(2010)
Dir - André Øvredal
Fusing together Norwegian fairy tale lore with found footage, André Øvredal's sophomore effort Trollhunter is one of the more refreshing in the sub-genre. Dryly comedic as a bureaucratic commentary, comedian Otto Jespersen delivers a wonderfully stone-faced performance as the title character; an embittered yet nonchalant veteran who stands as Norway's only defense against all sizes of trolls who leave their appointed territories. The narrative slowly dishes out key details as we learn more about both Jespersen's weathered character and the government agency that is hellbent on keeping the existence of such mythical creatures forever out of the public conscious. Captured by a college crew whose whereabouts were never heard from again in typical conspiracy fashion, the footage on display is a gripping combination of cartoony CGI that somehow manages to be not only passable, but also intense against an equally beautiful and frightening Norwegian landscape.
(1975)
Dir - Juan Bosch
Several countries and production studios quickly cashed in on the extreme success of The Exorcist and Exorcismo came from the Spanish wolfman himself Mr. Paul Naschy. The actor/screenwriter claimed to have conceived of the story before William Friedkin's masterpiece was made, but in any event, it has enough story changes to not be exclusively seen as a knock-off. Added to that, it is a comparatively more serious work for Naschy, whose movies were usually loving, fun, and goofy Universal monster homages. The layered script has a young upper-class woman succumbing to possession after the traumatic death of her father, plus there is a serial killer sub-plot and a hedonistic hippy angle thrown in. Also, Naschy is typically solid as the iron-willed priest, portraying a straight ahead good guy for once.
(1973)
Dir - Bob Kelljan
Hot off of both of the Count Yorga movies which have a similar look, story, and feel, director Bob Kelljan got behind the lens for Scream Blacula Scream, the second and last in the Blacula series. In several ways, this is a superior sequel. Besides the return of William Marshall who again delivers an equally dignified and sympathetic portrayal of the doomed title character, Pam Grier, (who was quickly becoming a blaxploitation legend), is a wonderful addition as a young and beautiful voodoo priestess. It is the combination of vampirism with voodoo that makes the film unique for its time, differentiating it from just being another Dracula retelling with African American actors. Kelljan stages a handful of creepy scenes and as was typical for this era in B-movie horror, the emphasis is primarily on spookiness with slow moving undead, sparse and chilling music, plus some tightly controlled camp keeping everything ghoulishly entertaining.
(2000)
Dir - John Fawcett
Clever without being insulting as well as equally violent and funny, the werewolf as pubescent coming-of-age metaphor was never more blatantly or better explored than in 2000's Ginger Snaps. A movie that emerged just out of the late 90s teenage popcorn horror trend whose results where generally nothing shy of appalling, this low-budget Canadian film from director John Fawcett and screenwriter Karen Walton is not only a refreshing take on the post-grunge, high school angst formula, but likewise is a refreshing take on lycanthropian genre works in general. The Fitzgerald sisters deal with a neglectful father, an obliviously doting mother, and all manner of horny and condescending classmates while they struggle with the inevitability of their own independence from one another due to societal pressures, biological urges, (and to add even more drama into the mix), werewolf transformations.
(1960)
Dir - Mario Bava
The first officially credited directorial effort from Mario Bava became a benchmark in Gothic horror. Capitalizing on the recent success of Hammer's The Curse of Frankenstein and Horror of Dracula though sticking to the black and white look of Universal's ground-setting monster movies, Black Sunday treads both stylistic waters effortlessly. The film opens with Barbara Steele getting a spiked mask hammered into her face while most of the rest plays out to overtly fluffy music and melodramatic performances, with an angry mob showing up at the end for good measure. It is a cliche-fest from top to bottom, yet Bava's sharp eye for visuals and flawless sense of fog and cobweb-ridden atmosphere is persistent. Of course various elements of the Satan worshiping witch and her diabolical lover reaping vengeance on their family blood line centuries later would be shamelessly redone by everyone from Roger Corman, to Paul Naschy, to even future Hammer productions.
(1962)
Dir - Robert Aldrich
The grandmother of the psycho-biddy sub-genre, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? is infamous as an actual movie about pure, jealousy-fueled madness as well as for Golden Age leads Bettie Davis and Joan Crawford taking out their real-life rivalry by playing cinema's most dysfunctional siblings. An adaptation of Henry Farrell's novel of the same name, director Robert Aldrich gingerly balances deliberate camp, exasperating suspense, and dark humor in a story that allows for Davis to gorge on mouthfuls of scenery as she cares for/torments her paraplegic sister Crawford, the latter of whom misses various close-call opportunities to escape. Davis delivers a cuckoo-for-Cocoa-Puffs performance for the books, equally delusional, sadistic, and pathetic as a former child star that has lost her mojo due to suffocating resentment and envy. Several moments, (mostly the rat), are the stuff of Hollywood legend and the film would prove influential on a number of others that put past-their-prime actors in the crazy seat.
(1975)
Dir - Steven Spielberg
Though not a horror movie in previously established senses, Steven Spielberg's groundbreaking blockbuster Jaws gave the nature horror sub-genre its most paramount boost. Styled more in that menacing and heart-racing vein that any typical adventure movie would be, it contains more memorable aspects than most; memorable aspects that would set the template for every future "animal as monster" genre film going forward. John William's sinister and two-note musical motif has become synonymous with suspense the same way that Bernard Herman's screechy violins did in Psycho, plus "Bruce" the shark is a top notch bit of mechanical creature design that still can scare away anyone from venturing too far into deep, (or even shallow), waters.
(1968)
Dir - Roger Vadim/Louis Malle/Federico Fellini
An international co-production and foreign answer to American International Pictures' famous Edgar Allan Poe films from Roger Corman, (as well as anthology horror movies in general that were becoming more prominent), Spirits of the Dead is significant for featuring three renowned filmmakers that rarely if ever worked within the confines of the genre. Hot off of shooting Barbarella, Roger Vadim utilized his then-wife Jane Fonda once more in the opening "Metzengerstein" segment, which also features a disturbed incest angle with brother Peter Fonda. Louis Malle's "William Wilson" was the second cinematic telling of Poe's story which was also loosely adapted in the 1913 German film The Student of Prague, plus the final Mario-Bava-on-acid inspired "Toby Dammit" is Federico Fellini in full-on surreal mode.
(1972)
Dir - Lawrence Gordon Clark
The second and longest official installment in the BBC One's annual A Ghost Story for Christmas strand was one that adapted another M.R James story, A Warning to the Curious. The narrative is tweaked to include Clive Swift as Dr. Black, who had appeared the previous year in the likewise excellent The Stalls of Barchester. Also, the main protagonist in Mr. Paxton, (Peter Vaughan) was changed to an older man during the Great Depression who deliberately instead of accidentally seeks out a mysterious Anglo-Saxon crown. Told in the same stark and unassuming manner in which every installment in the series was, sinister music is used more liberally for this round yet the end result is still adequately spine-chilling. Director Lawrence Gordon Clark intentionally utilized a "less is more" approach to these films and the slow-boil suggestion is just delightfully unsettling.
(1932)
Dir - Erle C. Kenton
Still regarded as the best cinematic adaptation of H.G. Wells' The Island of Dr. Moreau, Paramount's Island of Lost Souls was a slightly controversial effort for the Pre-Code era which pushed sexuality, violence, and "man playing god" boundaries. Featuring a minor yet memorable performance from Béla Lugosi who gets to utter the immortal lines "Are we not men?!?" and "What is the law?", plus Charles Laughton as the eccentric, slightly effeminate, and assuredly cuckoo Dr. Moreau, it plays its mad scientist scenario in a genuine, camp-less fashion. The source material was heavily altered, with the addition of the panther lady being one that would be used in every future film version since. It is ultimately an essential jungle-bound addition to Universal's more Gothic-tinged horror films of the same era.
(1990)
Dir - John Harrison
Authored by both Beetlejuice screenwriter Michael McDowell as well as George A. Romero, (who also created the mid-80s television series of the same name), Tales from the Darkside: The Movie is another fiendish, gory, and fun anthology horror film with a recognizable cast. Directed by frequent Romero collaborator John Harrison, each story's source material is different in era and country. The framing narrative is the "Hansel and Gretel" inspired, "Lot No. 249" from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, "The Cat from Hell" is Stephen King's, and "Lover's Vow" is a contemporary-set updating of the Japanese Yuki-onna fable, one of countless versions derived from Lafcadio Hearn's Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things. David Johansen, Christian Slater, Deborah Harry, Julianne Moore, and Steve Buscemi all appear and the practical effects work from KNB EFX Group stands toe-to-toe with anything else out there.
(1974)
Dir - Norifumi Suzuki
While Japan may not be as known for churning out nunsploitation movies to the level that Europe and America were in the sub-genre's heyday, pinky violence filmmaker Norifumi Suzuki still delivered a paramount example of it with School of the Holy Beast. As artful as it is unflinching in its depiction of blasphemy and religious hypocrisy, Masao Shimizu's cinematography is evocative, turning even the most garish visuals into striking things of beauty. The subject matter adheres to many other films in the same field, with all human vices being punishable under a prison-like convent that breeds tattling amongst its repressed sisters. Worse yet is a well-respected priest who cannot keep his dong out of some of the celibate ladies, which is where Yumi Takigawa comes in to uncover the unwholesome shenanigans.
(2018)
Dir - Rahi Anil Barve/Adesh Prasad/Anand Gandhi
A fully-realized debut and passion project for Marathi filmmaker Rahi Anil, Tumbbad fuses dark folk horror through a lens that is epic in scope and rooted in its home country. Taking place over several decades through the first half of the 20th century when a poverty-stricken India was undergoing a tumultuous time of independence, it tells the tragic arc of a man who was understandably obsessed with wealth from an early age, only to find it via the most diabolical means. The rules are explicitly revealed along the way so that of course when they are broken, an already terrifying ordeal becomes even more so and Barve as well as technical co-directors Adash Prasad and Anand Gandhi maintain a grim tone throughout. Visually triumphant, its wet, earthy, and fleshy aesthetic create the ideal atmosphere where ancient deities lurk under the surface and those who test them are cursed from the onset.
(1960)
Dir - Michael Powell
The film that ruined director Michael Powell's career, Peeping Tom was released the same year as Alfred Hitchcock's seminal Psycho and both movies inadvertently ushered in the giallo and later slasher sub-genres. Each also dealt with disturbed central characters who were traumatized by their parents when younger, yet Carl Boehm's Mark Lewis takes the voyeurism angle even further than Norman Bates did. Filming his victims before murdering them, the perverse and neurotic disconnect is profound and Lewis can be seen as a pathetically tragic villain in his own right. For 1960, the risque subject matter and several of the plot details, (such as the fact that Mark works part time as a softcore pin-up photographer and chooses prostitutes as his victims), became all the rage and Powell was blacklisted after the movie was universally panned upon release. Thankfully, the consensus has turned just as unanimously positive over the decades and this stands as one of the most tense, stylized, and complex movies ever made about such unsettling business.
(1978)
Dir - Juraj Herz
This stylistic interpretation of Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont's Beauty and the Beast from filmmaker Juraj Herz is one of the best fantasy movies ever produced in his native Czechoslovakia. From the opening shot, a mysterious mood is set with menacing organ music and only a small handful of such pieces make up the soundtrack from thereon out, which helps set the repetitious tone for the central characters that are locked in the Beast's abode throughout most of the story. Said location is a frightening place; a dilapidated castle with startling and grotesque servants often hiding in plain site like spectral creatures. The freakish and bird-like look of the title "villain" is outstanding, plus Zdena Studenková perfectly conveys an innocent sweetness that appropriately counters the physical features of her captor.
(1974)
Dir - Francesco Barilli
Unrelated to both the 1908 novel and 1931 film of the same name, The Perfume of the Lady in Black was director Francesco Barilli's splendidly creepy full-length giallo debut. Though it has the same look and feel of the typical black-gloved slasher mysteries that Italian filmmakers helped popularized, the story is notably different. A psychological thriller first and foremost, Mimsy Farmer's protagonist is slowly driven mad by mysterious forces that prey upon her traumatized past, all for some bizarre dark magic purposes that peak with a memorably nasty finish. Barilli's pacing is deliberate, but the eerie mood is benefited from the film never gaining excitable momentum. It was also shot beautifully by Mario Masini and scored by famed composer Nicola Piovani.
(1933)
Dir - Merian C. Cooper/Ernest B. Schoedsack
Though technically not the first, RKO's King Kong for all intents and purposes stands as the granddaddy of giant monster movies and is a hallmark for stop-motion animation. So many adventure films took deliberate pieces from this and similar to The Wizard of Oz or Universal's initial crop of horror works, such blueprints in otherworldly genre cinema in general have long become commonplace in pop culture. Fay Wray graduated to horror's first bonafide, (and literal), scream queen based largely off of the heels of this movie's colossal success, Willis H. O'Brien's special effects work is heavily featured as Kong terrorizes Manhattan and dukes it out with prehistorical reptiles, directors Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack keep things cruising without any unnecessary talky exposition, and this was the first major Hollywood production to feature an original orchestral score which is appropriate for such a spectacle.
(2009)
Dir - Park Chan-wook
A contemporary set horror reworking of Émile Zola's 1867 novel Thérèse Raquin, Thirst tackles both the inevitably unflattering aspects of vampirism as well as the aftermath of a doomed romance that is bonded by that very vampirism. The fact that filmmaker Park Chan-wook does so in a black comedy context is even more impressive, crafting an undead tragedy that is violent, touching, and funny in equal measures. As the two love-struck leads, Song Kang-ho and Kim Ok-bin are worlds apart; they have a twenty year age gap and Song's Catholic priest contracts the blood-sucking virus by benevolent means brought on by a lifetime of servitude to his fellow man. Kim on the other hand is a bitter and battered housewife that sees an exciting means of escape or at least a naughty fling in the arms of her newfound ex-holy man lover, and they both handle their undead munchies in ways that emphasis their differences as well as their co-dependence. The loss of humanity and faith, (as well as the corruption of a power that was never granted), all collide here, making this South Korea's finest vampire movie.
(1960)
Dir - John Llewellyn Moxey
The first collaboration between producers/future Amicus founders Milton Subotsky and Max Rosenberg, The City of the Dead a.k.a. Horror Hotel is a fun, eerie, low-budget B-flick and one of the many earlier ones to feature Christopher Lee. A British production though set in Massachusetts with several of the English actors slipping their American accents, it takes bleak, fog-ridden scenery to new heights within the fictitious/cursed/quasi-ghost town of Whitewood. The script grabs one or two elements from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho which was released the same year, also throwing a few surprises and atmospheric moments into its tale of sinister witchcraft. Said story does not hold up under a microscope as it is littered with illogical details, but it has a popcorn-munching charm due to the macabre subject matter, John Llewellyn Moxey's solid direction, and a brisk enough running time to kill seventy-eight minutes with some adequate spookiness.
(1957)
Dir - Jacques Tourneur
Depending on who you ask, Night of the Demon is either one of the most significantly flawed though otherwise exceptional British horror films of the 1950s or just plain exceptional. A loose adaptation of M.R. James' 1911 short story "Casting the Ruins", screenwriter Charles Bennett, director Jacques Tourneur, and lead actor Dana Andrews all allegedly disapproved of producer Hal E. Chester's insistence on showing the title monster on screen. Since the supernatural is made undeniable by these bookending shots of the demon, (not to mention the fact that said demon looks both horrendous and silly), the primary narrative focus of skeptic vs believer fails to be as psychologically creepy. Take those scenes out and the movie conveys a powerful spell of suggestion and even though our imaginations are short-changed by the final presentation, this is still a notable work in the genre.
(1951)
Dir - Christian Nyby
Serving as a suspicious allegory for both Communism and post Hiroshima scientific meddling, The Thing from Another World was one of several paramount works in sci-fi horror that the 1950s produced. Stylistically unique for not naming any of the actors in the opening title sequence and for having producer Howard Hawk's trademark overlapping dialog, it features one of the most abrupt and genuinely startling monster reveals there ever was. Director Christian Nyby takes the slow boil approach and keeps the towering alien figure out of deliberate focus most of the time, with the cruising pace certainly helping. Though John Carpenter's remake has rightfully gone down as the comparatively more renowned version, this one is still exceptional for its era and as essential as anything else of its kind.
(1939)
Dir - Rowland V. Lee
With James Whale out of the picture and a four year break from the legendary The Bride of Frankenstein, Universal at least kept Boris Karloff on board for one last go with Son of Frankenstein. Though Karloff is back to being silent and mostly stumbling around for his small handful of scenes, Béla Lugosi makes his first of two appearance as Igor the crippled criminal and surpasses his horror rival in a lesser-billed part that nevertheless steals the movie. Basil Rathbone does respectable work as the title Frankenstein, continuing in his father's experiments with some coxing while awkwardly and badly lying to Lionel Atwill's wooden-armed police inspector who Mel Brooks would hilariously parody in Young Frankenstein some decades later. The German Expressionist set design is top-notch and even without Whale's eccentric flourishes, this is still a slick addition to the series.
(2006)
Dir - Kiyoshi Kurosawa
For his J-Horror Theater entry Retribution, Kiyoshi Kurosawa crafted another ambiguous, sombre, and chilling work in the supernatural. He is once again joined by frequent collaborator actor Kōji Yakusho, playing yet another police detective as is often the case. Structured as a crime film with ghosts, the narrative is only penetrable to a point before it becomes more introspective than coherent. This is hardly a problem though, party due to Yakusho's stellar performance and Kurosawa's stylistic tranquility which is as fine-tuned as ever. The filmmaker uses unsettling music and sound effects as well as shots of female specters slowly gliding around while wailing with their raven-toned hair blowing from an ethereal wind. Long, quiet shots linger more regularly though, which sets a contemplative mood where both the characters and the viewer can let the atmosphere sink in. Such things are necessary where themes like guilt and neglect are concerned, and Kurosawa handles them respectfully while delivering something both challenging and spooky in equal measures.
(1972)
Dir - Roy Ward Baker
Amicus Productions soldiered on with their forth anthology horror film Asylum, the first to be directed by Hammer mainstay Roy Ward Baker. Though Robert Boch had been contributing screenplays for Amicus founders/producers Max Rosenberg and Milton Subotsky as far aback as 1965's The Skull, this would be his last collaboration with the company. It is a uniformly strong one though, with each of the four stories proving memorable. The opening features an Amicus trademark of reanimated severed limbs, the second has a strange glowing suit tailored with alchemic instructions, the third has one of Boch's most famous motifs of a split personality, and the last one features some of the weirdest and creepiest "toys coming to life" ideas in any movie. The twist ending is foreseeable yet still plenty of fun and familiar genre players Peter Cushing, Herbert Lom, and Patrick Magee help to further class-up the proceedings as they are wont to do.
(2001)
Dir - Guillermo del Toro
Guillermo del Toro's first film set and shot in Spain, The Devil's Backbone more obviously establishes his auteuristic tendency of melding supernatural horror in a traumatic historical setting. The Spanish Civil War is the backdrop here where a haunted orphanage brings out the heartfelt bonding of the benevolent caretakers and children who are under their protection, while simultaneously showing the worst aspects of murderous and venomous greed inherent in Eduardo Noriega's traumatized, now grown orphan who is up to no good. Stylized as a Sergio Leon Western except with ghosts, del Toro's and frequent director of photography collaborator Guillermo Navarro capture all of the majesty and isolated terror of both Madrid's desert and war-torn desperation. The violence is uncompromising and as usual for del Toro, the otherworldly beings are out to protect instead of terrorize those around them as there is plenty enough horror in the real world to be afraid of.
(2013)
Dir - Jim Jarmusch
Jim Jarmusch's poetic and enticing take on vampirism in Only Lovers Left Alive takes such mythos to both clever and beautiful places. Jarmusch struggled for a number of years to secure funding for the project, with Tom Hiddleston stepping in for an unavailable Michael Fassbender once the film was finally underway. As usual for the director's work, it has an unapologetically hipster aesthetic, filled with vintage guitars, vintage gear, vintage literally references, and Hiddleston's vampire being perpetually brooding and disinterested in how intoxicatingly cool he is. Tilda Swinton's Eve to his Adam is a much more jovial though just as wise and introspective character. This balances out their tender and admirable relationship where as the title would suggest, their love for each other and shared passion for "the work" across the centuries is ultimately what powers them on to equally endure and embrace any further centuries to come.
(1922)
Dir - Benjamin Christensen
Easily the most unique silent work in the horror genre, Häxan is Danish filmmaker Benjamin Christensen's quasi-documentary about "Witchcraft through the ages". Told chronologically in seven parts, it was meticulously researched and bounces between what would become standard non-fiction approaches such as showing and describing artwork from the time period to elaborate live action reenactments of both realistic witch trials and dramatized witch's sabbats. Christensen himself portrays the Devil in a number of scenes, incessantly flaying his tongue about in a lewd fashion, and there are numerous, memorable visuals that bring such demonic anarchy to life. Bold for its time and both educational and humanitarian in its depictions, it would prove influential for decades to come.
Dir - Benjamin Christensen
Easily the most unique silent work in the horror genre, Häxan is Danish filmmaker Benjamin Christensen's quasi-documentary about "Witchcraft through the ages". Told chronologically in seven parts, it was meticulously researched and bounces between what would become standard non-fiction approaches such as showing and describing artwork from the time period to elaborate live action reenactments of both realistic witch trials and dramatized witch's sabbats. Christensen himself portrays the Devil in a number of scenes, incessantly flaying his tongue about in a lewd fashion, and there are numerous, memorable visuals that bring such demonic anarchy to life. Bold for its time and both educational and humanitarian in its depictions, it would prove influential for decades to come.
(1984)
Dir - Wes Craven
Though it is not as memorable or influential as John Carpenter's Halloween if we are to compare, Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street still stands above the other debuts of the big iconic horror movie villains from the era, namely the first Friday the 13th, Hellraiser, and Child's Play films to name but a few of the more household name entries. Craven drew from a number of personal experiences and real life fears, concocting the blade-fingered demon Freddy Krueger both out of news articles on sudden unexplained death syndrome and a conglomerate of a creepy old man and a school bully from his childhood. The initial results here are less schlocky than both the many future Elm Street installments and Craven's usual work, plus the nightmare/death sequences remain some of the most memorable horror movie moments ever filmed.
(2001)
Dir - Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Filmmaker Kiyoshi Kurosawa returned to the horror genre for the Kansai Telecasting Corporation which approached him with the idea of adapting Mark McShane's novel Seance on a Wet Afternoon which had already been cinimatically adapted in 1964 by Bryan Forbes. Here simply titled Séance, it is another masterwork for the filmmaker. Even with noticeably meager production values and the confines which are comparatively more censored than something theatrically released, the presentation is unencumbered and remains both captivating and eerie. Essentially a tale of well-meaning modest people caught off-guard and becoming overwhelmed by grief from their panicked choices, the mood is somber and tragic which allows for the supernatural occurrences to be more calm and oppressing than shocking, which suites the director's style effortlessly.
(1967)
Dir - Freddie Francis
For their second anthology outing Torture Garden, Robert Bloch was in the writer's chair and Amicus was pressured by their US distributors at Columbia Pictures to include two American actors in Jack Palance and Beverley Adams, with Burgess Meredith also joining the fold as the mysterious carnival show ringleader Dr. Diablo. Freddie Francis was back behind the lens from 1965's Dr. Terror's House of Horrors, though Peter Cushing was delegated to a smaller part than the title tole there. While Adams is too underwhelming in her "Terror Over Hollywood" segment and "Mr. Steinway" has a silly hook of a killer piano, they along with every other story are played straight enough to be creepy. The opening "Enoch" has a ghastly premise of a head-eating demon cat while "The Man Who Collected Poe" is a wonderful part-parody of Roger Corman's famous series of films from American International Pictures and features a performance by Palance that is less macho though just as eccentrically intense as usual.
(1964)
Dir - José Mojica Marins
A remarkably bold horror film both for its time and for its native Brazil, José Mojica Marins' At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul was the first in a series of movies where the independent filmmaker would explore blasphemous hedonism. His Coffin Joe character makes his debut here; a bizarre and nihilistic force of nature who openly mocks and shuns all religious beliefs, superstitions, or any weak behavior of any kind. At the same time, he shows nothing but benevolence towards children and proclaims that carrying on one's bloodline through mating is the true meaning of life. That and living according to one's will which he makes a perpetual point to force upon others. While Marins spends more time here ranting and raving his sacrilegious tirades than indulging in sadistic set pieces, (which he would certainly get to in later installments), the non-existent budget still allows for memorable and macabre moments. The final lunacy-inducing showdown in a spirit-infested cemetery is particularly fitting.
(1969)
Dir - Narciso Ibáñez Serrador
The first of only two theatrically released films by Spanish director Narciso Ibáñez Serrador, The House That Screamed a.k.a La residencia could stand as one of the most stylish and best of all boarding school nightmare movies. Set in an institution run by women where the only males present are an older groundskeeper and the Headmistress's son who is forbidden to interact with any of the female students, the movie is brimful of repressed sexual energy. With plot twists being heavily utilized in horror films almost since the genre's inception, it is rare for them to be properly effective, especially for the viewer who has honed their instincts to spot such things. Serrador and Juan Tébar's story here pulls off such a trick though with a few unexpected turns that culminate in a rug-pulling ending. Outside of the rewarding mystery, thankfully the entire presentation has an eerie atmosphere benefited by wonderful Gothic sets and artful, slow motion kill scenes.
(1967)
Dir - Konstantin Yershov/Georgi Kropachyov
The first Soviet-era horror film released in the USSR, Viy is a fun and stylized work based off of the novella of the same name by famed Russian author Nikolai Gogol. Both the story and the movie make references to otherworldly creatures such as vampires, werewolves, demons, and witches and though there are certain folklore influences throughout, the melting pot of supernatural components is a unique and bizarre one. Singular in its presentation as well, the bulk of it has a whimsical feel with a schlubby, bumbling, and orphaned seminary student getting drunk and persistently trying to bail on his appointed duties. Yet when he is forced to be locked inside of a chapel to pray for an old crone that he had previously had a confrontation with, (now disguising herself as a wealthy merchant's daughter), the tone kicks into pure nightmarish spookiness. The final series of set pieces inside said chapel are fantastic and atmospheric, and though they amount to only a handful of minutes of screen time, few moments in cinematic horrordome are as memorable.
(1960)
Dir - Georges Franju
A rare genre film to emerge from France at the turn of the 1960s, Georges Franju's adaptation of Jean Redon's novel Eyes Without a Face was an equal parts shocking and poetic piece of work that had a lingering influence. Franju was tasked with making a horror movie by producer Jules Borkon, yet he was to avoid several key aspects of the initial story for censorship reasons. This meant that animal cruelty, excessive blood, and mad scientist elements had to be removed. Within such confines, the perspective was changed from Pierre Brasseur's doctor character to that of his daughter Édith Scob. The latter turns in a purposely aloof performance as an isolated woman becoming increasingly troubled by her father's immoral diligence to restore her now disfigured features that he is held responsible for causing. Franju's direction is patient as he presents a world where people are cut off from the normalcy that they so desperately crave. Despite the gore being scaled back, the film is also notable for its still grotesque surgery scene where we see the entire process of a woman's face being removed in one piece.
(1982)
Dir - Frank Henenlotter
Frank Henenlotter's highly demented debut Basket Case kicked off the director's most well-known franchise, one that would get more comedic and ridiculous as it went on. Made on a very measly $35,000 budget and shot in part on Manhattan's 42nd Street, the primitive production drawbacks perfectly complement the seedy setting and wackadoo premise. Kevin Van Hentenryck turns in a fitting and quirky performance as the sheltered "normal" brother to the comically deformed Belial; an oversized, brain-textured head with arms that is also a certifiable rage monster. The creature's distorted screaming sound design is hilariously disturbing, plus the combination of primitive puppetry and stop motion animation makes him consistently unnatural. Though the presentation is bush-league and absurd, it is still bizarre and unsettling, making for an ideally labeled cult movie if ever there was one.
(1975)
Dir - Masahiro Shinoda
A rare kaidan horror work from Japanese New Wave filmmaker Masahiro Shinoda, Under the Blossoming Cherry Trees utilizes the familiar folkloric, Edo period, supernatural framework of many other such movies from the country, yet its outcome is more bold and unique. While the gore and nudity is not explicit, plenty of violence and perversity goes down as a barbaric mountain man murders and beheads an absurd amount of people to appease his kidnapped and sadistically eccentric "wife". Both of the main characters are morally deplorable, yet watching their bizarre exploits and how each one of them takes extreme advantage of the other becomes compelling all the same. The scenic visuals are lovely and make for an unearthly clash along with Shinichirô Ikebe and Tôru Takemitsu's haunting music and the horrific acts of the people on screen.
(2016)
Dir - Emiliano Rocha Minter
The spirit of provocative absurdism is alive and well in Mexican filmmaker Emiliano Rocha Minter's full-length debut We Are the Flesh; a midnight movie that channels boundary-pushing excess by way of a sexed-up, cannibalistic, urban cave nightmare. Minter allegedly wrote the script over an obsessive period of several months and it comes out like a deliberately extreme stream of conscious exploration of spiritual transformation through the body. In this universe, true enlightenment comes via unfiltered perversion and Minter pulls no punches in its depiction, with non-simulated sex, one taboo-breaking moment after the other, and a visual aesthetic that is filthy yet mind-bending. It is all spearheaded by a fearless cast, headed by Noé Hernández who is easily one of the most hilariously demented antagonists in recent genre cinema.
(1994)
Dir - Neil Jordan
Slickly made and with a hip cast to boot, Interview with the Vampire emerged after a long wait as Anne Rice's source material had been published way back in 1976 and she had already written three sequels to her Vampire Chronicles before the first film adaptation here. Considering that Rice was heavily involved in the production and penned her own screenplay, it is largely faithful to the novel, though notable changes and omissions were still made. Featuring a star-making performance from a twelve year-old Kirsten Dunst, a wonderfully melodramatic one from Tom Cruise, a highly sensual one from Antonio Banderas, and a particularly brooding one from Brad Pitt, it has an A-list charm that is well maintained by director Neil Jordan, who leans into Rice's contemplative and evocative romanticism with gorgeous design work and plenty of blood.
(2019)
Dir - Rose Glass
Another A24 distributed debut, (this one being from English filmmaker Rose Glass), Saint Maud is a stark and beautifully photographed examination of psychosis that is equally touching and horrifying. Partially filmed in the seaside town of Scarborough, North Yorkshire, Glass goes for a religiously tweaked reworking of Martin Scorsese's seminal Taxi Driver, here focusing on a traumatized and incredibly lonely young nurse who finds god after a harrowing medical accident occurred on the job some years earlier. As the title character, Morfydd Clark is wonderful as a woman whose mental illness is compassionately portrayed even as it goes off the rails, all by giving her a self-righteous agenda that is more heartbreaking than unlikable. Her bonding with an equally unsettled former dancer who is riding out the last days of her cancer diagnosis paint a melancholic picture where human beings are desperately struggling to connect and find purpose. The horror elements are made all the more unsettling due to their sparseness and unpredictability, leading to particularly startling finale.
(1987)
Dir - Dario Argento
Dario Argento closed out the 1980s with the still largely nonsensical yet kinetically paced, memorable, and nasty Opera. A typical giallo with a black gloved killer that is up to no good, the director was inspired by his critics and movie patrons who winced at the gory murder sequences in his work. Thus the gimmick was born for the killer to tape Cristina Marsillach's eyelids open with needles so that she cannot look away from the over the top violence transpiring right in front of her. Plot holes are practically collapsing upon each other in Argento and frequent collaborator Franco Ferrini's script, (which is nothing new and even enduring in its own fashion), but this is easily a go-to example of the former's flashy and visual strengths behind the busy lens making up for a hilariously inept narrative.
(2012)
Dir - Eduardo Sánchez
Proving that The Blair Witch Project was no fluke, co-writer/director Eduardo Sánchez delivered the outstanding Lovely Molly in 2012. His third feature length film and the second that he handled solo behind the lens, it does find a way to shoehorn some found footage moments in, which could otherwise be seen as unnecessary. In actuality though, the movie's unnerving tone is kept in check and the ambitious story alludes to a variety of disturbing things. It all finds logical footing for the title character (played rivitingly by Gretchen Lodge), to bust out a camcorder in order to prove that she is suffering from far more than conventional madness. This is a rare example of numerous familiar tropes being combined in a compelling way and Sánchez never makes the sum of their parts feel pandering. Playing to the audience's intelligence as well as their spooky-triggered nerves, it is a triumph.
(1982)
Dir - Sidney J. Furie
One of the most abundantly used motifs in horror movies is where the woman is presumed to be delusional yet is in fact experiencing supernatural occurrences. Director Sidney J. Furie's adaptation of Frank De Felitta's novel The Entity utilizes this premise to the fullest and it is a harrowing depiction of a single mother's excessively traumatic ordeal when the logically unexplainable is also unbelieved. While plausibility is stretched about as far as possible concerning how the events are handled, De Felitta's script, (which was based off of his own book that took inspiration from the 1974 poltergeist case of Doris Bither), still proposes some interesting ideas. The horrific moments are intense as is Barbara Hershey's fearless performance, plus as a psychological vs paranormal character study, the film is as thorough and gripping as they come.
(1984)
Dir - Joe Dante
A darkly comedic Yuletide monster movie from producers Michael Finnell and Stephen Spielberg, screenwriter Chris Columbus, and director Joe Dante, Gremlins was released the same weekend as Ghostbusters and both movies would become endearingly successful genre mash-ups. Though it has a noticeably lighter and family-friendly tone than any of the low-brow slasher films of the day, one of its best aspects is how it does not pull back from delivering the creeps and letting the title creatures indulge in violent mayhem as well as meeting some gruesome ends. Chris Walas' puppet effects themselves were nightmarish to achieve from a production standpoint, but they are fantastically realized and would in turn spawn a handful of knock-off movies in the following years, none of which would work nearly as well as this, Dante's own full-blown nyuck-fest Gremlins 2: The New Batch notwithstanding.
(1993)
Dir - Guillermo del Toro
The independent debut Cronos from Guillermo del Toro is an ambitious and unique vampire movie that tweaks the cinematic undead mythos with the undeniable style and sentiment that the filmmaker would only expand upon throughout his career. Even this early in the game, (del Toro was only twenty-eight at the time), and with a modest budget at best, a fully-formed and sympathetic angle is taken with the "diabolical" monster of choice. Federico Luppi's elderly antique dealer rises from the dead in biblical fashion three days after succumbing to the vampire curse through a mechanical scarab created by an immortality-seeking alchemist, all the while having a loving and protective relationship with his mute granddaughter. The actual bad guys of course are capitalists, Claudio Brook and his spoiled nephew Ron Pearlman acting as his muscle, both of whom represent simple-minded selfishness.
(1979)
Dir - Jean Rollin
The second collaboration between filmmaker Jean Rollin and actor Brigitte Lahaie was one of the most defining of either of their careers. Fascination has the standard Rollin motifs of the dual vampire girls, sex, see-through colored robes, a château setting shot on location, and of course blood, yet the pacing is more rousing and the story less surreal than usual. This is to the movie's benefit as it is not only comparatively more penetrable than his other challenging works, but it also has a classy gloss to it that makes it pleasantly stand out from a particular style that was not simply rehashing itself ad nauseum. Thematically, it pits a small cult of bourgeois women against a low-level thief who is meant to be bled-out in an uncontrollable manner. Such blood lust is deliberately confused with love, making the class dynamic more justifiable in the eyes of the alluring, evil seductresses. Though its single posh setting may be lacking in the often quirky and dilapidated weirdness of Rollin's other films, it is a beautiful, atmospheric, and sexy work all the same.
(1967)
Dir - José Mojica Marins
The Coffin Joe saga continues with This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse; a direct sequel to José Mojica Marins' crude and bizarre At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul. More of the same with a longer running time, larger supporting cast, and comparatively more sophisticated set pieces, Marins' infamous and perpetual blasphemer Zé do Caixão doubles down on his quest to carry on his legacy by kidnapping, tormenting, and ultimately murdering several young local women before eventually finding a willing female accomplice. He also has a hunchbacked assistant for some reason and murders several men who try and turn him in, profaning the entire time in the name of glorious atheism. Though Marins was allegedly forced by censors to ADR some dialog at the last minute where Coffin Joe stupidly repents and opens his heart to Jesus, this is still a stylish and wicked work which features an elongated nightmare hell sequence done in vibrant color no less.
(1972)
Dir - John Llewellyn Moxey
The film that would launch both a sequel and an influential, season long television series, The Night Stalker was the first production credit from Dan Curtis that he did not direct himself. An ABC Movie of the Week and based off of a then unpublished novel by Jeff Rice, it features Darren McGavin as Carl Kolchak; a quick-witted and detrimentally stubborn news reporter that is hellbent on notifying the public of the unbelievable yet true supernatural occurrences going down in his city of employment. The gag of him being endlessly thwarted by officials and the police department, as well as having hilarious verbal throw-downs with his editor Tony Vincenzo, (played by Psycho's expository dialog man Simon Oakland), are established here, plus the movie has a wonderful, low-key, and intense atmosphere, plus a memorable and creepy vampire in Barry Atwater.
(1981)
Dir - Joe Dante
A high water mark in werewolf cinema and one of a handful of such movies to emerge in the early 1980s, The Howling helped to further push the boundaries of practical makeup effects as well as kicking off Joe Dante's most prolific decade from behind the lens. More inspired by Gary Brandner's novel of the same name than properly adapted from it, a number of significant changes were brought in by screenwriters John Sayles and Terence H. Winkless, elaborating on the clandestine werewolf society angle. Being a Dante film, it is loaded with Easter eggs, (including the characters names, many of which are taken from horror movie directors), as well as the occasional cameo, this time from both Roger Corman and Forest J. Ackerman. Rob Bottin's transformation sequences are the only ones ever filmed that rival Rick Baker's in An American Werewolf in London and if anything else, the movie is a masterpiece for that alone.
(2021)
Dir - Jane Schoenbrun
A singular examination of the internet's more subtly disturbed niche culture in the form of a creepypasta challenge that promises a dark submersion into another world, Jane Schoenbrun's We're All Going to the World's Fair is an eerie and ambiguous debut. Considering that Scheonbrun is nonbinary and described the film as seeking truth in their coming out process, layers can be read into the delicate narrative concerning an unassuming teenage girl who is never seen to have any friends, attend school, or have any interaction with her parents save for one off-screen disciplinary shout from her presumed father. Instead, she immerses herself in the comfort of online acceptance or at least that is the only glimpse of her life that we see. Is her decent into the unwholesome roleplaying game fabricated as a desperate cry for approval or is it a legitimate byproduct of that very pursuit? The same goes for a middle-aged man that she befriends along the way. Utilizing a painstaking and monotonous structure where the camera lingers for minutes on end, the ominous moments become that much more effective and only open more doors as to what may or may not be happening.
(1960)
Dir - Roger Corman
The first in what would be eight acclaimed and influential Gothic horror collaborations between Roger Corman and American International Pictures, (seven of which would feature Vincent Price in the lead and all of which would be either explicitly or barely related to Edgar Allan Poe stories), House of Usher deserves an important spot in the annals of the genre. Richard Matheson's screenplay expands upon the source material which had already been adapted a handful of times in the silent era, memorably so no less. Price is wonderfully eccentric in the lead as the macabre, obsessed, and overtly sensitive Roderick Usher and he would go on to play several similar characters throughout the rest of the decade. Visually though, the movie is an atmospheric triumph, firmly establishing its Eastmancolor-tinged spooky scenery that countless filmmakers would rightfully continue to emulate.
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