#801-#900
The 1,000 Greatest Horror Films: #801-#900
801. (-159) Count Yorga, Vampire
Bob Kelljan
1970 / USA / 93m / Col / Vampire | IMDb
Robert Quarry, Roger Perry, Michael Murphy, Michael Macready, Donna Anders, Judy Lang, Edward Walsh, Julie Conners, Paul Hansen, Sybil Scotford
“Count Yorga – Vampire (originally conceived as a soft-core porn film entitled The Loves of Count Iorga) is a nifty little low-budget exploitation effort that uses its resources to good effect. The shocks are crude but effective. Although relatively tame by later standards, the gore has a nasty edge to it, underlining the film’s cynical sensibility and downbeat ending… [it] survives on the strength of its title performance and on the inventiveness of its approach to modern day vampirism. Yorga may not be a very refined film, but it packs a lot of attitude, and there’s no denying that the surprise ending is like a wicked little punch in the face.” – Steve Biodrowski, Cinefantastique
AKA:
802. (-113) Deadgirl
Marcel Sarmiento & Gadi Harel
2008 / USA / 101m / Col / Zombie | IMDb
Shiloh Fernandez, Noah Segan, Candice Accola, Eric Podnar, Jenny Spain, Andrew DiPalma, Nolan Gerard Funk, Michael Bowen, David Alan Graf, Susan Marie Keller
“A good deal of the effect of “Deadgirl” rests on the atmospheric widescreen cinematography by Harris Charalambouse, which belies what must have been an extremely low budget (the long tracking shots in which the camera prowls the underground tunnels beneath the asylum are honestly gripping), and Phillip Blackford’s editing, which isn’t afraid to take things slowly, though in the action moments it’s appropriately swift and abrupt. Effects-wise, the picture is hardly state-of-the-art, and in fact the level of gore is pretty modest compared to the avalanche of blood and innards that fans of torture-porn are accustomed to. The fact that it’s relatively subdued by modern standards may, in fact, limit the movie’s popularity among the gross-out crowd, at the same time that its storyline turns off more mainstream viewers. That would be too bad, because “Deadgirl” is, despite some weaknesses, a surprisingly effective character study dressed up as a grisly horror movie.” – Frank Swietek, One Guy’s Opinion
AKA:
803. (-144) Prom Night
Paul Lynch
1980 / Italy / 92m / Col / Slasher | IMDb
Leslie Nielsen, Jamie Lee Curtis, Casey Stevens, Anne-Marie Martin, Antoinette Bower, Michael Tough, Robert A. Silverman, Pita Oliver, David Mucci, Jeff Wincott
“Lynch’s Prom Night is quite chilling, entertaining, and absolutely not a boring film, which surely will be appreciated by horror film lovers and others as well. This film does aim to terrify the audience and makes them want to stop watching it somewhere in the middle due to way too many blood and violent scenes… But, you will still watch since it is smartly executed, with interesting lines, and solid performances by the entire cast, This refreshes our memory and reminds us, once again, why we love so much the films of the sweet 80s.” – Ulkar Alakbarova, Movie Moves Me
AKA:
804. (-193) Creep
Christopher Smith
2004 / UK / 85m / Col / Slasher | IMDb
Vas Blackwood, Ken Campbell, Kathryn Gilfeather, Franka Potente, Grant Ibbs, Joe Anderson, Jeremy Sheffield, Sean De Vrind, Ian Duncan, Debora Weston
““Creep” is a very atmospheric film, both in its early depiction of instantly recognisable London life, and its latter scenes of dark, oppressive tunnels that seem to have been influenced by the “Resident Evil” series of videogames. There are a good number of genuine scares, and the whole film has a claustrophobic feel which the director exploits to the full with uncomfortable moments, often involving the legions of rats which the creep seems to command. Similarly, in terms of blood, the film will certainly satisfy fans, with a good amount of splatter, and a couple of genuinely foul scenes that are sure to raise a shudder.” – James Mudge, Beyond Hollywood
AKA:
805. (+118) Jennifer’s Body
Karyn Kusama
2009 / USA / 102m / Col / Comedy | IMDb
Megan Fox, Amanda Seyfried, Johnny Simmons, Adam Brody, Sal Cortez, Ryan Levine, Juan Riedinger, Colin Askey, Chris Pratt, Juno Ruddell
“The movie could have explored its intriguing ideas in even more depth, and it certainly doesn’t reinvent the wheel. Jennifer’s Body is still a better-than-average horror movie, and considerably more pointed too. Several moments are genuinely creepy. Other moments are darkly funny. Cody’s script – under the director of Girlfight’s Karyn Kusama, who brings a top-notch visual style – manages to combine those things into something that is a lot of wicked fun. The message: inside every adolescent girl is a figurative man-eater waiting to be unleashed. And inside every teen boy is a desire to be feasted on by the hottest girl in school. You can agree with that sentiment or not, but it may just define adolescent sexuality. If nothing else, it makes for a hell-raising good time at the movies.” – Mike McGranaghan, The Aisle Seat
AKA:
806. (-94) Shiryô no wana
Toshiharu Ikeda
1988 / Japan / 102m / Col / Slasher | IMDb
Miyuki Ono, Aya Katsuragi, Hitomi Kobayashi, Eriko Nakagawa, Masahiko Abe, Hiroshi Shimizu, Kyôko Hashimoto, Yûko Maehara, Yûko Suwano, Mari Shimizu
“The plot of Evil Dead Trap moves at the speed of sound. Gone are the drawn out scenes of characters discussing their predicament. Who needs those when there are pretty eyeballs to puncture? This film definitely knows where its priorities are. It’s definitely not for the squeamish or for those looking for a cerebral experience. Like the films that influenced it, Evil Dead Trap is a rollercoaster ride of blood and mayhem, with characters becoming isolated and disposed of in various gruesome ways. Don’t let the film’s early predictability get you down—the surprise ending is well worth the wait.” – Ross Chen, Love HK Film
AKA: Evil Dead Trap
807. (new) I Sell the Dead
Glenn McQuaid
2008 / USA / 85m / Col / Comedy | IMDb
Dominic Monaghan, Larry Fessenden, Angus Scrimm, Ron Perlman, Brenda Cooney, John Speredakos, Daniel Manche, Eileen Colgan, James Godwin, Joel Garland
“Filled with grisly sound effects and Gaelic wit, I Sell the Dead may be more slapstick than horror, but McQuaid leaves the film’s genuinely chilling moments — like a shrouded corpse slowly unfurling behind Willie’s back — room to breathe. The director grew up in Ireland, watching Hammer horror movies and idolizing Peter Cushing, and Dead’s fondness for dry ice and spooky graveyards smoothly evokes an earlier, more innocent era of gruesome entertainments. Its wit and style, however, are thoroughly modern, as is a hilarious ending that leaves the sequel door wide open. And why not? Whether downing pints or unearthing aliens, Arthur and Willie are a buddy act we could stand to see again.” – Jeannette Catsoulis, NPR
AKA:
808. (-136) Revenge of the Creature
Jack Arnold
1955 / USA / 82m / BW / Science Fiction | IMDb
John Agar, Lori Nelson, John Bromfield, Nestor Paiva, Grandon Rhodes, Dave Willock, Robert Williams, Charles Cane
“Revenge of the Creature is surpassed by its predecessor in all but one regard: the Gill-man becomes a clear victim of circumstance and will thus evoke compassion from those of a sensitive inclination. Specifically, the creature is abducted from his natural environment and put on display for exploitative purposes; therefore, the Gill-man’s savagery in the final act occurs within a decidedly justifiable context—much in contrast to Creature from the Black Lagoon, wherein the ethics of invading an animal’s territory and suffering the consequences thereof are presented through an ambiguous perspective.” – Jon Davidson, Midnite Reviews
AKA:
809. (-139) The Car
Elliot Silverstein
1977 / USA / 96m / Col / Supernatural | IMDb
James Brolin, Kathleen Lloyd, John Marley, R.G. Armstrong, John Rubinstein, Elizabeth Thompson, Roy Jenson, Kim Richards, Kyle Richards, Kate Murtagh
“As you watch The Car, pay attention to how the cinematography and the music propel the film to something far more artistically adept than it has any right to be. The use of sweeping vistas, and the gorgeous framing of specific sequences, make The Car as beautiful as it is entertaining. The music may sound familiar to horrorphiles; harboring tinges of the eerie French horn arrangement from the beginning of The Shining, which would be released three years later. They both seem to be formidable iterations of the Gregorian chant “Dies Irae.” Despite its b-movie trappings, The Car is high-quality horror from start to finish and film deserving of far more attention and accolades than its unfortunate obscurity affords.” – Brian Salisbury, Film School Rejects
AKA:
810. (-7) The Cell
Tarsem Singh
2000 / USA / 107m / Col / Psychological | IMDb
Jennifer Lopez, Colton James, Dylan Baker, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Gerry Becker, Musetta Vander, Patrick Bauchau, Vincent D’Onofrio, Vince Vaughn
“The Cell is a clear, classic case of a director’s vision invigorating standard material. The film moves at an effectively erratic pace: action in the real world moves fairly swiftly, but once it’s in the world of the mind, the pace becomes more languid, befitting the surrealism of dreams. It is in this latter realm that the film really soars. Dream worlds in movies are nothing new–witness the oeuvre of David Lynch or, for a less highfalutin example, the Nightmare on Elm Street series–but the visual ideas put forth by Singh are spectacular and unique; there’s an atmosphere of excess that hasn’t even been reached in Lynch’s famously bizarre work.” – Michael Dequina, The Movie Report
AKA:
811. (+124) Ganja & Hess
Bill Gunn
1973 / USA / 110m / Col / Vampire | IMDb
Duane Jones, Marlene Clark, Bill Gunn, Sam Waymon, Leonard Jackson, Candece Tarpley, Richard Harrow, John Hoffmeister, Betty Barney, Mabel King
“Pieced together in a disjointed, nonlinear fashion, Ganja & Hess is a strange, heady blend of grindhouse horror and avant-garde experimentation. Writer/director Bill Gunn was apparently tasked with creating a blaxploitation vampire movie in the vein of Blacula, but he instead managed to make something that feels wholly separate from any one genre- something bizarre and beautiful and horrible and totally unexpected. It is not an easy film to follow, with its story jumping back and forth, seemingly unfinished scenes, and unstable characters, but its imagery is so potent I found myself transfixed.” – Alex Kittle, Art, Film and Over-Enthusiasm
AKA: Black Evil
812. (+177) Dracula: Pages from a Virgin’s Diary
Guy Maddin
2002 / Canada / 73m / Col / Vampire | IMDb
Wei-Qiang Zhang, Tara Birtwhistle, David Moroni, CindyMarie Small, Johnny A. Wright, Stephane Leonard, Matthew Johnson, Keir Knight, Brent Neale, Stephanie Ballard
“Knowing irony infuses Guy Maddin’s use of such long-moribund silent cinema techniques as masks, irises and tinting in this ballet inspired by Bram Stoker’s novel, as it complements both the Victorian setting and the notions of ‘undeath’ and resurrection… Zhang Wei-Qiang is imposing as the Count, bringing menacing sensuality to his seductions, and ruthless tenacity to his joust with Van Helsing. This arty approach may dismay hard-core horror fans, but it captures the dark grace of the original with wit and style… A fevered, sexy take on the material, it plays up the desires of the female players, the repression of the men and Dracula’s status as all-purpose object of dread and desire.” – Patrick Peters, Empire Magazine
AKA:
813. (+108) Child’s Play 2
John Lafia
1990 / USA / 84m / Col / Evil Doll | IMDb
Alex Vincent, Jenny Agutter, Gerrit Graham, Christine Elise, Brad Dourif, Grace Zabriskie, Peter Haskell, Beth Grant, Greg Germann, Raymond Singer
“An inevitable sequel that’s not as good as its progenitor, but better than most movies with the numbers 2 through 8 in their titles… “2” actually gets clever at the end, when Andy (Alex Vincent) and sidekick Kyle (Christine Elise) battle Chucky in the Good Guys factory amid moving conveyor belts, hydraulic presses and molding units. As surreal as it is suspenseful, the climax may be a little too sophisticated for the genre, but it manages to lower its expectations at the last minute.” – Richard Harrington, Washington Post
AKA:
814. (-196) Critters
Stephen Herek
1986 / USA / 86m / Col / Monster | IMDb
Dee Wallace, M. Emmet Walsh, Billy Green Bush, Scott Grimes, Nadine Van der Velde, Don Keith Opper, Billy Zane, Ethan Phillips, Terrence Mann, Jeremy Lawrence
“While Critters rarely does any one thing good, its committment to the premise and its willingness to throw every idea at the camera makes it pretty entertaining. Sometimes it’s funny on purpose; sometimes it’s funny because it fails so bad at being scary. I guess it’s a long shot to make furballs and small hand puppets truly terrifying, but I think the creators were intentionally going for a 50s B-movie vibe. It’s the type of horror film that’s in no danger of freaking its audience out, so it splurges on goofy Critter antics (the alien subtitles are pretty hilarious) and the occasional exercise in gore FX.” – Mutant Reviewers
AKA:
815. (new) Saint Maud
Rose Glass
2019 / UK / 84m / Col / Psychological | IMDb
Morfydd Clark, Jennifer Ehle, Lily Knight, Lily Frazer, Turlough Convery, Rosie Sansom, Marcus Hutton, Carl Prekopp, Noa Bodner, Takatsuna Mukai
“This brilliantly unsettling horror film sweeps in on a humdrum English coastal town with a fierce cargo of religious mania, psychological power games and the odd moment of nightmarish ickiness… Ehle is great as the worldly, weary Amanda, and in a just world, Clark would be winning awards for a remarkable piece of physical acting. It spans convulsions of divine ecstasy and a quiet unravelling as Maud shuffles through the gaudy seafront arcades and pubs of the town (unnamed but filmed in Scarborough) convinced of her higher purpose. You suspect you know where it’s all going to end up, but that drains it of precisely none of its guttural power.” – Philip De Semlyen, Time Out
AKA:
816. (+41) Oldeuboi
Chan-wook Park
2003 / South Korea / 120m / Col / Crime | IMDb
Min-sik Choi, Ji-tae Yu, Hye-jeong Kang, Dae-han Ji, Dal-su Oh, Byeong-ok Kim, Seung-Shin Lee, Jin-seo Yoon, Dae-yeon Lee, Kwang-rok Oh
“The violence remains appalling, but it’s an essential element in this brutally inspired mystery. The low-tech dentistry, the masticated octopod, they’re part of the modern hell in which a Korean businessman finds himself… [Oldboy] tantalizes and tortures you as it lures you into its mysterious vortex. You die from what you see and from what you don’t know. And it takes looking beyond the violence to realize the power of Choi’s performance… There is a conclusion to all this, an existential punch line that explains everything in a climactic pileup of melodramatic detail. But whatever you make of that, you will surely leave this movie shocked, shaken and surprisingly moved. And definitely stuck on that poor octopus.” – Desson Thomson, Washington Post
AKA: Oldboy
817. (+9) Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare
Rachel Talalay
1991 / USA / 89m / Col / Slasher | IMDb
Robert Englund, Lisa Zane, Shon Greenblatt, Lezlie Deane, Ricky Dean Logan, Breckin Meyer, Yaphet Kotto, Tom Arnold, Roseanne Barr, Elinor Donahue
“The Nightmare movies have also, to this point, refused to take themselves too seriously, walking a line between absurd and creepy and placing a toe (or ten) on either side every once in a while. This movie goes whole hog into a tone that bordered on slapstick in more than one scene. Freddy is also back to his old self, quipping with his victims and vogueing as though he is, on some level, aware of the film audience. Even with much more history and backstory than we’ve gotten so far, this movie manages to stay squarely in the kind of territory that Nightmare does best.” – Sophie Day, Bloody Good Horror
AKA:
818. (+153) The Toolbox Murders
Dennis Donnelly
1978 / USA / 93m / Col / Slasher | IMDb
Cameron Mitchell, Pamelyn Ferdin, Wesley Eure, Nicolas Beauvy, Tim Donnelly, Aneta Corsaut, Faith McSwain, Marciee Drake, Evelyn Guerrero, Victoria Perry
“Simply put, The Toolbox Murders is everything you’d expect it to be for the first third of the film. The gore might not be enough to satiate the staunchest of gore-hounds, but it is rather blunt and brutal. The rest of the film chooses to be psychologically disturbing and unsettling with a story that engages a viewer just enough. While you might be a bit put off by the change in pace and tone, you should definitely stick with this one.” – Brett Gallman, Oh, The Horror
AKA:
819. (+35) Eaten Alive
Tobe Hooper
1976 / USA / 91m / Col / Slasher | IMDb
Neville Brand, Mel Ferrer, Carolyn Jones, Marilyn Burns, William Finley, Stuart Whitman, Roberta Collins, Kyle Richards, Robert Englund, Crystin Sinclaire
“Even though dated, [Eaten Alive] delivers everything you could want from a Video Nasty, and delivers it head on, in your face and makes no excuses. This is a film which only needs the most basic of plots simply to tie together the scenes of carnage. This is a film which relishes, and glorifies its violence and unsavoury characters, and this is a film which demands you take your head out of your ass and just enjoy horror for what it is. [Eaten Alive] is a horror intended to be enjoyed on face value, there is nothing deep or meaningful here, and you certainly will not need to use your brain. All you have to do is sit back and enjoy the madness, the insanity, the completely mad ride into the Starlight Hotel, its owner Judd and is beloved pet Croc out back.” – Matt Wavish, Horror Cult Films
AKA: Death Trap
820. (-218) Cannibal ferox
Umberto Lenzi
1981 / Italy / 93m / Col / Cannibal | IMDb
Giovanni Lombardo Radice, Lorraine De Selle, Danilo Mattei, Zora Kerova, Walter Lucchini, Fiamma Maglione, Robert Kerman, John Bartha, Venantino Venantini
“Cannibal Ferox is a popcorn cannibal flick, if such a thing can exist. Sure, Lenzi throws in the “we’re the savages” type dialogue that cannibal films seemingly all have, but the focus of the film is the gore and nothing else. A lot of dialogue is cheesy in the good way and there are a handful of familiar Italian horror faces to reminisce about and try to decipher just what the hell you’d seen them in before. The score and music in the film is great fun as well and fits the tone of the film perfectly.” – Brett H., Oh, The Horror
AKA: Cannibal Ferox
821. (+51) The Crow
Alex Proyas
1994 / USA / 102m / Col / Action | IMDb
Brandon Lee, Rochelle Davis, Ernie Hudson, Michael Wincott, Bai Ling, Sofia Shinas, Anna Levine, David Patrick Kelly, Angel David, Laurence Mason
“One key to the surprising success of “The Crow,” a movie adaptation of J. O’Barr’s comic book saga of a vengeful spirit in a murderous city, is the way its violence is capable of shocking us. The movie has a wild, shivery impact. It’s incandescently brutal and gory-and not just because it’s the infamous film whose star, Brandon Lee, died in a shooting accident on the set. The Lee tragedy-effectively disguised in the film, which was completed after his death-simply makes the picture obvious fodder for op-ed pieces about media violence and Hollywood irresponsibility. What’s scary about “The Crow” is the story and the style itself: American Gothic, Poe-haunted nightmare, translated to the age of cyberpunk science fiction, revenge movies and outlaw rock ‘n’ roll, all set in a hideously decaying, crime-ridden urban hell, populated by victims, cops and psychos.” – Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune
AKA:
822. (-114) Creep
Patrick Brice
2014 / USA / 77m / Col / Found Footage | IMDb
Patrick Brice, Mark Duplass
“More or less a two-hander for co-stars Patrick Brice and indie-cinema multihyphenate Mark Duplass, who reportedly improvised from a jointly written bare-bones outline under Brice’s direction… Right from the start, “Creep” primes viewers to suspect that nothing is what it seems. Indeed, even before Aaron actually begins shooting Josef’s monologues, he comes across as dangerously naive, if not downright clueless, simply by agreeing to spend a long day alone with a much-too-ingratiating stranger in and around a cabin in a remote mountain town. Sure enough, there’s an entirely predictable revelation of deception around the midway point. But then something else happens, followed by some other, far more unexpected things.” – Joe Leydon, Variety
AKA:
823. (new) A Horrible Way to Die
Adam Wingard
2010 / USA / 87m / Col / Thriller | IMDb
AJ Bowen, Amy Seimetz, Joe Swanberg, Brandon Carroll, Lane Hughes, Holly Voges, Kelsey Munger, Michael Anthony Miller, Ed Hanson, Frank Stack
“The film is mostly riveting, and remarkably unique, especially for a horror sub-genre that seldom offers anything new but the ways in which characters are killed… it operates on a simple, but not simplistic, level of interaction that allows us to identify with the characters and their struggles on an immediate, human level. And within a genre replete with over-the-top ideas and gratuitous violence, a film that functions in a way that’s not only believable, but actually somewhat realistic, is itself a small triumph. In which case, A Horrible Way To Die may promise – and deliver – intensely powerful depictions of some terrible things, but as a moviegoer, and whether or not you’re a fan of horror films, there are significantly worse ways to sit through two hours in a theater.” – Todd Gilchrist, ShockTillYouDrop.com
AKA:
824. (-23) Hei tai yang 731
Tun Fei Mou
1988 / Hong Kong / 105m / Col / War | IMDb
Jianxin Chen, Hsu Gou, Linjie Hao, Haizhe Jin, Tie Long Jin, Yuanrong Jin, Bolin Li, Pengyu Liu, Xuhui Liu, Zhaohua Mei
“In spite of the relentless death, mutilation and suffering, Men Behind The Sun is actually a very watchable, extremely well-made film. The cinematography is superb with lots of moody, effective lighting, great framing and excellent use of long lenses. The production design is very good – some scenes have thousands of soldiers in uniform. The locations and sets are above what you might expect from a film such as this. The actors all give good performances – especially the ‘evil’ Japanese top brass. And the special effects vary from very good to gruesomely outstanding. The sum of the parts, in this case, definitely do equal more than the whole. Men Behind The Sun may be ‘propaganda’ in the eyes of some; completely true in the eyes of others; but to us it is controversial film-making par excellence. The kind of film that will never be made again – a true sick, chunk-blowing classic.” – The Chelsea Ripper, Sick-Films
AKA: Men Behind the Sun
825. (new) Split
M. Night Shyamalan
2016 / USA / 117m / Col / Psychological | IMDb
James McAvoy, Anya Taylor-Joy, Betty Buckley, Haley Lu Richardson, Jessica Sula, Izzie Coffey, Brad William Henke, Sebastian Arcelus, Neal Huff, Ukee Washington
“Though the central character of “Split” is a man with a split personality, the film also tells the story of a split in the world. Just as “Unbreakable” suggested the origins of a superhero in a near-death childhood experience, so “Split” shows a young woman able to combat evil because of the strength she has developed from horrific personal trauma. With its crude realization of the shibboleth that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, the movie is more than a story of feminist survivalism; it also makes the perversely tawdry suggestion that a woman’s tragic knowledge—and necessary power—comes with an unbearably high price.” – Richard Brody, The New Yorker
AKA:
826. (new) Final Destination 5
Steven Quale
2011 / USA / 92m / Col / Supernatural | IMDb
Nicholas D’Agosto, Emma Bell, Miles Fisher, Ellen Wroe, Jacqueline MacInnes Wood, P.J. Byrne, Arlen Escarpeta, David Koechner, Courtney B. Vance, Tony Todd
“Fans of this franchise know precisely what to expect, and the film delivers it with wit and flair. The Final Destination movies are like inspired Kentucky Fried Movie sketches, but also like deadpan satires of a particular sub-genre they invented in the first place… This being a 3D movie, there are loads of sharp objects flying directly out of the screen. A group of youthful interns are employed at a drab office, presided over by a managerial nerd, adjoining a factory shopfloor. (So to the list of American institutions indirectly influenced by Ricky Gervais we can now add the Final Destination movies.)” – Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
AKA:
827. (new) Hellbent
Paul Etheredge
2004 / USA / 84m / Col / Slasher | IMDb
Dylan Fergus, Bryan Kirkwood, Hank Harris, Andrew Levitas, Matt Phillips, Kent James, Wren T. Brown, Nina Landey, Samuel A. Levine, Kris Andersson
“All [the killings] are executed (pardon the pun) with above-average flair, wisely avoiding the genre’s mainstream equation of sex-equals-death. When the twitch of a headless corpse gets the movie’s biggest laugh, it’s clear that Etheredge-Ouzts knows what he’s doing. As a generic slasher film with a difference, “HellBent” should neither be dismissed out of hand nor overpraised for its uniqueness. Still, there’s something refreshing about its likable cast and B-movie vitality, recalling bygone days when cheap, independent horror films could get theatrically released and deservedly appreciated. And even though the killer’s motives are never explained, he still gets the last laugh, and it’s a good one.” – Jeff Shannon, Seattle Times
AKA:
828. (new) Ms .45
Abel Ferrara
1981 / Spain / 80m / Col / Rape and Revenge | IMDb
Zoë Lund, Bogey, Albert Sinkys, Darlene Stuto, Helen McGara, Nike Zachmanoglou, Abel Ferrara, Peter Yellen, Editta Sherman, Vincent Gruppi
“Ms. 45 wasn’t well received upon its release; it wasn’t quite right for its time, probably because it was so much of its time. But it has a wild, rangy energy, like an exploding star cluster. And if the violence perpetrated by its vengeful heroine is a turn-on — that, after all, is what makes exploitation tick — Ferrara shows a great deal of tenderness for her as well. Thana may not be able to speak, but she sure knows how to make herself heard… The sexual politics of Ms. 45 are blunt and easy to read, and the picture is riotously cathartic. The basics are all there: the foul-mouthed men who deserve the wrath of Thana’s handy pressing tool; the schoolgirl turned vixen who slinks out into the night in search of her prey.” – Stephanie Zacharek, Village Voice
AKA: Angel of Vengeance
829. (new) Mother!
Darren Aronofsky
2017 / USA / 121m / Col / Psychological | IMDb
Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Ed Harris, Michelle Pfeiffer, Brian Gleeson, Domhnall Gleeson, Jovan Adepo, Amanda Chiu, Patricia Summersett, Eric Davis
“mother! is more successful in how it goes about its concerns as opposed to what it’s about. This speaks to Aronofsky’s filmmaking in general, which is defined by its confrontational, oft-times discomforting qualities… But the virtuosity of his filmmaking, a kind of sensibility that combines cinema vérité with a distinct spiritual omnipresence, gives the auteur a distinct voice. He’s a filmmaker that is capable of projecting anxious gestures from the movement of his camera. The way he spirals around his characters suggests an apprehension that’s unspoken but felt… However uneasy or discomforting mother! may be thematically, Aronofsky’s formal bravura has reached an apex.” – Daniel Nava, Chicago Cinema Circuit
AKA:
830. (new) Father’s Day
Adam Brooks et al.
2011 / USA / 99m / Col / Black Comedy | IMDb
Adam Brooks, Matthew Kennedy, Conor Sweeney, Amy Groening, Garrett Hnatiuk, Brent Neale, Kevin Anderson, Meredith Sweeney, Zsuzsi, Lloyd Kaufman
“Like a secret society of demented magicians, the film-making collective known as Astron-6 has pulled off an amazing slight of hand with their new new horror/exploitation/comedy masterpiece: Father’s Day. Everything about Father’s Day would lead you to believe it’s a slightly tongue-in-cheek homage to grindhouse exploitation à la Hobo with a Shotgun. But this is only a misdirection. In reality, Father’s Day is an epic farce of sheer lunacy and unbridled special FX mania in the true independent spirit and envelope-pushing tradition of Troma (which is releasing the film).” – ZedWord, Monster Chiller Horror Theatre
AKA:
831. (+6) Starry Eyes
Kevin Kolsch & Dennis Widmyer
2014 / USA / 98m / Col / Psychological | IMDb
Alex Essoe, Amanda Fuller, Noah Segan, Fabianne Therese, Shane Coffey, Natalie Castillo, Pat Healy, Nick Simmons, Maria Olsen, Marc Senter
“A savage allegory about the sacrificial, soul-crushing price of fame and recognition in a town notoriously guilty for building up its talent only to tear them down, the perfectly titled “Starry Eyes” spares no one. Shooting on location in Los Angeles… writer-directors Kevin Kolsch and Dennis Widmyer paint a despairing but, from certain angles, accurate portrait of Hollywood’s grim underbelly. Beyond the sunshine and palm trees is an imminent danger that nears, each callback Sarah receives taking her closer to the part and further from her identity… Soaked in viscera and complemented by composer Jonathan Snipes’ phenomenally foreboding old-school, synth-heavy music score, the powerful finished product announces Kolsch and Widmyer as filmmaking forces to watch and remember.” – Dustin Putman, TheFrightFile.com
AKA:
832. (new) Host
Rob Savage
2020 / UK / 57m / Col / Found Footage | IMDb
Haley Bishop, Jemma Moore, Emma Louise Webb, Radina Drandova, Caroline Ward, Alan Emrys, Patrick Ward, Edward Linard, Jinny Lofthouse, Seylan Baxter
“Host is a Zoom-inspired flick that, in less than an hour, gets more mileage than all The Conjuring movies combined. A circle of friends hire a psychic to conduct a séance online and spice things up in the midst of the COVID epidemic. Like in every group, there’s a skeptic all too happy to sabotage the ceremony — only instead of poking holes, this creates a virtual vessel that allows spirits to travel to the mortal plane. Host has no fat and makes great use of personal screens’ negative space and the social dynamics that unfold on Zoom. The jump scares are effective as is the incidental comedy.” – Jorge Ignacio Castillo, Planet S Magazine
AKA:
833. (+122) Repo! The Genetic Opera
Darren Lynn Bousman
2008 / USA / 98m / Col / Musical | IMDb
Alexa PenaVega, Paul Sorvino, Anthony Head, Sarah Brightman, Paris Hilton, Bill Moseley, Nivek Ogre, Terrance Zdunich, Sarah Power, Jessica Horn
“Cult films are best when they sneak up on the fringe audience, battling failure and disgrace to become something special, appreciated by a select few willing to cherish imperfection. “Repo! The Genetic Opera” is a motion picture that thirsts for alternative acceptance, positioning itself as a juicy piece of unlovable gothic muck that’s guaranteed to turn off mainstream audiences, thus assuring it life beyond the normal distribution timetable. “Repo!” is horrifically calculated to appeal to outsider mentality, but it clicks together rather marvelously, riding an offbeat sense of the macabre to peculiar, yet quite interesting results.” – Brian Orndorf, BrianOrndorf.com
AKA:
834. (+76) Threads
Mick Jackson
1984 / UK / 112m / Col / Nuclear War | IMDb
Karen Meagher, Reece Dinsdale, David Brierly, Rita May, Nicholas Lane, Jane Hazlegrove, Henry Moxon, June Broughton, Sylvia Stoker, Harry Beety
“Threads is perhaps the strongest anti-nuclear film ever made, the closest thing available to a documentary on post-apocalyptic life. The film takes its title from the concept that all life on earth is interconnected as if by invisible “threads.” The ultimate message of the film is that nuclear war is not simply an issue for politicians to debate, or for just the major nuclear powers. The threat of nuclear war affects all individuals equally and, as such, each individual is responsible for doing something about it. Even in the post-Cold War world of today, it is difficult to imagine anyone viewing Threads and not walking away from the film with that massive burden in the forefront of their minds.” – David Carter, Not Coming to a Theater Near You
AKA:
835. (new) Happy Death Day
Christopher Landon
2017 / USA / 96m / Col / Comedy | IMDb
Jessica Rothe, Israel Broussard, Ruby Modine, Charles Aitken, Laura Clifton, Jason Bayle, Rob Mello, Rachel Matthews, Ramsey Anderson, Brady Lewis
“Landon is careful not to let his focus stray too much, though, nor does he allow that schmaltzy sentiment to overwhelm the horror sensibilities here. In fact, he and co-writer Scott Lobdell deviously play against audience expectations, gleefully stringing them along with an increasingly unhinged murder mystery with outrageous twists and turns that would feel quite at home in a giallo. Despite taking an obvious cue from Ivan Reitman’s seminal film, the script isn’t expressly concerned with capturing existential angst of Groundhog Day, preferring instead to send audiences on an unrelenting thrill ride full of deviations, red herrings, and a wildly trashy finale.” – Brett Gallman, Oh, the Horror!
AKA:
836. (+57) World War Z
Marc Forster
2013 / USA / 116m / Col / Zombie | IMDb
Brad Pitt, Mireille Enos, Daniella Kertesz, James Badge Dale, Ludi Boeken, Matthew Fox, Fana Mokoena, David Morse, Elyes Gabel, Peter Capaldi
“Gone are the slowly stumbling zombies of earlier generations, replaced by a frantic horde who dive, tackle and bite like a snarling biblical horde of rats, a mass of bodies that wail and gnash teeth, thrashing insatiably in search of human flesh. And although plenty are slaughtered by Pitt and company, the gory details are spared, Foster wisely playing this as thriller rather than splatter. With all the action, there’s little time for character development or heart, but Pitt holds his own as an hero with a mission to save the world. And given what he goes through, it’s just as well he’s more indestructible than the average zombie.” – Simon Weaving, Screenwize
AKA:
837. (+41) The Final Girls
Todd Strauss-Schulson
2015 / USA / 88m / Col / Comedy | IMDb
Taissa Farmiga, Malin Akerman, Alexander Ludwig, Nina Dobrev, Alia Shawkat, Thomas Middleditch, Adam DeVine, Angela Trimbur, Chloe Bridges, Tory N. Thompson
““Final Girls” isn’t the first movie to show self-aware characters using their knowledge of horror films to plot an escape. Drew Goddard’s “Cabin in the Woods” and Wes Craven’s “Scream” mined that ground a while back. But give director Todd Strauss-Schulson some serious credit here. “Final Girls” still manages to use a quick wit and a few surprises to keep things interesting for the audience… The most surprising thing about “Final Girls” is how sweet it is. The subplot about Max and her mother leads to a number of tender scenes, and “Final Girls” has a genuine heart in the middle of all of its experimentation and social commentary. None of the characters are especially deep, but almost all of them are easier to cheer for than the cannon fodder of the “Friday the 13th” films.” – Josh Terry, Deseret News
AKA:
838. (new) House on Haunted Hill
William Malone
1999 / USA / 93m / Col / Haunted House | IMDb
Geoffrey Rush, Famke Janssen, Taye Diggs, Peter Gallagher, Chris Kattan, Ali Larter, Bridgette Wilson-Sampras, Max Perlich, Jeffrey Combs, Dick Beebe
“House on Haunted Hill revels in the earthy limits it sets for itself, and its infectious tone makes for good cheesy fun for those in the right mindset. And though it dates itself a bit here and there, it holds up quite well in comparison to plenty of more recent horror films. The film was made when computer effects were still getting their feet under them, and the combination of practical make-up and sophisticated optical effects makes for some supremely creepy moments.” – Rob Vaux, Mania.com
AKA:
839. (-90) Dracula Has Risen from the Grave
Freddie Francis
1968 / UK / 92m / Col / Vampire | IMDb
Christopher Lee, Rupert Davies, Veronica Carlson, Barbara Ewing, Barry Andrews, Ewan Hooper, Marion Mathie, Michael Ripper, John D. Collins, George A. Cooper
“Fortunately, the production values and Gothic atmosphere remain as lush as ever, and former cinematographer Freddie Francis does a spectacular job in the director’s chair, milking every scene for maximum visual impact, emphasizing not only the Gothic horror but also the romance. He puts the camera in close during Dracula ravishment of Maria, creating a seductive intimacy that goes even a little bit beyond what director Terence Fisher had focused on in HORROR OF DRACULA and DRACULA, PRINCE OF DARKNESS.” – Steve Biodrowski, Cinefantastique Online
AKA:
840. (-149) Lo strano vizio della signora Wardh
Sergio Martino
1971 / Italy / 98m / Col / Giallo | IMDb
George Hilton, Edwige Fenech, Conchita Airoldi, Manuel Gil, Carlo Alighiero, Ivan Rassimov, Alberto de Mendoza, Bruno Corazzari, Marella Corbi, Miguel del Castillo
“‘The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh’ is not a beautiful film in the usual sense. There are no lavish shots of the breathtaking cities of Europe nor does one see any overt attempt to dazzle the viewer with aesthetic style. Instead, we are presented with a sleazy, bleak and repellent film brimming with atmosphere and brutality and from which one can take a vulgar sense of enjoyment. This is an example of repugnant beauty, the way in which a dark subject can be treated in such a manner that it becomes strangely absorbing. A few pacing problems aside, ‘The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh’ is a strong all-around offering for those interested in a slow-burn, mature mystery-horror movie.” – Chris Austin, Cult Reviews
AKA: Blade of the Ripper
841. (-69) Cat’s Eye
Lewis Teague
1985 / USA / 94m / Col / Anthology | IMDb
Drew Barrymore, James Woods, Alan King, Kenneth McMillan, Robert Hays, Candy Clark, James Naughton, Tony Munafo, Court Miller, Russell Horton
“As a whole, CAT’S EYE is a well-written and well-produced slab of 80’s horror nostalgia, and aside from some of the music and dated special effects, there’s not much that prevents the film from being timeless. There’s a certain amount of black humor present that Stephen King was so good at, and there are brilliant callbacks throughout the film, be it portions of the film referencing earlier segments, or subtle things that reference scenes or bits of dialogue that didn’t initially seem noteworthy.” – Aaron Duenas, The Death Rattle
AKA:
842. (new) The Purge
James DeMonaco
2013 / USA / 85m / Col / Home Invasion | IMDb
Ethan Hawke, Lena Headey, Max Burkholder, Adelaide Kane, Edwin Hodge, Rhys Wakefield, Tony Oller, Arija Bareikis, Tom Yi, Chris Mulkey
“Although The Purge is genuinely terrifying at times, even with its basic genre tricks like turning off the lights and freaky face masks, it effectively leaves you asking yourself the all-valid question, what would you do in this situation? Would you sacrifice your life for another, or vice versa? This is where the film succeeds. It isn’t the conversation that it should be on its own, but it encourages you as the moviegoer to start this kind of conversation on your own.” – Candice Frederick, Reel Talk Online
AKA:
843. (new) Wake in Fright
Ted Kotcheff
1971 / Australia / 109m / Col / Psychological | IMDb
Donald Pleasence, Gary Bond, Chips Rafferty, Sylvia Kay, Jack Thompson, Peter Whittle, Al Thomas, John Meillon, John Armstrong, Slim DeGrey
“For decades, Wake in Fright (aka Outback in the UK and US) was cinema’s pre-Cern Higgs Boson particle, a theoretical keystone in the construction of the New Australian Cinema of the 1970s, and its gap-toothed relative, the Ocker Comedy. Released in the same year – 1971 – as Nicolas Roeg’s Walkabout, Ted Kotcheff’s psychodrama has been variously cited as a precursor for Mad Max, a jumpstart for a national film industry, and, by the reckoning of Rex Reed and Nick Cave, the greatest Australian film ever made… John Grant’s odyssey, for all its excesses, forms a neatly symmetrical, perfectly Kafkaesque narrative.” – Tara Brady, Irish Times
AKA: Outback
844. (-278) Riget
Lars von Trier & Morten Arnfred
1994 / Denmark / 561m / Col / Supernatural | IMDb
Ernst-Hugo Järegård, Kirsten Rolffes, Holger Juul Hansen, Søren Pilmark, Ghita Nørby, Jens Okking, Baard Owe, Birgitte Raaberg, Peter Mygind, Vita Jensen
“The horror aspects of the show are compelling, but in many ways Riget is a somewhat generic hospital soap opera, drawing you in to the lurid goings-on that happen once the rubber gloves come off. It’s a familiar format, and an effective one, but in much the same way that Twin Peaks lured unsuspecting viewers in with a murder mystery and a seemingly recognizable small town setting, Von Trier uses the power struggles and trysts of the medical staff as a springboard into the surreal and fantastic. In fact, the influence of David Lynch’s TV masterpiece, which aired a few short years before, permeates the show […] There’s also something very Lynchian about its disorienting tonal shifts, going from corporate thriller to gruesome darkness to offbeat comedy in the blink of an eye, which adds a bitingly satirical dimension to the proceedings.” – Thomas Michalsky, WFMU’s Beware of the Blog
AKA: The Kingdom
845. (-84) Buio Omega
Joe D’Amato
1979 / Italy / 94m / Col / Splatter | IMDb
Kieran Canter, Cinzia Monreale, Franca Stoppi, Sam Modesto, Anna Cardini, Lucia D’Elia, Mario Pezzin, Walter Tribus, Klaus Rainer, Edmondo Vallini
“A hypnotically gruesome cult hit that may not be for everyone in the genre, especially the squeamish (and the very impatient), Beyond the Darkness is as close to Italian-gore-trash perfection as you’re going to get. Accompanied with a groovy score by Goblin that perfectly juxtaposes Frank and Iris’ evil nature, Beyond the Darkness is a true thrill that will leave you genuinely creeped out and disturbed.” – Juliana Bennett, Horror in the Attic
AKA: Beyond the Darkness
846. (+83) The Call of Cthulhu
Andrew Leman
2005 / USA / 47m / BW / Supernatural | IMDb
Matt Foyer, John Bolen, Ralph Lucas, Chad Fifer, Susan Zucker, Kalafatic Poole, John Klemantaski, Jason Owens, D. Grigsby Poland, David Mersault
“[A] rousing throwback to the silent film era, the time where horror meant the twang of the score, and actually paying attention, focusing on the horror of our actors as they face this menace. In the silent era, actors were more based upon their facial expressions and presence upon the screen, and “The Call of Cthulhu” captures the mood of those old silent films, with the sheer goth of HP Lovecraft… Leman’s direction is gorgeous with wonderful set pieces, and beautiful cinematography, while the story’s tension mounts minute to minute for the big pay off. For a film that didn’t really seem to have a big budget, it sure had some fantastic special effects, especially in the climax where the sailors finally go above and beyond this legend.” – Felix Vasquez Jr., Film Threat
AKA:
847. (new) The Lodge
Severin Fiala & Veronika Franz
2019 / UK / 108m / Col / Psychological | IMDb
Richard Armitage, Riley Keough, Alicia Silverstone, Jaeden Martell, Lia McHugh, Rebecca Faulkenberry, Danny Keough, Katelyn Wells, Lola Reid
“Austrian writer-directors Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz, who also made 2014’s deeply creepy “Goodnight Mommy,” serve up a disturbing story where shock factor plays an outsized role… “The Lodge” is first and foremost a mood piece. Religion, sin and repentance are major themes, and the film grows more disquieting as the situation inside the cabin becomes increasingly dire. If “The Lodge” doesn’t answer all the questions it poses, that’s okay. Its strength lies in its ability to stir a reaction, and that feeling lasts longer than its explanations. It’s a trip you won’t forget.” – Adam Graham, Detroit News Film Critic
AKA:
848. (new) Monsters
Gareth Edwards
2010 / Netherlands / 94m / Col / Science Fiction | IMDb
Scoot McNairy, Whitney Able, Mario Zuniga Benavides, Annalee Jefferies, Justin Hall, Ricky Catter, Paul Archer, Kerry Valderrama, Jonathan Winnford, Stan Wong
“Monsters’ strengths lie in its simplicities; the aliens are rarely seen and the action is sporadic, which is admittedly frustrating yet effective in equal measure. Overuse of CGI effects could have potentially rendered the film as a bog standard “B movie” spectacle. Thankfully, Monsters gives its other-worldly creatures just the right amount of exposure to keep the audience on the edge of their seats throughout its slender 90 minute runtime. Beautifully shot and capably handled, Edwards’ cinematic directorial debut is a heartfelt and touching exploration of two well-drawn, troubled characters, which just happens to feature extraterrestrials as a backdrop to the central narrative.” – Edward Frost, CineVue
AKA:
849. (new) Halloween II
Rob Zombie
2009 / USA / 105m / Col / Slasher | IMDb
Sheri Moon Zombie, Chase Wright Vanek, Scout Taylor-Compton, Brad Dourif, Caroline Williams, Malcolm McDowell, Tyler Mane, Dayton Callie, Richard Brake
“Despite the limitations inherent in the genre, it actually delivers. It’s not about the pure scares in a movie like this (almost any junky spookfest can get those, with the old face-in-a-mirror trick and various hoary techniques). No, a “character-based” monster flick – and Michael Myers is in that first generation, make no mistake – needs to play with that conceit, and Zombie’s dirty, disturbing, even dream-based approach works perfectly. And McDowell, that old pro, is a real hoot as Dr. Loomis… in a world where the “Hostel” and “Saw” films are the norm, and the recent remake of “Last House on the Left” set the bar nauseatingly low, Zombie knows a thing or two about keeping it pure.” – Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News
AKA:
850. (new) Jason X
James Isaac
2001 / USA / 91m / Col / Slasher | IMDb
Kane Hodder, Jeff Geddis, Lexa Doig, David Cronenberg, Markus Parilo, Jonathan Potts, Lisa Ryder, Dov Tiefenbach, Chuck Campbell, Melyssa Ade
“A brief summary of the plot: after authorities found it impossible to execute Jason Vorhees for his crimes, they opted the route of containment via cryogenic freezing. One poorly planned transfer and some 450 years later, Jason is now running amok on a futuristic spacecraft. Truly, the film is something of a marvel: bad by all traditional standards, but standing as something of a perfect distillation of schlocky 80’s horror trends, with horrendous one-liners and cheap synthesizer scoring to boot. I kind of love it, in a McDonald’s-ball-pit-version-of-Aliens sort of way… One hopes that Jason X will become an underdog classic of camp, what with its shameless death scenes and ridiculous climax” – Rob Humanick, Projection Booth
AKA:
851. (+43) Swamp Thing
Wes Craven
1982 / USA / 91m / Col / Science Fiction | IMDb
Louis Jourdan, Adrienne Barbeau, Ray Wise, David Hess, Nicholas Worth, Don Knight, Al Ruban, Dick Durock, Ben Bates, Nannette Brown
“This is one of those movies like “Infra-Man” or “Invasion of the Bee Girls”: an off-the-wall, eccentric, peculiar movie fueled by the demented obsessions of its makers. “Swamp Thing” first saw the light of day, so to speak, as a hero in a celebrated series of DC Comics… [Wes Craven] betrays a certain gentleness and poetry along with the gore; in fact, this movie is a lot less violent than many others in the same genre. Craven’s inspiration seems to come from James Whale’s classic “Bride of Frankenstein” (1935), and he pays tribute in scenes where his swamp monster sniffs a flower, admires a young girl’s beauty from afar, and looks sadly at a photograph in a locket.” – Roger Ebert, RogerEbert.com
AKA:
852. (new) Les revenants
Robin Campillo
2004 / France / 102m / Col / Zombie | IMDb
Géraldine Pailhas, Jonathan Zaccaï, Frédéric Pierrot, Victor Garrivier, Catherine Samie, Djemel Barek, Marie Matheron, Saady Delas, Guy Herbert, Catherine Salvini
“The film remains mysterious throughout its complete running time, though nothing much is actually happening. We follow the lives of the three characters as they try to cope with what is happening to them. There aren’t any big revelations or mind-shattering explanations, but the finale is satisfactory and keeps a layer of mystery hanging over the film. Les Revenants is a nifty take on the zombie genre, drawing lots of atmosphere from its score and introducing some very interesting themes. It’s a definite recommendation for those looking for something a little different.” – Niels Matthijs, ScreenAnarchy
AKA: They Came Back
853. (+38) Black Death
Christopher Smith
2010 / UK / 102m / Col / Historical Drama | IMDb
Sean Bean, Eddie Redmayne, John Lynch, Tim McInnerny, Kimberley Nixon, Andy Nyman, David Warner, Johnny Harris, Emun Elliott, Tygo Gernandt
“As it turns out, no one is without sin in “Black Death,” a grungy, cynical little number from the British director Christopher Smith that slams Christians against pagans with little love for either… With old-fashioned style and old-school effects — you can feel the weight of the broadswords and the crunchy resistance of every hacked head — “Black Death” takes Dark Ages drama to the limits of moral ambivalence. Here, excessive piety and rampant paganism are equally malevolent forces, the film’s baleful view of human nature mirrored in Sebastian Edschmid’s swampy photography. As is emphasized in a nicely consistent coda, the Lord’s side and the right side are not necessarily one and the same.” – Jeannette Catsoulis, New York Times
AKA:
854. (new) The Last Horror Movie
Julian Richards
2003 / UK / 80m / Col / Found Footage | IMDb
Kevin Howarth, Mark Stevenson, Antonia Beamish, Christabel Muir, Jonathan Coote, Rita Davies, Joe Hurley, Jamie Langthorne, John Berlyne, Mandy Gordon
“Missing the abundance of gore prolific in extreme cinema, the production employs a less-is-more strategy with its visualization of death that undoubtedly works in the film’s intention of pragmatism over shock and awe. However, that isn’t to say the film doesn’t contain its fair share of visceral action, with scenes of a helpless victim tied to a chair being set ablaze as a particular standout from the abundance of grisly deaths. Although roaming a well-traveled path, The Last Horror Movie is an auspicious entry to the growing genre of serial killer mockumentaries. With an incredibly absorbing performance from Kevin Howarth, the film is a believably ruthless representation of violence, as well as its self-reflective ideology; The Last Horror Movie is an incredibly enjoyable albeit an ephemeral piece of found footage cinema best enjoyed on the small screen.” – Jim Cox, Grimoire of Horror
AKA:
855. (-169) Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood
John Carl Buechler
1988 / USA / 88m / Col / Slasher | IMDb
Jennifer Banko, John Otrin, Susan Blu, Lar Park-Lincoln, Terry Kiser, Kevin Spirtas, Susan Jennifer Sullivan, Heidi Kozak, Kane Hodder, William Butler
“[It] really wants to do something different. “Different,” in this case, means gene-splicing elements from another film into the familiar formula, and the result – about a face-off between the hulking masked maniac and a troubled teen with telekinesis – is fondly if not quite respectfully called “Carrie Meets Jason.” You cannot really take the results seriously, but they are fun, offering both an interesting subplot and a chance to see something never really shown in a Friday film before: Jason getting his ass handed to him on a platter. “Purists” might object to seeing their favorite anti-hero dissed so badly, but anyone looking for a good time should be able to get at least a few chuckles out of seeing Jason meet his match.” – Steve Biodrowski, Cinefantastique
AKA:
856. (+20) Monkey Shines
George A. Romero
1988 / USA / 113m / Col / Nature | IMDb
Jason Beghe, John Pankow, Kate McNeil, Joyce Van Patten, Christine Forrest, Stephen Root, Stanley Tucci, Boo, Janine Turner, William Newman
“Horror fans have seen these things before, but to Romero’s credit where many filmmakers would use this story as a launching pad for gory set pieces and offer up a symphony of murder at the monkey’s hand, here the emphasis is more on the psychological aspect of things. As Allan breaks down we get inside his head a bit thanks to the genuinely strong performance from Jason Beghe. We don’t always like him but the movie is calculating enough to ensure that we do always understand him. This makes the more macabre scenes in which the murders do take place considerably more suspenseful than they would be had they just been simple gore films. As Allan’s anger grows and he starts to crack, the film does grow in intensity thanks to the character development that came before it starting to pay off in interesting ways.” – Ian Jane, DVDTalk
AKA: Ella
857. (new) Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Fran Rubel Kuzui
1992 / USA / 86m / Col / Vampire | IMDb
Kristy Swanson, Donald Sutherland, Paul Reubens, Rutger Hauer, Luke Perry, Michele Abrams, Hilary Swank, Paris Vaughan, David Arquette, Randall Batinkoff
“Those who look for political import in prom-queen movies may be interested to note that Buffy (Kristy Swanson), the cheerleading, bubble-headed heroine of the blithe teen-age comedy “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” kicks and backflips her way to martial-arts mastery before the story is over. As for other things worth noticing, you may be too old to appreciate one of this film’s main selling points if you’re distracted by its efforts to enhance Luke Perry’s hair. Luckily, there are better reasons for watching “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” a slight, good-humored film that’s a lot more painless than might have been expected.” – Janet Maslin, The New York Times
AKA:
858. (-127) Tales from the Hood
Rusty Cundieff
1995 / USA / 98m / Col / Anthology | IMDb
Clarence Williams III, Joe Torry, De’aundre Bonds, Samuel Monroe Jr., Wings Hauser, Tom Wright, Anthony Griffith, Michael Massee, Duane Whitaker, David Alan Grier
“All four of the stories differ in tone – some are darkly comic, others outright gruesome – yet they share a thoughtful quality. Each one addresses some kind of relevant issue: racist cops, domestic violence, people who inexcusably cling to the ideals of the Jim Crow South, and black-on-black killings. What happens in them is appropriately eerie. More vitally, they give you something to think about. Despite having been released 22 years ago, none of the tales have lost their sting. They hold on to their urgency, making every bit as much of an impact now as they did then.” – Mike McGranaghan, Aisle Seat
AKA:
859. (+36) The Girl Next Door
Gregory Wilson
2007 / USA / 91m / Col / Crime | IMDb
William Atherton, Blythe Auffarth, Blanche Baker, Kevin Chamberlin, Dean Faulkenberry, Gabrielle Howarth, Benjamin Ross Kaplan, Spenser Leigh, Daniel Manche, Mark Margolis
“Daniel Farrands and Philip Nutman’s screenplay sticks close to Ketchum’s novel, which was inspired by the notorious 1965 torture-murder of Indiana teenager Sylvia Likens. Neither Ketchum nor the filmmakers take an exploitative approach to the material; their focus is the way the youngsters’ petty cruelty erupts into murderous sadism through exposure to Ruth, whose homey manner conceals a sociopath’s warped worldview. Baker is chilling as Ruth and young actress Auffarth gives a strong performance as the brutalized Meg, which only makes the film’s unsettling subject matter more difficult to watch.” – Maitland McDonagh, TV Guide
AKA:
860. (-50) The Stand
Mick Garris
1994 / USA / 361m / Col / Supernatural | IMDb
Gary Sinise, Molly Ringwald, Jamey Sheridan, Ruby Dee, Miguel Ferrer, Corin Nemec, Matt Frewer, Adam Storke, Ray Walston, Rob Lowe
“It doesn’t have anything like the usual steady, predictable rhythms of a miniseries-its scenes are of uneven lengths, and sometimes important characters disappear for hours at a time. The unexpected structure of the film-sort of an artful jumble-helps build suspense, because you realize very quickly that this movie doesn’t behave like other TV shows; anything can happen at any time. Garris also takes more care with the look of his film than most TV-movie directors-surely this is one of the prettiest scary movies ever made-and some entire scenes unfold without dialogue, a great rarity in television land.” – Ken Tucker, Entertainment Weekly
AKA: Stephen King’s The Stand
861. (+21) The Hole
Nick Hamm
2001 / UK / 102m / Col / Psychological | IMDb
Thora Birch, Desmond Harrington, Daniel Brocklebank, Laurence Fox, Keira Knightley, Embeth Davidtz, Steven Waddington, Emma Griffiths Malin, Jemma Powell
“Pitched somewhere between The Blair Witch Project and The Famous Five, The Hole offers enough moments of duplicity, character degeneration and, of course, shock twists, to suggest it really wants to be the next Shallow Grave. And indeed, it boasts striking similarities – for example, the way in which it places its dislikeable protagonists in an extraordinary situation – but ultimately it lacks the necessary cleverness to really succeed… it is an effective enough chiller which prompts plenty of post-credits contemplation, and has far more imagination in a single reel than most recent British thrillers have had in their entire running time.” – Caroline Westbrook, Empire Magazine
AKA:
862. (new) Apt Pupil
Bryan Singer
1998 / USA / 111m / Col / Thriller | IMDb
Brad Renfro, Ian McKellen, Joshua Jackson, Mickey Cottrell, Michael Reid MacKay, Ann Dowd, Bruce Davison, James Karen, Marjorie Lovett, David Cooley
“Apt Pupil doesn’t pan out as a hunted-Nazi thriller, although Dussander — chillingly interpreted by McKellen, who’s spectacular in every role these days — at one point goose-steps in an old SS uniform. Neither is it a full-tilt Stephen King thriller, particularly after first-time screenwriter Brandon Boyce softens up the violence of the author’s much more murderous text. But absorb “Apt Pupil” as a student-teacher parable, a shaping-of-character tale about an unusual Nazi suspect and an alienated kid as American as apple strudel, and you’re in for a start more disturbing than anything Keyser Söze could provide.” – Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly
AKA:
863. (-164) The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence)
Tom Six
2011 / USA / 91m / BW / Body Horror | IMDb
Laurence R. Harvey, Ashlynn Yennie, Maddi Black, Kandace Caine, Dominic Borrelli, Lucas Hansen, Lee Nicholas Harris, Dan Burman, Daniel Jude Gennis
“If you are a true fan of horror then you will appreciate what Six is doing. If you are not you may ask why put yourself through the grinder and watch something as uncomfortable and disturbing as this? Well the answer for a horror fan is that there’s something deeply satisfying about going to the dark side, to looking as what can lurk inside a person and discover that the most terrifying thing is the darkness that can lie within the human soul. It’s also a carefully constructed work of art that makes us think about how we view violence, about how we have been lulled into numbness by horror films that sanitize violence and make it palatable so that you can walk out of a Hollywood horror film and only talk about where to go to dinner. Six wants to jolt you in order to remind you that violence in films should offend you, should upset you.” – Beth Accomando, KPBS
AKA:
864. (-239) The Cat and the Canary
Elliott Nugent
1939 / USA / 72m / BW / Comedy | IMDb
Bob Hope, Paulette Goddard, John Beal, Douglass Montgomery, Gale Sondergaard, Elizabeth Patterson, George Zucco, Nydia Westman, John Wray, George Regas
“This adaptation of John Willard’s 1922 play is notable for providing Bob Hope his starring debut, and for offering Paulette Goddard a chance to show off her sadly under-utilized comedic chops. The film’s “let’s scare the heroine to death” storyline — while imitated ad nauseum by countless later “old dark house” horror flicks — remains solidly suspenseful; you’re guaranteed to be kept in the dark (literally) about the identity of the killer. Director Elliott Nugent and cinematographer Charles Lang do a fine job keeping the proceedings appropriately spooky and atmospheric, though with Hope on board, there’s naturally plenty of corny levity (“Let’s all drink scotch and make wry faces.”).” – FilmFanatic
AKA:
865. (-132) Terror Train
Roger Spottiswoode
1980 / Canada / 97m / Col / Slasher | IMDb
Ben Johnson, Jamie Lee Curtis, Hart Bochner, David Copperfield, Derek McKinnon, Sandee Currie, Timothy Webber, Anthony Sherwood, Howard Busgang, Steve Michaels
“And damn me, but I left Terror Train feeling not just satiated as one will after watching a slasher film, full but slightly queasy and aware of the imminent fact of indigestion, as after the final bite of a Big Mac with large fries; I was engaged, and delighted. It’s such a snazzy way to end what was already an irreproachably decent flick that it’s even easy to overlook that Terror Train has effectively no gore to speak of and blandly-staged killings: amazingly, when you have compelling, entertaining filmmaking on your side, you don’t need to do anything tawdry to keep things interesting.” – Tim Brayton, Antagony & Ecstasy
AKA: Train of Terror
866. (new) Trick or Treat
Charles Martin Smith
1986 / USA / 98m / Col / Supernatural | IMDb
Marc Price, Tony Fields, Lisa Orgolini, Doug Savant, Elaine Joyce, Glen Morgan, Gene Simmons, Ozzy Osbourne, Elise Richards, Richard Pachorek
“[Trick or Treat] is about a deceased heavy-metal star who returns to wreak havoc at a small-town high school. The rock star is played most energetically by Tony Fields, who stomps through the film in studs and low-cut black leather, scaring everyone he sees. Ozzy Osbourne, who does this kind of thing in real life, appears in the film briefly (and none too convincingly) as a minister. ‘Trick or Treat’ was directed by Charles Martin Smith, who played the likable nerd in ‘American Graffiti’ and has given his own film something of a likable nerd quality. It’s genial, not too frightening and even rather sweet.” – Janet Maslin, New York Times
AKA:
867. (-73) Et mourir de plaisir
Roger Vadim
1960 / France / 87m / Col / Vampire | IMDb
Mel Ferrer, Elsa Martinelli, Annette Stroyberg, Alberto Bonucci, René-Jean Chauffard, Gabriella Farinon, Serge Marquand, Edith Peters, Nathalie Lafaurie
“In some ways, Blood and Roses strikes me as a much-belated European response to Val Lewton’s horror movies for RKO. Like the majority of those films, Blood and Roses cloaks what is fundamentally a psychological thriller in a skin of supernatural horror, and circumvents the target audience’s natural antipathy for “rational” explanations by making the validity of the supernatural manifestations the story’s central mystery. Obviously, that demands from Vadim and his collaborators a much more acute understanding of people’s mental and emotional processes than was typically displayed by horror filmmakers in this era, together with a far greater investment in character development. At a time when most fright films were simplistic stories of good vs. evil, Blood and Roses presents a startlingly mature examination of sexual neurosis and the dark side of exactly the sort of romanticism in which escapist cinema normally trades.” – Scott Ashlin, 1000 Misspent Hours
AKA: Blood and Roses
868. (-153) The Skeleton Key
Iain Softley
2005 / USA / 104m / Col / Supernatural | IMDb
Kate Hudson, Gena Rowlands, John Hurt, Peter Sarsgaard, Joy Bryant, Maxine Barnett, Fahnlohnee R. Harris, Marion Zinser, Deneen Tyler, Ann Dalrymple
“The setting, the house, and the stories surrounding it invoke the mood the film feeds on, and the cinematography and sound use it well. The conclusion is smart and not a studio-directed decision, because all the evidence of it is onscreen from the first scene. Better yet, while the film ends satisfactorily, it also seeds the set up an equally interesting sequel if all the players agreed to return. The Skeleton Key may not be a slasher film with buckets of fake blood, but fans of Gore Verbinski’s remake of The Ring already understand what a creepy atmosphere, a good ghost story, and a great heroine can bring to a modern thriller.” – Grim D. Reaper, Movie Crypt
AKA:
869. (-22) Friday the 13th
Marcus Nispel
2009 / USA / 97m / Col / Slasher | IMDb
Jared Padalecki, Danielle Panabaker, Amanda Righetti, Travis Van Winkle, Aaron Yoo, Derek Mears, Jonathan Sadowski, Julianna Guill, Ben Feldman, Arlen Escarpeta
“Marcus Nispel’s remake… isn’t really a remake at all. After dispensing with Mrs. Voorhees before the opening credits, it launches into a brand new slaughterfest that sporadically pays homage to scenes from the first three films but stays truest only to their formula. And yet it works. It is easily the best Friday the 13th ever made, if only by virtue of the fact that it’s actually pretty good. How good? That depends what you’re looking for. By now, you know whether Friday the 13th is your kind of movie, and if it’s not, you’ve probably stopped reading by now. If it is, be assured that the acting is passable, the effects are impressively convincing, and the suspense is real. It’s not a great film, but it is a frightening one, and what more do you need to know?” – Rossiter Drake, San Francisco Examiner
AKA:
870. (-115) Castle Freak
Stuart Gordon
1995 / USA / 90m / Col / Splatter | IMDb
Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton, Jonathan Fuller, Jessica Dollarhide, Massimo Sarchielli, Elisabeth Kaza, Luca Zingaretti, Helen Stirling, Alessandro Sebastian Satta
“It’s a tight, taut little tale fraught with emotion and nail-biting terror. When things come to a head, it can only end in tragedy – though redemption is found as well. This, despite the corny name, is quite a powerful drama, with wonderful performances from Combs and Crampton. Jeff Combs, whose antihero drives the piece, really shines here and shows that he’s not just some over-the-top cult actor. The man is an accomplished and captivating performer.” – Dave Dunwoody, Oh, The Horror
AKA:
871. (-8) The Cottage
Paul Andrew Williams
2008 / UK / 92m / Col / Black Comedy | IMDb
Andy Serkis, Reece Shearsmith, Jennifer Ellison, Steven O’Donnell, James Bierman, Cat Meacher, Danny Nussbaum, Logan Wong, Jonathan Chan-Pensley
“The Cottage improves immeasurably following an out-of-left-field plot twist that hits at around the 55-minute mark – as the film, in a manner reminiscent of From Dusk Till Dawn, essentially morphs into a far more entertaining and altogether horrific endeavor than its comparatively sedate opening might’ve indicated. The degree to which the movie is redeemed by its impossible-to-anticipate third act is consequently quite staggering, as one can’t help but derive a fair amount of enjoyment from the downright brutal situation the central characters find themselves embroiled in. The inclusion of an appropriately grisly finale only cements The Cottage’s effective late-in-the-game turnaround.” – David Nusair, Reel Film Reviews
AKA:
872. (-206) The Return of the Vampire
Lew Landers
1943 / USA / 69m / BW / Vampire | IMDb
Bela Lugosi, Frieda Inescort, Nina Foch, Miles Mander, Roland Varno, Matt Willis
“The Return of the Vampire is an interesting, WWII-set take on the overdone vampire genre that gets point[s] for having a female Van Helsing character… The script, written by Randall Faye, Griffin Jay, and Kurt Neumann, doesn’t just explore the boundaries of the genre through the female protagonist; they introduce and hone a supernatural world living just below the surface of our real one. The war is raging in London, with the dropping of bombs literally unearthing the vampiric plague that could decimate the world; in essence, the war and vampirism are the same. It could be too on-the-nose, but I thought it was intriguing that the script doesn’t lie to the audience.” – Kristen Lopez, Journeys in Classic Film
AKA:
873. (new) Valkoinen peura
Erik Blomberg
1952 / Finland / 74m / BW / Supernatural | IMDb
Mirjami Kuosmanen, Kalervo Nissilä, Åke Lindman, Jouni Tapiola, Arvo Lehesmaa
“When it comes to sex or death, The White Reindeer’s American and European contemporaries generally traipse in darkness; in this rare collaboration, a husband-and-wife team managed to make daylight more terrifying. By endowing its fairy tale gimmick with the fruits of documentary filmmaking, The White Reindeer neutralizes the usual kill-the-monster anxieties that loom over 50s gothic, instead giving grandeur and melancholy to its feminist subtext by burying it – as countless other stories must be buried – in the frozen wilderness.” – Steve MacFarlane, Not Coming
AKA: The White Reindeer
874. (-300) Grindhouse
Robert Rodriguez & Quentin Tarantino et al.
2007 / USA / 191m / Col / Anthology | IMDb
Kurt Russell, Zoë Bell, Rosario Dawson, Vanessa Ferlito, Sydney Tamiia Poitier, Tracie Thoms, Rose McGowan, Jordan Ladd, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Quentin Tarantino
“An exuberant double feature by Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino, evokes the exploitation flicks that used to play, several decades ago, in moldering theaters with flypaper floors. Thus a go-go dancer’s leg goes missing during a zombie attack, and the action is occasionally interrupted by title cards that proclaim “Missing Reel.” (That touch is more affectionate than factual, since projectionists and sleazy distributors of the slasher/horror genre didn’t brag about such omissions.) Little else seems to be missing from this work of wild-eyed archaeology – not the slime or drool, spurting blood, throbbing engines, screeching tires or jeopardized women. Yet value has been added as well – the most thrilling car chase ever committed to film, a sequence that also shows, by cutting to the psychosexual chase, why fans embraced the tawdry genre in the first place.” – Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal
AKA:
875. (-148) Wolf
Mike Nichols
1994 / USA / 125m / Col / Werewolf | IMDb
Jack Nicholson, Michelle Pfeiffer, James Spader, Kate Nelligan, Richard Jenkins, Christopher Plummer, Eileen Atkins, David Hyde Pierce, Om Puri, Ron Rifkin
“In the business world Stewart is something of a bizarre jellyfish, but in full lycanthropic form, he is something of a surreal and absolutely menacing evil that Spader makes his own. “Wolf” is an underrated horror gem, one that works as social commentary and horror cinema, and it’s a great piece of nineties filmmaking. Filled with an understated intellect and using the werewolf movie formula as a commentary for aging and the battle of the males in a society obsessed with power and dominance, Mike Nichols “Wolf” is one of our favorites of the genre, and a guaranteed good time for anyone looking for a different kind of horror film.” – Felix Vasquez Jr., Cinema Crazed
AKA:
876. (-180) The Raven
Roger Corman
1963 / USA / 86m / Col / Comedy | IMDb
Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Boris Karloff, Hazel Court, Olive Sturgess, Jack Nicholson, Connie Wallace, William Baskin, Aaron Saxon
“It’s a breezy lark, funny without being brazenly hilarious, and feeling not at all like a Poe movie, though the contrast between Daniel Haller’s ubiquitous sets (and, once more that House of Usher fire footage) and the matinee silliness of the story is pretty damned appealing all on its own. The film manages to poke fun at the Poe movie formula without ever actually mocking it, a fine needle to thread; but Corman’s filmography is pockmarked by examples of self-lacerating light humor, though he is not customarily thought of in those terms. Anyway, it’s a charmingly off-kilter hybrid, not a comic masterpiece and not a Gothic classic, but hugely entertaining on its own very low-key terms.” – Tim Brayton, Antagony & Ecstasy
AKA:
877. (-148) Maniac Cop
William Lustig
1988 / USA / 85m / Col / Slasher | IMDb
Tom Atkins, Bruce Campbell, Laurene Landon, Richard Roundtree, William Smith, Robert Z’Dar, Sheree North, Nina Arvesen, Nick Barbaro, Lou Bonacki
“Maniac Cop is quite action packed for a slasher and relies more on guns and explosions than than slow death, torment and suspense. Cordell’s victims meet brutal demises but the slash far outweighs the stalk with numerous victims getting nowhere near the expected 15 minutes of fame allocated by popular sayings. Viewers are even treated to a car chase which is also a valuable lesson in physics proving that cars go much faster when the back end is allowed to travel twice as far as the front in the eighties. There is so much to love about Maniac Cop despite it being in the genre of 80s trash horror. Lustig and Cohen’s styles meld together brilliantly, Campbell and Atkins never fail to entertain but most importantly there is not a hint of pretentiousness. The film knows exactly what it is and doesn’t try to be anything more.” – Pazuzu Iscariot, Horror Extreme
AKA:
878. (+114) Jeepers Creepers 2
Victor Salva
2003 / USA / 104m / Col / Monster | IMDb
Ray Wise, Jonathan Breck, Garikayi Mutambirwa, Eric Nenninger, Nicki Aycox, Travis Schiffner, Lena Cardwell, Billy Aaron Brown, Marieh Delfino, Diane Delano
“An early image – an overhead shot of a yellow-haired boy running through a golden cornfield on a blazing summer day, while being chased by a black flying thing – is such a mix of earthly beauty and unconscious terror that it could make anyone a believer. Salva is no punch-up-the-soundtrack-and-kick-the-camera director of action. He’s a classicist. He builds a mood through compositions that register as eerie without our really knowing why… while the movie takes place in the daytime, we have a brilliantly filmed version of a typical horror script. Once night descends, the film descends with it. It becomes merely competent, and the flaws and the gracelessness of the screenplay – which Salva wrote – become more obvious.” – Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle
AKA:
879. (new) Revenge
Coralie Fargeat
2017 / France / 108m / Col / Rape and Revenge | IMDb
Matilda Anna Ingrid Lutz, Kevin Janssens, Vincent Colombe, Guillaume Bouchède
“Loud, brash, neon-colored and shot like a music video, the flick is unabashedly cool. Fargeat is not afraid of being slick or stylizing the action. Even the gallons of blood she utilizes are of the stickiest, gooiest, reddest variety. They cling to the actors’ bodies like latex skin-suits… Revenge is sexy, but the female gaze is steadily applied throughout. The rape itself is quick, and mostly off-screen — a deliberate departure. Male nudity is cleverly utilized; first, for power and strength, before Fargeat strips the veneer away and leaves her antagonist naked, injured and struggling to fight against her strong, marginally more clothed heroine.” – Joey Keogh, Vague Visages
AKA:
880. (-129) J’accuse!
Abel Gance
1938 / France / 104m / BW / War | IMDb
Victor Francen, Line Noro, Marie Lou, Jean-Max, Paul Amiot, Jean-Louis Barrault, Marcel Delaître, Renée Devillers, Romuald Joubé, André Nox
“This is a powerful film that leaves quite an impression. Gance told the French government that the film could be used as a recruiting tool, so they allowed him to film at the front (he captured part of the Battle of St. Mihiel) and the footage was used in the movie. He was also able to use soldiers on leave as extras in the climactic scene where the dead come back to life. Most of the men used in this scene were in the army and were tragically killed weeks later. Still, they had seen battle in the trenches of France and you can tell by the looks on their faces that they weren’t acting so much as reacting to what they had experienced.” – John Sinnott, DVD Talk
AKA: I Accuse
881. (+27) Delicatessen
Marc Caro & Jean-Pierre Jeunet
1991 / France / 99m / Col / Black Comedy | IMDb
Pascal Benezech, Dominique Pinon, Marie-Laure Dougnac, Jean-Claude Dreyfus, Karin Viard, Ticky Holgado, Anne-Marie Pisani, Boban Janevski, Mikael Todde, Edith Ker
“Set to the cadence and meanderings of a truly odd household of inmates/tenants, Delicatessen cunningly unfolds a futuristic domain of perverse gadgets and their owners who, in turn, run amok in a macabre and highly melancholy manner. Brutal machinery and fragile humanity are forever at odds, with love and devotion the only chance for survival. But can the cannibal elite of the tenement repel the attack of the subversive troglodytes? The juxtaposition of themes becomes increasingly delirious… Sure to be heralded as a masterpiece of vision and not merely a cult film, Delicatessen is so laden with humor and madness, brutality and tenderness, viewers will be left dumbstruck by the sheer style of the adventure alone.” – Roger Hurlburt, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
AKA:
882. (+18) Happy Birthday to Me
J. Lee Thompson
1981 / Canada / 111m / Col / Slasher | IMDb
Melissa Sue Anderson, Glenn Ford, Lawrence Dane, Sharon Acker, Frances Hyland, Tracey E. Bregman, Jack Blum, Matt Craven, Lenore Zann, David Eisner
“One of the strongest entries in the 80s splatter canon, Happy Birthday to Me is both quite simplistic and unusually sophisticated for a slasher. On the one hand, it’s clearly driven by the petulant, juvenile pangs of youth and will resonate with anyone who was ever jilted on their birthday by a group of friends (hopefully it doesn’t resonate too much because things will get awkward and bloody in a hurry). But on the other hand, this one sets itself apart from its contemporaries by spinning one hell of a yarn around this concept, as it’s lined with enough twists and turns that would even make giallo masters blush. In many ways, Happy Birthday to Me is a perfect stopgap between that genre and the standard issue American body count flick; it really can’t be claimed as either, which makes it all the more intriguing.” – Brett Gallman, Oh, The Horror
AKA:
883. (new) Troll 2
Claudio Fragasso
1990 / Italy / 95m / Col / Monster | IMDb
Michael Stephenson, George Hardy, Margo Prey, Connie Young, Robert Ormsby, Deborah Reed, Jason Wright, Darren Ewing, Jason Steadman, David McConnell
“Film is an inherently collaborative medium that relies on the smooth functioning of a complex array of interconnected artistic and narrative components… The worst movies usually fumble in several of these categories simultaneously, but in some very rare, very special cases, everything goes wrong in perfect concert, thus producing a literal sympathy of ineptitude, a movie of such abject badness that its incompetence becomes a virtue, a source of unintended entertainment that transcends its many faults and stumbles into the realm of the sublime. Troll 2, which disappeared quickly after its straight-to-video release in the U.S. in the early 1990s but has since developed a rabid cult following, is such a movie. In fact, it may be the very epitome of the bad movie… one of the most uproarious unintentional comedies ever made.” – James Kendrick, Q Network Film Desk
AKA: Trolls
884. (-144) Hard Candy
David Slade
2005 / USA / 104m / Col / Thriller | IMDb
Patrick Wilson, Ellen Page, Sandra Oh, Odessa Rae, G.J. Echternkamp
“Hard Candy works superbly as a character-driven piece, rather than one which has to resort to graphic violence and standard-issue thriller clichés to get its point across. What’s more, the did-he-or-didn’t-he? element is bound to divide audiences — Jeff comes across as a likeable guy, one who dispels the stereotypical image of the internet paedophile as sleazy and/or socially awkward — and it’s all too easy to end up feeling sorry for him in spite of his alleged crimes. Like many movies which focus on just a few characters and a handful of settings, this would make a great stageplay — but as a cinematic experience, it delivers the goods.” – Caroline Westbrook, Empire
AKA:
885. (-49) Eight Legged Freaks
Ellory Elkayem
2002 / USA / 99m / Col / Nature | IMDb
David Arquette, Kari Wuhrer, Scott Terra, Scarlett Johansson, Doug E. Doug, Rick Overton, Leon Rippy, Matt Czuchry, Jay Arlen Jones, Eileen Ryan
“Decidedly goofy, Eight Legged Freaks is a modest horror comedy reminiscent of the campy B-movie creature flicks of yesteryear. Armed with cheesy humor and a tongue-in-cheek story, it offers light-hearted entertainment fit for a sci-fi monster movie marathon… Ultimately, Eight Legged Freaks is too polite to be a classic in its genre. But as horror comedies go, it’s breezy fun that recognizes its limitations and revels in its own absurdity. With that rare quality of self-awareness, it puts itself considerably above ill-conceived peers that take themselves too seriously.” – Andrew Manning, Radio Free Entertainment
AKA:
886. (-38) Una lucertola con la pelle di donna
Lucio Fulci
1971 / Italy / 104m / Col / Giallo | IMDb
Florinda Bolkan, Stanley Baker, Jean Sorel, Silvia Monti, Alberto de Mendoza, Penny Brown, Mike Kennedy, Ely Galleani, George Rigaud, Ezio Marano
“By making the film grounded in physical actuality and more lingering, disgusting gore, Fulci and Kuveiller and the rest of the filmmakers were able to make the moments of drug or psychosis-induced fantasy pop that much more, and somehow, having just a little insanity ends up making the whole film feel more deranged than if it always occupied that heightened place. For as long as it works, A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin does as good a job of exploring what a mental breakdown might actually consist of as well as any giallo ever did, and given the genre’s huge enthusiasm for psychiatry, that’s one heck of an achievement.” – Tim Brayton, Antagony & Ecstasy
AKA: A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin
887. (-141) Nekromantik
Jörg Buttgereit
1987 / Germany / 75m / Col / Exploitation | IMDb
Bernd Daktari Lorenz, Beatrice Manowski, Harald Lundt, Colloseo Schulzendorf, Henri Boeck, Clemens Schwender, Jörg Buttgereit, Holger Suhr, Volker Hauptvogel
“Watching Nekromantik felt like being an accomplice to a crime. Guilty by association. The film has the same transgressive, sub-cultural feel as amateur porn or extremist political broadcast. Engineered purposefully to shock and challenge notions of taste and conformity, Buttgereit’s film feels political in itself. A provocation from the fringes to remind us the world is a volatile place, filled with unpleasant things. To deny the dark half of both our nature and all nature is to put oneself to sleep. Buttgereit’s film wakes you up, not with breakfast but with a direct, sharp slap.” – Peter Cox, The Lost Highway Hotel
AKA:
888. (-257) Mute Witness
Anthony Waller
1995 / Russia / 95m / Col / Thriller | IMDb
Marina Zudina, Fay Ripley, Evan Richards, Oleg Yankovskiy, Igor Volkov, Sergei Karlenkov, Alec Guinness, Aleksandr Pyatkov, Nikolai Pastukhov, Aleksandr Bureyev
“Mute Witness has a keen sense of geography, and the camera movement is choreographed against the positions of the actors to sustain a remarkable cinematic tension. Sudina has a keen sense of her character, too, playing Billy as determined but terrified, smart but vulnerable. Her performance, along with Waller’s sure, straightforward direction, render some of the script’s more obvious implausibilities irrelevant in favor of sharp audience identification with Billy. And when the veracity of what she saw is called into question — was the ‘murder’ she witnessed really just a clever special effect? — the audience, too, is forced to reconsider its own experience of the murder on screen.” – Bryant Frazer, Deep Focus
AKA:
889. (-14) The Man They Could Not Hang
Nick Grinde
1939 / USA / 64m / BW / Science Fiction | IMDb
Boris Karloff, Lorna Gray, Robert Wilcox, Roger Pryor, Don Beddoe, Ann Doran, Joe De Stefani, Charles Trowbridge, Byron Foulger, Dick Curtis
“The Man They Could Not Hang is a crime drama with dark horror elements; the only thing keeping it from being a complete murder mystery is the fact that the murderer is not a mystery at all. Truth be told, the movie follows a pretty predictable path. Nevertheless, the screenplay, adapted by Karl Brown… drips with tension and suspense… Although Dr. Savaard is one of Karloff’s least sympathetic characters, his performance is both subtle and melodramatic, and the audience still finds itself wanting to root for him, even when he makes the jump from hero to villain for the second half of the movie. It may not have been as big of a hit as some of his other films, but The Man They Could Not Hang helped to transform Boris Karloff from horror icon to legitimate movie star.” – James Jay Edwards, FilmFracture
AKA:
890. (new) Ye ban ge sheng
Weibang Ma-Xu
1935 / China / 113m / BW / Drama | IMDb
Menghe Gu, Ping Hu, Shan Jin, Chau-shui Yee, Wenzhu Zhou
“Besides having a great story, Song at Midnight is also a visual treat. Ma-Xu was a not only a fan of Tod Browning’s Universal monster films, he was also an admirer of German universal_style_thumbexpressionism, most notably the works of Fritz Lang and Robert Wiene. Ma-Xu put together a film heavy with gothic atmosphere and haunting images. Ma-Xu sets the mood from the very beginning, by introducing the audience to the cobweb infested theater at night, and having a mysterious man lurking in the shadows. From that point on the scene is set and what follows truly comes from an artistic mind.” – Kimberly J.M. Wilson, 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
AKA: Song at Midnight
891. (-171) Rear Window
Alfred Hitchcock
1954 / USA / 112m / Col / Thriller | IMDb
James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Wendell Corey, Thelma Ritter, Raymond Burr, Judith Evelyn, Ross Bagdasarian, Georgine Darcy, Sara Berner, Frank Cady
“It’s one of Alfred Hitchcock’s inspired audience-participation films: watching it, you feel titillated, horrified, and, ultimately, purged. The story is set mainly in a Greenwich Village apartment with a view into the rooms across the courtyard, but in Hitchcock’s hands this small space contains multitudes. Here, he pushed the subjective-camera technique—putting the audience into the minds of his characters—to new heights… It’s an astonishing visual and psychological coup. Hitchcock’s brilliant satire of cramped city life and his masterly evocation of urban voyeurism suddenly generate primal fear and profound insight.” – Michael Sragow, New Yorker
AKA:
892. (+25) 4 mosche di velluto grigio
Dario Argento
1971 / Italy / 104m / Col / Giallo | IMDb
Michael Brandon, Mimsy Farmer, Jean-Pierre Marielle, Bud Spencer, Aldo Bufi Landi, Calisto Calisti, Marisa Fabbri, Oreste Lionello, Fabrizio Moroni, Corrado Olmi
“The little-seen Four Flies on Grey Velvet is perhaps most remarkable for it’s unusual spiritual underpinnings and Dario Argento’s deft attention for sexual signifiers. The title of this third and final film in Argento’s “animal trilogy” is as egregious as the weird science that literalizes the eye as a photographic camera… If Argento’s signature use of a black-gloved killer is noticeably absent, this is compensated by the presence of [Michael] Brandon himself, whose striking features recall those of the giallo director’s. There isn’t much to Four Flies on Grey Velvet besides pent-up rage though much of the film’s sexual frenzy prefigures themes from Deep Red.” – Ed Gonzalez, Slant Magazine
AKA: Four Flies on Grey Velvet
893. (-205) The Penalty
Wallace Worsley
1920 / USA / 90m / BW / Crime | IMDb
Charles Clary, Doris Pawn, Jim Mason, Lon Chaney, Milton Ross, Ethel Grey Terry, Kenneth Harlan, Claire Adams
“As far as film villains go, you’d be hard pressed to find one more unique than Chaney’s Blizzard. Bitter, hate-filled and with machinations that take a simple crime thriller and turn it into a potentially gruesome tale about a man virtually consumed with thoughts of revenge and a lust for power. To that end, ‘The Penalty’ is surprisingly captivating – being that you’re never quite sure just how far the film will take things once Blizzard gains the upper hand. Addiitonally, Worsely’s clever, sometimes suggestive direction and the emotive cinematography by Dan Short combine to create a rather compelling, if somewhat overly symbolic feature that still manages to be an entertaining film by today’s standards. For those familiar with his later work that would make him a legend, ‘The Penalty’ stands as a remarkable accomplishment for Chaney’s imagination and skill as both an actor and special effects guru.” – Kevin Yeoman, High-Def Digest
AKA:
894. (+92) Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday
Adam Marcus
1993 / USA / 87m / Col / Slasher | IMDb
John D. LeMay, Kari Keegan, Kane Hodder, Steven Williams, Steven Culp, Erin Gray, Rusty Schwimmer, Richard Gant, Leslie Jordan, Billy Green Bush
“Many faithful Friday advocates refer to this as the series’ lowest ebb and hold New Line contemptible for slaughtering their beloved franchise. On one hand they have a point. It’s unfocused, often inane, and disrespectful to its roots which could be viewed as unforgivable. Despite numerous failings and such a distinct departure from vintage Friday values, it still forms a decent double-bill with Freddy vs. Jason if you’re that way inclined… Taken on its own merits, Jason Goes To Hell is one of the easier Fridays to revisit. It’s not big, certainly not clever, and not particularly respectful of its once great heritage, but it’s 91 minutes of passable fare” – Richard Charles Stevens, Rivers of Grue
AKA: Friday the 13th IX
895. (-86) Begotten
E. Elias Merhige
1989 / USA / 72m / Col / Experimental | IMDb
Brian Salzberg, Donna Dempsey, Stephen Charles Barry, James Gandia, Daniel Harkins, Michael Phillips, Erik Slavin, Arthur Streeter, Adolfo Vargas, Garfield White
“Few motion pictures have the power to jolt an audience with the fury, imagination, and artistic violence of Begotten, a 1991 tour de force from Elias Merhige currently debuting on home video. This cryptic independent production is a film of eccentric brilliance, skillfully balancing the glorious and the grotesque in an unforgettable work of art. Perhaps the most striking aspect of Begotten is its cinematography. Filmmaker Merhige photographed his work on 16-mm black-and-white reversal film and then rephotographed the footage frame by frame on black-and-white negatives through density filters, a four-year labor that required 10 hours of work for each minute of the 78-minute film. The result is a visual work unlike any other – one that looks like an ancient ritual filmed on the scene thousands of years ago and only recently dusted off for viewing.” – Phil Hall, Wired
AKA:
896. (new) Katakuri-ke no kôfuku
Takashi Miike
2001 / Japan / 113m / Col / Black Comedy | IMDb
Kenji Sawada, Keiko Matsuzaka, Shinji Takeda, Naomi Nishida, Kiyoshirô Imawano, Tetsurô Tanba, Naoto Takenaka, Tamaki Miyazaki, Takashi Matsuzaki
“Miike uses several cinematic resources to transport his viewers into a space of strange, and shifting realities. This fantasy-world mirrors the uncertainty and anxieties of its characters while signifying their buried strengths and untapped resources. The film is filled with strange pleasures, from a brief zombie sequence to a karaoke scene (complete with onscreen lyrics). That it has become a comfort movie for many of the lucky who have stumbled across it should come as no surprise, as its message of hope and resurrection in the midst of dire circumstances is one most should be able to appreciate.” – Matthew Pridham, Weird Fiction Review
AKA: The Happiness of the Katakuris
897. (-26) Leprechaun
Mark Jones
1993 / USA / 92m / Col / Comedy | IMDb
Warwick Davis, Jennifer Aniston, Ken Olandt, Mark Holton, Robert Hy Gorman, Shay Duffin, John Sanderford, John Voldstad, Pamela Mant, William Newman
“Davis was said to have wanted this role as a bad guy after coming off a career drought, with a lead role in Willow as “the good guy.” It’s without a doubt, that the Leprechaun franchise would have never even been conceived or enjoyed as much without Davis in the lead role. He carries the movies, and every scene without him is lacking severely because the cast cannot carry the film. I would call Leprechaun an example of pure nineties cheese and also a movie I’m sure Jennifer Anniston would like to erase from her resume… There is some mild gore, Davis owns the role and has a couple of shining moments. This is definitely not a movie I’d show to kids. That little bastard is creepy looking and could haunt a little child’s dreams.” – Richard Taylor, Severed Cinema
AKA:
898. (-242) The Vault of Horror
Roy Ward Baker
1973 / UK / 87m / Col / Anthology | IMDb
Daniel Massey, Anna Massey, Mike Pratt, Erik Chitty, Jerold Wells, Terry-Thomas, Glynis Johns, Marianne Stone, John Forbes-Robertson, Curd Jürgens
“One of the last of Amicus’ portmanteau horror movies, The Vault of Horror was, like Tales from the Crypt before it, based on the popular but at the time controversial comics from William Gaines’ 1950s E.C. line. The originals were marked not simply by their gruesome traits, but by their black sense of humour as well, yet the glee with which they were presented was somewhat lacking when producer and writer Milton Subotsky brought his adaptations to the screen – in fact, they were a little dry. There’s nothing wrong with the stories themselves, as they all have decent set ups and fitting punchlines, it’s just that a more than a modicum of jokiness could have lifted them above the routine. As it is, they are more quietly amusing than all-out thrill rides.” – Graeme Clark, The Spinning Image
AKA: Further Tales from the Crypt
899. (-9) Mientras duermes
Jaume Balagueró
2011 / Spain / 102m / Col / Thriller | IMDb
Luis Tosar, Marta Etura, Alberto San Juan, Petra Martínez, Iris Almeida, Carlos Lasarte, Amparo Fernández, Roger Morilla, Pep Tosar, Margarita Rosed
“As the film’s character based plot wraps its well scripted hands around the viewer’s neck, the same noose closes in on César, as he dodges and uses his false smiles and quick thinking to avoid detection. Both eerily realistic and uncomfortable, the viewer can never be sure whether what they are watching borders on the absurd. But the movie loses all pretension that is found in more Americanised horrors, and avoids the temptation of over-scoring itself in an attempt to add drama, and instead lets the looks and silence in-between them to create the tension. This ensures a well rounded but by no means flat film, that will leave you squirming in, and on of the edge of, your seat.” – Ross Shapland, Shapstik on Screen
AKA: Sleep Tight
900. (-187) Chopping Mall
Jim Wynorski
1986 / USA / 77m / Col / Science Fiction | IMDb
Kelli Maroney, Tony O’Dell, Russell Todd, Karrie Emerson, Barbara Crampton, Nick Segal, John Terlesky, Suzee Slater, Paul Bartel, Mary Woronov
“So even if Chopping Mall has horrible characters played by almost uniformly poor actors; it’s still made with a seriousness of purpose and a focus missing in most of its competition. The killbots themselves are a tiny miracle of low-budget production and design, legitimately menacing all the more because they don’t seem to be off in some sci-fi wonderland, and because the puppeteers (and Wynorski, who provided their deep monotone, weirdly amusing voices) put so much little touches into their movements, giving these featureless, emotionless machines more legitimate personality than any of the humans involved. It is a ridiculous film that is above ridicule, and a film that manages to gather up seemingly every current in 1980s genre cinema into one nimble package, in short, and despite a somewhat too-long Final Girl sequence, it does this all without ever dragging. It does not talk down to us, or assume that we are idiots – it knows that it is goofy, but it does not therefore mock itself or ask to be mocked.” – Tim Brayton, Antagony & Ecstasy