Unfolds like a lost adaptation of a Stephen King short story or a great Tales From The Crypt episode you missed, its haunting comeuppance equally echoing Final Destination and ghostly campfire tales. One of the top-tier horror TV movies you could watch
A juggle of giallo and slasher elements with splashes of black comedy. Takes its sweet time escalating among maulings, killings, and schlocky weirdness, but a delightfully deranged villain and killer madcap finale is worth the wait
Joins Messiah of Evil in that peerless class of skin-crawling coastal dread. An inescapable eldritch nightmare transmuted into celluloid; an eerie, unnerving, mysterious, and gruesome gem of '80s horror.
A fog-laden festival of fantastique anxiety, like folk horror warped into something more vaguely Lovecraftian and absurd. Unfolding with the surreal delirium of a fever dream, Litan follows a couple attempting to flee unnatural village streets swirling with carnival mania, undeath, soul worms, and mad science
A condensed grainy blast of '50s drive-in pulp meets '80s gore. The peculiar regional cast is entertaining ad quirky, but John Dods' wonderful effects and McKeown's energetic direction are even better. Production wrings ample atmosphere and gnarly gore from a mundane single-house setting; the central cellar sequence would be a suspenseful practical-FX masterclass in any monster movie, let alone one with a $25,000 budget.
You know how WB gave James Wan a blank check and he made Malignant? Similarly, Cannon gave Tobe Hooper $25 million to adapt The Space Vampires and he made a Quatermass love-letter that's effectively Mario Bava's Planet of the Vampires reimagined as a cosmic-horror Dracula blockbuster. Bonkers sci-fi horror pulp as dead-serious apocalypse spectacle. Lifeforce is insane, bleak, and bombastic from opening titles to end credits.
Echoes of Under The Skin, Possession, and Prevenge, melded with the DNA of exploitation films and late '80s/early '90s gorefests. French-Extremity-Lovecraftian-vampire darkly-comic splatter-sleaze maternal horror doesn't get much better than this.
A wild fusion between the sensibilities of Fulci and Raimi, with Friedkin's competent hand guiding the escalation from eerie babysitter unease to bonkers supernatural onslaught. Come for Friedkin's return to horror; stay for baby sacrifices, tree-branch dismemberments, and a Grimm-esque tale like only '90s horror could deliver
Essentially Fallen as supernatural action-horror pulp starring Lou Diamond Phillips, rather than a respectable supernatural procedural starring Denzel. There are better body-hopping slasher films, but those don't have over-the-top set-pieces and stunts, do they?
Action-body-horror pulp that approaches its b-movie absurdity with gory seriousness. I got a soft spot for movies that play a completely insane premise completely seriously, and this does so with mean grisly aplomb.
No-budget, super-8, synth-&-heavy-metal Night of the Vampire Undead. Within five minutes, it becomes apparent that most of its $5,000 production was spent on fake plasma and Darkness doesn't waste a drop or a second. Enough drenching blood, torn throats, melting flesh, and exploding heads to please any Braindead fan.
Magnitudes more fun than Squirm, not as goofy as Slugs. A goopy gory gem from the '90s golden age of practical effects and self-aware DTV b-movies
Folk horror comes to the Windy City, and takes root as only Screaming Mad George effects and unfettered '90s horror can. A cross-breeding of The Omen, Season of the Witch, and Children of the Corn germinating into a bonkers spooky cheese offshoot that's very gory and very of its decade.
Ostensibly a horror comedy, but as with most of Álex de la Iglesia's films, that label is merely its outmost genre layer. Slapstick mishaps, buddy comedy, kidnap caper, violent action, and a Christmas tale too: a blur of devilish oddities and twisted fun, a film whose sequences could alternatively work as silent comedy gags, thriller intensity, or Italian-horror absurdity
The Mangler is Hooper in unadulterated Eaten Alive/Spontaneous Combustion mode. Stephen King's bonkers imagination and small town sins mixing with Hooper's socially-conscious delirium. Unhinged grisly filmmaking with all the clammy grime and lurid style that the director brought to his most heightened movies.
So extremely '90s DTV horror that you can't help but have a good time with its scarecrow slasher schlock. A vengeful quipping warlock who desperately wants to be the next Freddy, gnarly corn-stalk body horror, and bloody sins of the past
Batshit gorefest insanity, but with an ambition and a (bizarre paper-thin) narrative that opens with the ancient fleshy rebirth of its titular anti-god and has time for detours to 1940s village alchemy and WW2-era Stalingrad. Olaf gleefully delivers a viscera-soaked love-letter to the likes of Lamberto Bava, Fulci, Savini, and early Peter Jackson. One of the best good-bad glorious-gore-effects SOV passion project I've seen yet
Thanks! I was caught between drawing the designs for the graphics myself or finding a good library of personal use font generators that I could drag and upload to imgur so they wouldn't go away when the font site cleared their temporary filesGreat job on the OP, Z-Beat and thanks for taking over. I'm shocked you put it together with so much content that quickly! It took me forever when I did it. Thought you might want to know, the white graphic titles aren't visible for us heathens on the white theme (making the graphics work on both themes was always a headache for me).
A water-logged rain-drenched film equally soaked in bleak hopelessness; a dark stormy night of fleeing from misshapen locals and worse horrors. A sense of doom surrounds the characters as tangibly as the sea fog that chokes the hamlet's narrow winding alleys. Dagon was a surprisingly intense slice of Lovecraftian horror. Overall, more subdued, darker, and grislier than one might expect from Gordon.
Rural Irish horror where wintry farm atmosphere is king. A gunmetal miasma of tin-roof deluge and grey muck puddles on stall barn floor, sustaining genetic-engineering slow-burn suspense for a solid hour. Bovine bone parasites, deformed science-gone-wrong monstrosity, Ruth Negga, and Sean Harris make Isolation a lesser-known indie-horror winner.
Bookended by an unassuming opening gradually turning to lost-in-the-wild anxiety and a final act of grisly tone-shifting intensity. The middle is solid no-frills backwoods-clan Aussie horror executing its familiar terror - and eventual catharsis - with (very) gory, grimy confidence.
Dog Soldiers but with Nazi zombie ghosts. Outpost is claustrophobic action-horror with an emphasis on the latter; occult evil haunts from the shadows and stalks in menacing silence before unleashing grisly bloodshed in the second half. Led by a fine trio of Ray Stevenson, Michael Smiley, and Richard Brake, the tension rarely lets up and the finale's guns-blazing siege action is a thrilling sequence of hopeless spectacle.
Lobos De Arga doesn't just feature a scary wolfman (as opposed to the more lupine werewolf) - my favorite wolfman after Benicio Del Toro's Wolf Man - but a whole bunch of them, realized through excellent practical effects. Enraged red-eyed glare, slobbering maw, hulking shaggy build, even a solid transformation. Of the two English titles, "Attack of the Werewolves" is the most apt. Juan Martínez Moreno's delightful direction regularly delivers snappy gags and amusing scenarios, while not diminishing the fun monster action.
A grimy blood-slick action-slasher with nothing on its mind except not-so-surprising twists, buckets of gore, and Luke Evans having a grand ol' time playing a creepy charismatic monster. Logic? Plausibility? What are those? No One Lives certainly never heard of them. A lesser yet very entertaining companion to the likes of Don't Breathe and You're Next.
Wer is to the wolfman what Afflicted was for vampires. A fresh approach towards the werewolf, with modernized updates to the classic story and extensive use of handheld/camera perspectives to ground the mystery of the beast in documentary-esque realism. Just when its investigative half seems to overstay its welcome, this shifts into an action-horror rampage across Paris. The finale unfortunately feels like the film's vision overstretched its budget, but Wer is still a strong modern entry among werewolf cinema.
Completely derivative of Evil Dead, while doing the grim onslaught approach a year before Fede Alvarez did the same with his remake. If you want to see gallons of blood, grisly practical gore, and relentless undead friends, Wither is worth a watch.
A low-budget Irish chiller that quickly escalates to a stranded couple wielding every possible light source against a creature of the night. Matches, candles, fridge lights, phone screens: From The Dark scrambles through its fraught dwindling-light-versus-shadows set-pieces and dusk-till-dawn cat-&-mouse thrills. Smartly keeps its monster lurking in the shadowy background as a Nosferatu-esque silhouette. Niamh Algar (recent seen in Censor) is an awesome resourceful survivor of a protagonist
From Noroi director Koji Shiraishi, this one-room one-take found-footage film is a horror-thriller onion, a twisted gem wrapped in layers of "no idea WTF's happening next". A deranged man, a desperate plea of miracles and love, a journalist and her cameraman. A confined live-wire scenario that wildly escalates in real time, taking bizarre, brutal, holy-shit-what swerves towards final-act chaos that justifies the build-up.
Conventional eeriness among the suffocating earthy mire of Irish woodland becomes nearly an hour of folk horror-fungal crawler siege. A modern dark fantasy thriller that delivers on its half folktale-terror/half eco-body-horror approach.
Savageland is deceptively simple. An ambitious found footage story and a faux-documentary movie, and a brilliant twist on multiple formulas that also unfolds with a seething honesty about a broken justice system, border tensions and illegal immigration, the dehumanizing paranoia of racism. While also being an unnerving chiller, but to say more would spoil the elements here that makes Savageland a horror fan's delight. The dawning realization about what I was watching put the biggest grin on my face.
Satan's Slaves was a finely-crafted example of haunted-house horror, but Joko Anwar's Impetigore was even better. Indonesian folk-horror slow-burn that gets under the skin. A grisly curse, a family reckoning, and constantly looming dread: Impetigore carefully unpacks its dark secrets through a taut deliberate pace. Aside from a few clunky flashbacks, this weave of generational horrors and disturbing consequences is an occult stunner.
When you finally get to Coffin Joe, I bet you'll have a blast. Have only seen the first two, but I'll Possess Your Corpse is amazing. Some Hammer, some Jigoku, all gorgeous and weird and twistedOkay, I just finished trimming my list. All I have to do is pick one more giallo, but that shouldn't be a problem, I have a stack of unwatched ones ready to go.
I had to axe so many exciting looking movies though (sorry Coffin Joe, maybe next year), but I think I have a pretty entertaining month lined up.
List Subject To Change:
Classics I Haven't Seen:
Slasher-Rama
- The Fog (1980)
- Dawn of the Dead (1978)
- Frankenstein (1931)
- Jacob's Ladder
- Reanimator
Newer films I haven't seen
- Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2004)
- Friday the 13th: Part 6
- Halloween 3: Season of the Witch
- A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child
It's been a while
- The Lighthouse
- Possessor
- Old
Mainstays
- Stay Alive
- Final Destination 1
- Legion
- Event Horizon
- Tales from the Darkside: The Movie
- The Exorcist
- Grave Encounters
- Queen of the Damned
- IT Chapter 1
- IT Chapter 2
- Cabin in the Woods
- The Final Girls
- The Ring (2003)
- The Thing (1982)
- Halloweentown
- Hocus Pocus
- Dead Silence
Oh, don't worry, I'm still slogging around the pits. It felt like it was time to inject some new life into the old beast so decided pass the thread on to some fresh blood. I'll still be participating in the marathon. Somebody has to recommend Basket Case and rant incoherently about Italian movies, and that somebody's gonna be me!
When you finally get to Coffin Joe, I bet you'll have a blast. Have only seen the first two, but I'll Possess Your Corpse is amazing. Some Hammer, some Jigoku, all gorgeous and weird and twisted
An unabashed Gothic horror tale, updated from 19th century manor grounds to modern-day backwoods island. Very Poe, a tad Possum, all eerie corridors festering with mold and dread. Almost entirely horror mechanics over logical narrative, a slow-burn of hazy answers linked by old-school spooks. As a more solid plot emerges, those chills become unexpected thrills that utilize the house's forbidden spaces to great effect. Damian McCarthy's big jolts got me good.
Maury and Bustillo embrace the trappings of '90s teen horror to a fault, much like how Among The Living was a warped Amblin adventure. The first half is its weakest, but Kandisha's second half becomes more grisly, terrifying, raw. Very familiar yet still compelling in its own right, with the gore and scares to remind us that this is definitely from the directors of Inside.
Starts with such a neat gross tease of an opening, that had me quite excited to see how Boys From County Hell would remix familiar vampire lore. Takes a surprisingly long time to pick up steam, but eally entertaining though, once the blood draining and vampire-killing logistics ramp up. An Irish horror-comedy mixing local legend, Bram Stoker's novel, and pints, into a hang-out horror flick.
A stunning example of how diverse voices can tell fresh stories within the bounds of familiar horror. The best interweaving of social drama and creepy-as-hell horror I've seen in a long while; an empathetic and intimate tale of refugee struggle as a visually-evocative ghost story, juggling suspense, scares, and sins that refuse to be forgotten.
Russian sci-fi creature horror couched in political thriller intrigue. Questions of the human cost of science, of the humanity behind heroic propaganda, are intertwined with solid creature effects, claustrophobic suspense, and gory final-act action.
A creeping horror-noir of strange, eldritch, and ambitious scope, where influences of J-horror and '70s horror abound. Barely a jump scare to be found; instead the eeriness lingers, almost gliding into frame. This is a movie willingly to quietly wade into unnerving disorientation and let questions hang. At 137 minutes, it joins Suspiria '18 and Doctor Sleep as that rare breed of sprawling modern horror able to indulge in its unease and identity.
Horrific emotionally-draining American Gothic; a Midwest abyss of snarling plains and creaking windmills from the director of The Strangers. The horror elements are intense, but the grief, coping, and raw haggard performances are more so. Bertino takes his story to dark cruel depths, a journey marked by prickling unease and startling violence.
Following a crude first act, The Owners tightens into taut twisted menace. What begins as an inelegant spin on Don't Breathe gradually transforms into something more bizarre and nasty, akin to The People Under The Stairs or The Loved Ones.
A survival-horror-comedy just begging to be seen with a midnight crowd. A kinetic blast of gory action, twisted comic timing, cannibal family ties, and the best improvised weapon since The Night Comes For Us.
The folk-horror eco-horror COVID counterpart to A Field In England, with an extra dose of body horror and fungal delirium. In The Earth is a grisly vibes-first slide into hypnagogic unease. Once Wheatley's disorienting horror-trip shifts into pagan rituals versus research and technology, this becomes an unnerving psychedelic assault that doesn't quite satisfy as an ending yet still mesmerizes as an eco-Lovecraftian showpiece.
Mike P. Nelson's Wrong Turn packs about four movies into two hours, starting down the numbingly well-trodden Rituals route before going off-trail into ambitiously sprawling territory. Every thirty minutes or so, Wrong Turn takes another turn, so stuffed that even the credits rolling don't stop the plot from continuing. Much more than a slasher, its metamorphic thrills encompass midwestern folk horror and primal action. If you're looking for ruthless and grisly brutality, you'll get that too, with an extra helping of facial destruction.
A perpetual suspense machine propelled by stark cause-&-effect suspense and two gripping child performances. After a abruptly distressing opening, the kidnapped nightmare begins shortly, breathlessly compounding its taut tension and nasty violence until the end. Comparisons can undoubtedly be made to movies like The People Under The Stairs or The Shining, but what's lacking in substance or nuance is countered by visceral anxiety. No pulled punches for the kids in this vicious nerve-shredder.
Simon Barrett's feature debut is as much a throwback as his scripts, with The House That Screamed being the most specific influence for this all-girl boarding-school murder mystery. For about two-thirds, Seance coasts along on some minor intrigue, the occasional tense slasher sequence, and an awesome lead performance from Suki Waterhouse. But then the final half hour lets loose and Simon Barrett delivers some very satisfying, very bloody, very on-brand pay-off that ends Seance on a high note.
Reminiscent of Midnight Special, as domestic normalcy is interrupted by evil cult forces, forcing mother and son on the run, while her child's...unusual condition leads to difficult decisions and bloodshed along the way. Doesn't quite sticks the landing though, but the journey was engaging and bloody horror, nailing a fine balance between psychological unease and grisly road adventure.
Essentially the '90s DTV sequel to Don't Breathe that someone like Ricochet-era Mulcahy or Cannon might've made. Savage scumbag action-horror that grimes up Alvarez's taut elegance to make a grisly, scuzzy, and ridiculously repugnant slice of modern exploitation thrills. Don't expect much suspense, personality, or emotional attachment. Don't Breathe 2 is all about savagery, scumbags, and gory survival, nailing those rock-solidly despite the thinness elsewhere.
A very minimal yet utterly mad meltdown of a film. Domestic delirium and nightmare logic FTW! Amid tornado sirens, a family of four takes shelter in their bathroom. Soon they'll be trapped, a fallen tree forcing an unending inescapable lockdown. Aside from a handful of flashbacks, We Need To Do Something will never leave those purple-tiled walls. The technical limitations of a COVID-era production result in an insane pressure-cooker attuned to our new normal, existing somewhere between The Mist and Raimi. Some will abhor this movie, but the final act left quite an impression
Last year I planned to do it, but October was way too busy. I'm planning/hoping to actually complete it this year. Will start working on my list.
Personally I'd swap A Pale Door for something like Robin Redbreast, Eyes of Fire, or Sator (sticking to folk horror suggestions)Think I've got my list sorted, though there will almost certainly be changes as the month goes on. Ostensibly my theme is folk horror / period piece, but I'm not sure all these fit that bill. Close enough though I reckon.
(* = rewatch)
The Wicker Man (1973, the final cut version)*
Black Plague
Coven of Sisters
Isolation
Viy: Spirit of Evil
Blackwood
Gretel and Hansel
A Classic Horror Story
Sleepy Hollow*
The Pale Door
Sacrifice
Heretiks
The Cleansing
Ghosts of War
The Borderlands
Apostle
Blood Harvest
November
Midsommar
The Siren
The Necromancer
Hagazussa*
The Woman in Black (1989 TV movie version)
1922
The Reckoning
The Wretched
Gallows Hill
Blood Vessel
In The Earth
The Wind
The Lighthouse*
The VVitch*
That's 32 in total, because I'll be doing a double bill on Halloween. I have another secondary list because I'm actually hoping to do a double bill pretty much every day. I had the same intention last time though and it didn't work out, so we'll see how it goes.
Which Scream sequels are worth watching? I've only seen the original and thinking of adding at least one sequel to my watchlist this year.
Personally I'd swap A Pale Door for something like Robin Redbreast, Eyes of Fire, or Sator (sticking to folk horror suggestions)
Awesome list; make sure to seek out thel unedited ending to Phase IV afterwards. The ending sequence was cut significantly by Paramount, a huge mistake because the full sequence brings all the themes and imagery to a proper conclusionHello fine folks, I don't think I've posted on this forum since the last 31 Days of Horror thread. But I am back. Evil never dies etc.
ThirstyFly thanks for the good times in the previous threads, love you babe. Z-Beat thanks for taking over!
For me, this will be the 11th (!) time I do this. My master list is ever-growing, but I've managed to make a preliminary selection for 2021.
Find my list (work in progress) here: https://letterboxd.com/divius/list/31-days-of-horror-2021/. Feedback is appreciated.
Good to see a lot of familiar faces as well.
Neat, thanks for the tip. And good job on all the recommendations!Awesome list; make sure to seek out the unedited ending to Phase IV afterwards. The ending sequence was cut significantly by Paramount, a huge mistake because the full sequence brings all the themes and imagery to a proper conclusion
I saw Dead & Buried for the first time last month, and it blew me away. One of my favorite '80s horror movies now; hope you like it as much as I didI guess I'll try to do 31 first-time watches this year. No real rhyme or reason to it. Have another list of 100-ish movies that caught my eye/re-watches, so will be fun to see how many I get to in the end.
The Uninvited (1944, Lewis Allen)
The Body Snatcher (1945, Robert Wise)
The Curse of Frankenstein (1957, Terence Fisher)
Mill of the Stone Women (1960, Giorgio Ferroni)
Taste of Fear (1961, Seth Holt)
Black Sabbath (1963, Mario Bava)
Strait-Jacket (1964, William Castle)
The Masque of the Red Death (1964, Roger Corman)
Kwaidan (1964, Masaki Kobayashi)
Viy (1967, Georgiy Kropachyov & Konstantin Ershov)
The House That Screamed (1969, Narciso Ibáñez Serrador)
Dr. Jekyll & Sister Hyde (1971, Roy Ward Baker)
Messiah of Evil (1973, Willard Huyck & Gloria Katz)
Lisa and the Devil (1973, Mario Bava)
Symptoms (1974, José Ramón Larraz)
The Haunting of Julia (1977, Richard Loncraine)
The Funhouse (1981, Tobe Hooper)
Dead & Buried (1981, Gary Sherman)
The Last Horror Film (1982, David Winters)
Trick or Treat (1986, Charles Martin Smith)
Zombi 3 (1988, Lucio Fulci)
Intruder (1989, Scott Spiegel)
Nightbreed (1990, Clive Barker)
The Exorcist III (1990, William Peter Blatty)
Pulse (2001, Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
The Devil's Backbone (2001, Guillermo del Toro)
Ju-on: The Grudge (2002, Takashi Shimizu)
Trick 'r Treat (2007, Michael Dougherty)
The Innkeepers (2011, Ti West)
Malignant (2021, James Wan)
Last Night in Soho (2021, Edgar Wright)
Kwaidan (1964, Masaki Kobayashi)
The Exorcist III (1990, William Peter Blatty)
Pulse (2001, Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
The Devil's Backbone (2001, Guillermo del Toro)
Ju-on: The Grudge (2002, Takashi Shimizu)
Trick 'r Treat (2007, Michael Dougherty)
The Innkeepers (2011, Ti West)
Ha, the benefit of having not seen a lot of horror movies until a few years ago.this rung of newer movies makes me super jealous you get to see them all for the first time, that's a solid list.
Ha, the benefit of having not seen a lot of horror movies until a few years ago.
Yeah, it's been fun discovering a lot of movies I'd consider all time favorites now.That was me five or six years ago! It's a really fun ride. I've still purposefully left some films unseen so every year there's a big classic to watch for the first time (this year it's going to be "The Thing").
Hello fine folks, I don't think I've posted on this forum since the last 31 Days of Horror thread. But I am back. Evil never dies etc.
ThirstyFly thanks for the good times in the previous threads, love you babe. Z-Beat thanks for taking over!
For me, this will be the 11th (!) time I do this. My master list is ever-growing, but I've managed to make a preliminary selection for 2021.
Find my list (work in progress) here: https://letterboxd.com/divius/list/31-days-of-horror-2021/. Feedback is appreciated.
Good to see a lot of familiar faces as well.
Hello fine folks, I don't think I've posted on this forum since the last 31 Days of Horror thread. But I am back. Evil never dies etc.
ThirstyFly thanks for the good times in the previous threads, love you babe. Z-Beat thanks for taking over!
For me, this will be the 11th (!) time I do this. My master list is ever-growing, but I've managed to make a preliminary selection for 2021.
Find my list (work in progress) here: https://letterboxd.com/divius/list/31-days-of-horror-2021/. Feedback is appreciated.
Good to see a lot of familiar faces as well.
I saw Dead & Buried for the first time last month, and it blew me away. One of my favorite '80s horror movies now; hope you like it as much as I did
But how are you able to craft a definite list so early? I'm watching horror all year round, and I definitely don't know what I'll have already seen and what I'll want to watch so soon before the beginning of October...
I might have a list ready in like two weeks :p
That makes two of us.I can't wait to see what madness you have in store for us this year!
Some of us started on November 1st last year. ;p
You're not required to make or abide by your list. On a standard one of these something may happen where I have to swap out a choice at the last minute for something else. For ones I have listed it's mostly stuff I have stockpiled (including new stuff). Like I held off on watching The Lighthouse specifically for thisI might join in on the fun this year!
But how are you able to craft a definite list so early? I'm watching horror all year round, and I definitely don't know what I'll have already seen and what I'll want to watch so soon before the beginning of October...
I might have a list ready in like two weeks :p
AddedMight we add Marilyn Eastman from Night of the Living dead to the "celebrities we lost" list?
https://deadline.com/2021/08/marilyn-eastman-dead-night-of-the-living-dead-actress-1234820501/
1-3Which Scream sequels are worth watching? I've only seen the original and thinking of adding at least one sequel to my watchlist this year.
I'm biased against 4 because I don't like Emma Roberts. I can't disassociate her from her popular girl typecasting, even when she's not like in stuff like Scream 4 and Nerve and UnfabulousI'd say they're all worth a watch. Scream 2 is definitely a lot of fun. Scream 3 is probably the weakest of the bunch, but it's not terrible or anything.