies

7.3

The Wicker Man

December 1973 •English

Police sergeant Neil Howie is called to an island village in search of a missing girl whom the locals claim never existed. Stranger still, however, are the rituals that take place there.

6.5

Sacred

November 2016 •English

Sacred explores cultural and religious ritual as it relates to life’s cycles: birth, adolescence, marriage, aging and other key passages of life.

3.0

The People In The Walls

August 2024 •English

A viral ritual allows three kids to conjure people from the walls as they must now try to put them back before it is too late.

10.0

Lord of the Dance/Destroyer of Illusion

January 1985 •English

The documentary focuses on the annual Mani Rimdu festival of Tibet and Nepal, an event which encapsulates the Himalayan Buddhist experience.

6.6

Meat Joy

May 1964 •English

"Meat Joy is an erotic rite — excessive, indulgent, a celebration of flesh as material: raw fish, chicken, sausages, wet paint, transparent plastic, ropes, brushes, paper scrap. Its propulsion is towards the ecstatic — shifting and turning among tenderness, wildness, precision, abandon; qualities that could at any moment be sensual, comic, joyous, repellent. Physical equivalences are enacted as a psychic imagistic stream, in which the layered elements mesh and gain intensity by the energy complement of the audience. The original performances became notorious and introduced a vision of the 'sacred erotic.' This video was converted from original film footage of three 1964 performances of Meat Joy at its first staged performance at the Festival de la Libre Expression, Paris, Dennison Hall, London, and Judson Church, New York City."

6.1

Street Trash

February 1987 •English

A group of hobos begin melting into multicolored piles of goo after drinking sixty-year-old liquor. At the same time, the psychotic Vietnam War vet who rules the hobo camp snaps and begins killing at random. Two brothers set out to stop the liquor and the killer.

0.0

Sarna

December 2020 •Spanish

A portrait of Guatemala City and municipalities adjacent to the Pan-American Highway from the eyes of the stray dogs living there.

6.3

The House of the Devil

October 2009 •English

A young college student who’s struggling financially takes a strange babysitting job which coincides with a full lunar eclipse. She slowly realizes her clients harbor a terrifying secret, putting her life in mortal danger.

6.0

Day of the Woman

November 1978 •English

A young, beautiful career woman rents a backwoods cabin to write her first novel. Attacked by a group of local lowlifes and left for dead, she devises a horrific plan to inflict revenge.

4.4

Children of the Corn

September 2009 •English

A traveling couple end up in an abandoned Nebraska town inhabited by a cult of murderous children who worship a demon that lives in the local cornfields.

0.0

V.P.

August 2023 •English

A podcaster investigates the urban legend of an amateur porn video that drives its viewers to madness.

0.0

Son of Torum

February 1989 •Estonian

In the same vein as Meri's other documentations, this one takes advantage of the glasnost policy to discuss the social and ecologic impact of the Russian oil industry on the natives and the lands they inhabit.

6.9

Hellraiser

September 1987 •English

Hedonist Frank Cotton finds a mysterious puzzle box that summons the Cenobites, who open the doors to a dominion where pain and pleasure are indivisible.

6.0

Fall 2

March 1970 •English

Bas Jan Ader rides his bike into a canal in Amsterdam.

6.0

I'm Too Sad to Tell You

March 1971 •English

This short film is part of a mixed media artwork of the same name, which also included postcards of Ader crying, sent to friends of his, with the title of the work as a caption. The film was initially ten minutes long, and included Ader rubbing his eyes to produce the tears, but was cut down to three and a half minutes. This shorter version captures Ader at his most anguished. His face is framed closely. There is no introduction or conclusion, no reason given and no relief from the anguish that is presented.

5.0

Broken Fall (Geometric)

February 1971 •English

One of a series of ‘falls’ by Bas Jan Ader that he recorded on film, this work was filmed in West Kapelle, Holland in 1970.

1.0

Nightfall

March 1971 •English

Shot in his garage-studio, the camera records Ader painstakingly hoisting a large brick over his shoulder. His figure is harshly lit by two tangles of light bulbs. He drops the brick, crushing one strand of lights. He again lifts the brick, allowing tension to accrue. The climax inevitable—the brick falls and crushes the second set of lights. Here the film abruptly ends, all illumination extinguished.

6.3

Dust Devil

July 1992 •English

A woman on the run from her abusive husband encounters a mysterious hitch-hiker.

3.7

The Summoning

October 2014 •English

A group of friends set out on a road trip to "the party of the century" in the middle of nowhere, but on the way, they break down and find themselves being hunted for a satanic ritual.

6.3

Cannibal Holocaust

February 1980 •Italian

A New York University professor returns from a rescue mission to the Amazon rainforest with the footage shot by a lost team of documentarians who were making a film about the area's local cannibal tribes.