31 Days of Horror 2019

My digital archaeology from the rubble of Elon's Fortress of Faeces continues with my #31DaysofHorror selections from 2019:

1. Cooties (2014): A zombie virus that only affects the pre-pubescent breaks out in an elementary school. Gratifyingly grisly, and funny with it. “Nap time, motherfuckers!” 

2. Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948): My gateway horror film (and first exposure to Bela Lugosi's seminal portrayal of Dracula). Two idiots collide with the Universal monsters in arguably the greatest horror comedy of all time and a horror aficionado was born.

3. Wolfen (1981): A great, scuzzy pre-gentrification New York movie and director Michael Wadleigh’s sole non-documentary feature. Albert Finney stalks the streets searching for whatever is responsible for a series of murders that look a lot like animal attacks.

4. The Last Man on Earth (1964): Vincent Price Is Legend. The first adaptation of Richard Matheson's dystopian vampire masterwork and a crucial stepping stone on the road to Night of the Living Dead. In the public domain for your instant gratification. 

5. Def by Temptation (1990): A libidinous succubus preys on the patrons of a New York City bar in one of Troma’s best, shot with brio by the mighty Ernest Dickerson. It’s a shame that multi-hyphenate James Bond III seems to have dropped out of sight after this. 

6. In Fabric (2018): A malevolent "artery red" dress wreaks murderous havoc in Peter Strickland’s bewitching phantasmagoria. One of my favourite films of the year.

7. Frozen (2010): Three friends are stranded on a ski-lift in Adam Green’s masterful exercise in tension and terror. Will the wolves get them before the hypothermia does? 

8. A Bucket of Blood (1959): Walter Paisley is a gifted sculptor, particularly when he’s working with clay and corpses. Roger Corman’s satire on beatniks and the art world is one of his very best. 

9. All the Colours of the Dark (1972): Edwige Fenech has been through a lot. A car accident, a miscarriage, disturbing nightmares...and now she’s being pursued around London by a coven of devil-worshippers. 

10. Army of Darkness (1992): Alright you Primitive Screwheads, listen up! I know this isn’t a widely held feeling amongst Deadheads, but this is my personal favourite of the Evil Dead series, with Bruce Campbell at his grooviest. 

11. One Cut of the Dead (2017): You’ll grudgingly admire the 37 minute single take opening shot, but won’t really understand what all the fuss is about. Hang in there. Your persistence will be rewarded. By the time you reach the end, you’ll get it, I promise. Pom!

12. Tucker & Dale vs. Evil (2010): Two amiable hillbillies just want to enjoy their holiday cabin, but get mistaken for a pair of crazed killers. Let the splattery misconceptions commence! 

13. Salt (2017): A mother and her sick daughter keep a demon at bay with a ring of salt...and it's only two minutes long...and you can watch it here.

14. Dreamscape (1984): Psychics that can enter people’s dreams and scare them to death in their sleep, and I’ve been haunted by the memory of that terrifying Snakeman creature ever since.

15. Carry On Screaming! (1966): The twelfth and the best of the bawdy Carry On series. A glorious Hammer pastiche ripe with innuendo and Fenella Fielding’s vamping.

16. Grabbers (2012): Bloodsucking alien creatures invade a small island off the coast of Ireland. Their only weakness? Alcohol. To survive, the locals are going to have to hit the pub before Last Orders are called.

17. Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors (1965): Dr. Schreck uses tarot cards to predict the fates of his fellow train passengers in the first Amicus anthology film. Bonus treats: Alan “Fluff” Freeman, plus a performance by the great Tubby Hayes.

18. Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972): He has wreaked his revenge. Now he craves immortality! No scenery is left unchewed by the mighty Vincent Price, clearly relishing every moment of this. And he sings Somewhere Over The Rainbow. An utter joy.

19. Innocent Blood (1992): Vampire Anne Parillaud prowls the streets of Pittsburgh feasting on mobsters, including the great Robert Loggia, in John Landis’ genre mashup.

20. Der Samurai (2014): A katana-wielding transvestite carves a bloody swathe through an East German village and the only person who can stop him is a young police officer wrestling with his sexuality. A smart, distinctive, gore-flecked blast that I wrote about in greater detail back in 2015.

21. Dr Jekyll & Sister Hyde (1971): Hammer’s witty gender fluid riff on Stevenson’s frequently adapted gothic novella, with the good doctor Ralph Bates transforming into the malevolent Martine Beswick.

22. Q (1982): “He doesn’t die easy.” A gargantuan flying lizard lurks on the roof of the Chrysler Building munching on New Yorkers in Larry Cohen’s fabulous creature feature. 

23. Cub (2014): There's something in the woods! A grisly, inventive Flemish slasher that validates my lifelong antipathy to camping. Lean, efficient and the exposition is sliced right down to the bone. A splattery joy.

24. Race with the Devil (1975): Two couples set off in an RV travelling from Texas to Colorado for “the best damn vacation they ever had.” They didn't expect the Satanic orgy and ritual human sacrifice that they stumble upon. 

25. The Burning (1981): One of the best post-Friday the 13th summer camp slashers, featuring the big screen debuts of Jason Alexander, Fisher Stevens and Holly Hunter. "Tonight's the night. Cropsy's going to get what he deserves."

26. The Hitcher (1986): My all-time favourite Rutger Hauer performance in this stone-cold cat-and-mouse classic.

27. The Girl with All the Gifts (2016): A group of children infected with a zombie virus have retained their ability to think and reason - could they be the saviours of humanity, their doom or something else entirely? 

28. Bubba Ho-Tep (2002): Elvis Lives! And whiles away his twilight years in a retirement home with a man who may be JFK. They are all that stands between an ancient Egyptian mummy and the souls of the old folk at the home. 

29. Sugar Hill (1974): “Meet SUGAR HILL and her ZOMBIE HIT MEN...The Mafia has never met anything like them!” What could I possibly add to a killer tagline like that?

30. Daughters of Darkness (1971): A newlywed couple cross paths with the mysterious Countess Báthory (the luminescent Delphine Seyrig) in Harry Kümel’s lush psychosexual nightmare of ecstasy.

31. The Banana Splits Movie (2019): The show never went off the air in 1970. Fleegle, Bingo, Drooper and Snorky are now robotic performers. This is the night the furry animal psychedelic rock band malfunctions and attacks the studio audience. A splattery joy. 

31 Days of Horror 2018

Once upon a time, when the Social Media Platform Formerly Known as Twitter was still both sporadically fun and populous, before an inexplicably wealthy hatemonger doofus sent it into a protracted death spiral, there was an October hashtag #31DaysofHorror (or #31DaysofHalloween) where the denizens of Film Twitter would, day-by-day, list a favourite horror movie. Engagement on not-Twitter is in the toilet, and the enshittification of the platform has noticably accelerated, so I wanted to rescue my own personally curated lists of Halloweens past before it's too late. I first took a swing at #31DaysofHorror back in 2018, and these are the movies I wanted to give a shout-out to. My hope then, as now, is that someone out there discovers something interesting for the first time. Here we go...

1. Scream Blacula Scream (1973): Prince Mamuwalde returns in a superior sequel (and I loved Blacula). Highlights include Queen Pam Grier, plus Mamuwalde effortlessly fending off a mugger.

2. Berberian Sound Studio (2012): Slippery, sickly, elliptical, gorgeous. The obsolete audio technology of the recent past, the demolished innards of violated vegetables and the excruciating sounds of the unseen The Equestrian Vortex.

3. Tales from the Crypt (1972): One of the best of the Amicus anthologies. Joan Collins vs. Homicidal Santa, one of my favourite Peter Cushing performances, and Ralph Richardson as The Crypt Keeper. "Who's next? Perhaps...you?"

4. The Happiness of the Katakuris (2001): The hills are alive with the sound of screaming. Takashi Miike's loose remake of Kim Jee-woon's debut, the superb The Quiet Family, is the only Japanese musical comedy horror film (with claymation) on the list.

5. I Love Sarah Jane (2008): A short film about young love and zombies, featuring an early performance by Mia Wasikowska. And all fourteen minutes of it are available to watch right here. 

6. The Curse of Frankenstein (1957): I love all six Peter Cushing-Hammer-Baron Frankenstein pictures (Terence Fisher is a woefully underrated filmmaker) and this is the one where it all began. "I've harmed nobody, just robbed a few graves!"

7. Prevenge (2006): Kids these days are really spoilt. It's like, "mummy, I want a PlayStation! Mummy, I want you to kill that man!"

8. Twilight Zone The Movie (1983): From the stunning "Do you want to see something really scary?" prologue to the John Lithgow vs. the Nightmare at 20,000 Feet denouement, this is a glorious billet-doux to Rod Serling's frightful fables.

9. Death Line (aka Raw Meat) (1972): Subterranean cannibals snacking on the passengers at Russell Square station, a fantastically idiosyncratic central performance by Donald Pleasence, and a bonkers cameo from Christopher Lee. "Mind the doors!"

10.Der Golem, wie er in die Welt kam (1920): Underseen, hugely influential early German Expressionist horror film inspired by Jewish folklore. In 16th century Prague, a rabbi creates a giant golem out of clay to protect Jews facing persecution.

11. The Raven (1963): Roger Corman twists Edgar Allan Poe into a lush gothic comedy and brings Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Boris Karloff and even little Jack Nicholson along for the ride. Fantastically good fun.

12. Starry Eyes (2014): An aspiring actress finds out just how far she's willing to go for fame and fortune. Brutal, tense and stylish, with a stunning, punishing star turn from Alex Essoe.

13. Cuadecuc, Vampir (1971): On the set of Jess Franco's Count Dracula, Pere Portabella shot behind-the-scenes footage on high contrast B&W film stock to create this phantasmagorical ouroboros.

14. The Innkeepers (2011): The dying days before the Yankee Pedlar Inn closes for good and the two remaining employees grab one last chance to find out if there is any truth to the rumours that the hotel is haunted. A terrific slow-burn chiller.

15. Dog Soldiers (2002): Neil Marshall's debut feature pits a squad of soldiers on a military training exercise against a pack of werewolves. Cue a hearty serving of laughs and splatter. (Sidenote: Dog Soldiers was the first review I wrote that was bumped from publication to make way for a paid advertisement. The joys of print media. Grrrrr.)

16. Matango (1963): You are what you eat. The survivors of a shipwreck slowly turn into mushroom monsters. They are fungi to be around.

17. Blue Sunshine (1977): "There's a bald maniac in there, and he's going bat shit!" First they lose their hair. Then they turn into homicidal lunatics. Is it because of the LSD they took a decade ago?

18. Night of the Comet (1984): The aftereffects of a passing comic pits two Valley Girls against hordes of cannibal mutants - and it's even better than that sounds. Like The Day of the Triffids, but with huge perms, mall shopping and karate chops.

19. Creep (2014): A videographer gets hired to spend a day filming the very, very odd Josef, in a film that makes the most of the deeply unsettling persona of Mark Duplass.

20. Lifeforce (1985): Tobe Hooper's messy and hugely enjoyable riff on the post-war British sci-fi of John Wyndham and Nigel Kneale, slathered with gore and then fired out of the Golan and Globus Cannon.

21. Kwaidan (1964): Masaki Kobayashi's beautiful, sumptuous, chilling anthology of Japanese fables, folk tales and ghost stories.

22. The Wailing (2016): A mysterious stranger. Mysterious killings. Mysterious diseases. Paranoia, humour, gore, secrets, chills and, ultimately, answers are all cooked up in Hong-jin Na's hearty stew and served ice-cold.

23. The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971): One of the best tag lines of all time, plus Vincent Price as the eponymous Phibes, fiddling with his organ and meting out wildly inventive vengeance on the nine doctors he blames for his wife's death.

24. Thirst (2009): Thérèse Raquin with vampirism. Lust, faith, desire, sacrifice...and Park Chan-wook doesn't stint on the red stuff either.

25. Black Christmas (1974): "The calls are coming from the house!" A little early in the year for this one perhaps, but this superlative slasher is damn good any time. Plus Margot Kidder spells "fellatio" for a dumb cop.

26. The Hidden (1987): Before Venom, before Men in Black, before Twin Peaks, there was Kyle MacLachlan taking on an alien parasite with a flamethrower, and it was glorious.

27. The Frighteners (1996): Michael J. Fox sees dead people in my favourite Peter Jackson movie.

28. Let's Scare Jessica to Death (1971): Moving to the country does nothing to alleviate psychologically fragile Jessica's paranoia and fear. Fun fact: The original screenplay was a satire called It Drinks Hippy Blood.

29. The Changeling (1980): A grief-stricken George C. Scott makes the mistake of moving into a haunted house. "That house is not fit to live in. No one's been able to live in it. It doesn't want people."

30. The Old Dark House (1932): A light fluffy confection of a haunted house picture, featuring a suitably droll Melvyn Douglas, and Karloff on top bestial form. Lots of fun.

31. The Final Girls (2015): Mourning the loss of her scream queen mother, Taissa Farmiga and her friends find themselves transported into her mother's greatest hit, 80s cult slasher Camp Bloodbath. Metatextual fun with hoary ol' horror tropes.