Time for another batch of exhumed #31DaysofHorror recommendations for the witching season. They're coming to get you, Barbara!
1. #Alive (2020): Now that’s what I call self-isolation! As Seoul is overwhelmed by zombies, a videogame live-streamer hiding out in his apartment is running out of food. Inventive, tense, grisly fun.
2. Greta (2018): The magnificent Isabelle Huppert is the Sweet Little Old Lady from Hell in Neil Jordan’s enjoyably preposterous psychothriller.
3. The Tingler (1959): Every #31DaysofHorror list needs a generous helping of Vincent Price, and this William Castle shocker is a doozy. If only we could all still see it with “Percepto” (those pesky hidden buzzers vibrating our seats).
4. Thriller (1983): No mere mortal can resist Michael Jackson’s masterwork, bolstered by an astonishing array of talent: John Landis, Rick Baker, Elmer Bernstein, Rod Temperton and the rap and cackle of Vincent Price.
5. The Host (2006): Bong Joon-ho’s creature feature, full of his trademark tonal whiplash. Amidst the laughs and scares, a family heads into danger to rescue one of their own. Absolutely glorious.
6. Hausu (1977): It’s impossible to condense the giddy delirium of Nobuhiko Ôbayashi’s musical comedy horror into a bite-sized synopsis. Folklore and psychedelia collide to create pure intoxicating cinema. And that Godiego score!
7. Alma (2009): In the window of a toy shop in Barcelona, the eyes of a doll catch little Alma’s attention...and this creepy animated short is available to view here.
8. Brightburn (2019): Not a bird, not a plane and he damn sure ain’t Superman. A dark funhouse mirror held up against the familiar mythos of Siegel and Shuster’s Big Blue Boyscout, with lashings of splatter.
9. Horror Express (1972): There are lots of things to recommend this “Nightmare of Terror”, but nothing comes close to Telly Savalas’ magnificent costume.
I mean, just look at it!
10. Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror (2019): Xavier Burgin’s engaging deep dive into Black American horror isn’t just a top pick for #31DaysOfHorror, but essential viewing for Black History Month too.
11. Cam (2018): A camgirl discovers that her channel has been hijacked by a doppelgänger in this unsettling, tense and thoughtful chiller about secrets, lies and online identities.
12. Good Manners (2017): From Brazil, one of the best werewolf movies I’ve ever seen. Red in tooth and claw when it needs to be, yet a (fairy)tale of unconditional love at heart.
13. The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957): “The cellar stretched before me like some vast primeval plain, empty of life, littered with the relics of a vanished race. No desert island castaway ever faced so bleak a prospect.” Metaphysics and a duel with a spider.
14. 301/302 (1995): The compulsive chef in 301 is about to meet (meat?) the reclusive writer with an eating disorder in 302. It’s gonna get stomach-churning. This hyper-stylised 90s smorgasbord of splatter is available on YouTube’s Korean Film Archive channel.
15. Ma (2019): Recommended for Octavia Spencer’s majestically unhinged and hugely enjoyable central performance, as she tears into the role of the lonely and damaged Sue Ann with breathtaking brio.
16. The Dead Don’t Die (2019): Jim Jarmusch’s bloody valentine to Romero is crammed full of bite-sized idiosyncratic incidental pleasures. The end of the world has never been more self-reflexively laconic.
17. Critters (1986): The second-best Gremlins rip-off. (The ne plus ultra of Gremlins rip-offs is, of course, this one, courtesy of Season 6 of Community)
18. The Eye (2002): Being squeamish about anything involving eyes, the set-up involving a cornea transplant is horrific enough for me. What the transplant recipient wasn’t expecting was the ability to see ghosts...
19. Chopping Mall (1986): “I'm just not used to being chased around a mall in the middle of the night by killer robots.” Libidinous teens get picked off one-by-one by a bunch of homicidal Johnny 5 knock-offs. Loads of fun.
20. Gerald’s Game (2017): An anxiety-inducing exercise in sustained tension held together by a stunning performance from Carla Gugino. Nightmares within nightmares.
21. Cockneys vs Zombies (2012): The Slow and the Dead. An East End retirement home under siege, but the undead are no match for beloved British character actors like Alan Ford, Honor Blackman and Richard Briers.
22. The Legend of Hell House (1973): “This house...it knows we’re here.” One of the greatest haunted house movies, featuring the magnificent Roddy McDowall.
23. Saint Maud (2019): God’s Lonely Woman. The transcendent Morfydd Clark is a Travis Bickle for the 21st Century in Rose Glass’ stylish, wildly atmospheric and deeply disturbing portrayal of an obsessive palliative care nurse.
24. Maximum Overdrive (1986): Not the “masterpiece of terror” that it promised to be. Nevertheless, Stephen King’s much-maligned cocaine-addled rage against the machines is still a helluva lot of flawed fun. Adios, motherfucker!
25. The Curse of the Werewolf (1961): Half-man, half-wolf, all-Oliver Reed. A sumptuous melodramatic slab of vintage Hammer.
26. Little Monsters (2019): A kindergarten class on a day-trip collides with a zombie outbreak in this sweet-natured comedy that doesn’t hold back on the gore. Fantastically good fun.
27. The Shout (1978): Dark magic in Devon. Supremely creepy, with superb performances from Alan Bates, John Hurt and Susannah York. Plus Jim Broadbent in his first theatrical appearance colliding with some cow shit.
28. The ‘Burbs (1989): An idyllic Lynchian suburb is abuzz with speculation when the sinister Klopek family moves in. There goes the neighbourhood! A killer cast on top form in Joe Dante’s terrific, underappreciated horror comedy.
29. The Transfiguration (2016): Echoes of Romero’s Martin in this portrait of isolated teen Milo and his obsession with vampire lore. The distinction between what is real and imagined is getting very fuzzy for Milo...
30. The Hole in the Ground (2019): There’s a strange sinkhole in the forest behind the house where Sarah and her son live. If that still is her son... #31DaysofHorror would be incomplete without a Creepy Kid movie and this one is killer.
31. Office Killer (1997): The divine Carol Kane is the homicidal cubicle-dweller in Cindy Sherman’s superb satirical slasher.
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