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?"
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!"
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."
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment