Overlooked Horror Fun for Halloween
- By Gabe Powers
- Published 10/28/2009
Gabe Powers
Gabe Powers lives and works in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota. Now unemployed he spends most of his time sitting before the television watching movies, while collecting a diminishing number of insurance checks. He's written for DVDActive.com for about five years now, and racked up over 500 reviews, and was even linked on wikipedia.com. Gabe is also involved in several forms of art and design, and has been known to obsessively re-record the same guitar tracks on his iMac ad nauseam.
To assist my fellow Chewers in preparing their upcoming Halloween festivities I’m listing some particularly interesting horror films that have been overlooked by even hardened horror fans may have missed, or not even known existed in the first place.
6 Films to Keep You Awake: The Christmas Tale (aka: Cuento de navidad):
A group of children find a woman dressed as Santa Claus who has fallen to the bottom of a well in the middle of the woods. After some armature detective work the kids discover their new friend is a thief on the run with a substantial haul. The kids make the trapped thief an offer—her freedom for the money.
Lionsgate released Spanish television’s answer to
6 Films to Keep You Awake Trailer
Beyond the Darkness (aka: Buried Alive, Buio Omega):
Italian director Aristide Massaccesi, usually known as Joe D’Amato by horror fans, was one of the most unabashedly sleazy filmmakers in exploitation history. Most of his catalogue is made up of faceless hardcore and softcore porn, but he was a successful producer, and went were the money was. His most ‘fondly’ remembered for his work with horror including some of the most sexual and violently graphic films of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, such as Anthropophagus the Beast, Emmanuel in America, and Porno Holocaust. Most of these films are terrible, but like fellow porn/horror sleaze merchant Jesus Franco, D’Amato was a talented artiste that usually didn’t care enough to try, and occasionally a good film escaped his apathy.
Beyond the Darkness features a weak script, corny dialogue, and some overripe acting, but it’s brimming with mildew-caked atmosphere, D’Amato’s photography is solid, and those overripe actors really give it their all. The narrative runs on an almost plotless series of events encapsulating all means of murder and mutilation, not to mention necrophilia and incest. The basic premises of each scene are captured in a disturbingly voyeuristic fashion, and the special effects are upsettingly realistic. The gruesome gore is the show stopper, and so extreme that Beyond the Darkness remains one of three movies in my collection that still makes me sick to my stomach, even though I understand the simple illusion. The unease peters off a bit after the centerpiece embalming scene, but strong constitution still apply.
The Black Room:
Long before the Tweens stole vampires in the ‘00s, the teenagers had their way with them in the ‘80s. To the chagrin of many friends I am personally not a fan of this era in more than a passing nostalgia capacity. Released early among the throwaway pack was Elly Kenner and Norman Thaddeus Vane’s The Black Room, which only really fits into the mold because of its sexy take on blood-suckers. Taking themes from George Romero’s masterful Martin, Black Room tells the story of a brother and sister that rent a room to swingers, who they proceed to kill for possibly unnecessary blood transfusions. The whole thing is frightfully dated (and likely was even in 1984, as it appears to have been actually made in the ‘70s), but the performances rise above the less than impressive dialogue, and the editing is occasionally brilliant. Unfortunately Black Room hasn’t been released on DVD in any region yet, so genuinely interested parties might have to take less than ‘reputable’ measures to get their hands on it. I’m thinking it’s worth the possible repercussions.
Curse II: The Bite:
Now all these movies aren’t exactly what one would call ‘good’ under strict definitions, but for lovers of monsters and transformation make-up effects it doesn’t get much better than Curse II: The Bite, which has absolutely nothing to do with the first Curse (a so-so adaptation of HP Lovecraft’s ‘Colour of Outer Space’). A young couple on a cross country trip takes a short cut even after being distinctly told to not, and find themselves driving through a sea of radioactive snakes. One of the slithery creatures ends up hitching a ride, and bites the dude half of the couple. His hand quickly turns into a snake head, and he grows a little peckish. Later he mutates more (thanks to some brilliantly gooey Screaming Mad George effects), and ends the film chasing his girlfriend through a construction site, vomiting snakes. A generally melodramatic and (boringly) tragic love story is spiked with an amusing side-plot concerning Jamie Fann as a travelling salesman that fancies himself a doctor. After supplying the bitten boy with anti-venom (anti-venom he just happens to carry), Fann realizes he might have made a mistake, and he chases the couple down for fear of lawsuit, rather than fear for the boy’s well-being. The star attraction is clearly the effects, however, and the US DVD release is cut to an R-rating, which actually makes a difference in this case. It’s also full-frame. There is an official Region 2 DVD, but those without region free players might want to explore those less reputable measures again.
Snake hand eating nurse scene.
Dolls:
I’ve slowly grown into a die-hard fan of director Stewart
Gordon, and would heartily recommend almost everything in his oeuvre. I’m
guessing we’ve all seen The Re-Animator and From Beyond, and narrowing it down
to what I don’t recommend would be a little easier (coughDreamsInTheWitchHousecough),
but Dolls is a personal favorite that proves an easy viewing, and I’m guessing
most horror fans have overlooked it. Gordon foregoes his Lovecraft and Poe
obsessions in favor of an old fashion E.C. Comic morality tale, and keeps the
violence pretty minimal, but the film still clearly bares his signature. Dolls
is colorful, funny, occasionally genuinely creepy, and most notably, it
features a handful of fantastic performances. Some of the cast is delightfully
hammy, while others are pitch-perfectly tempered, especially a wonderfully
natural little actress named Carrie
Horrors of Malformed Men:
For the required Asian entry I submit Teruo Ishii’s vastly under-seen Edogawa Rampo adaptation Horrors of Malformed Men. Besides simply featuring one of the best titles in known movie history (which is also one of the best last act spoilers in known movie history), Horrors of Malformed Men is a macabre rollercoaster of comedy and terror, featuring saturated colors that would make Dario Argento adjust his television set, and more perversion than you can shake a webbed mutant hand at. Ishii expertly crams gooey handfuls of dozens of genre clichés into a stew clearly inspired by both his countryman’s literature (Rampo has been compared to Poe), and the best of the horror film world. Synapse’s DVD was released more than two years ago, and it still stands as one of the biggest and most exciting surprises I’ve ever had in my DVD reviewing life. See it!
Horrors of Malformed Men trailer
The Hunchback of Rue Morgue (aka: El jorobado de la Morgue):
Those curious about the cinema of Spanish man of a thousand faces Paul Naschy (aka: Jacinto Molina) will probably want to start with some of the more readily available El Hombre Lobo flicks, but once they get the hang of the man’s Universal meets Hammer in Spain style they’ll want to seek out Hunchback of Rue Morgue – the star’s best film. Featuring the best mix of violence, schlock, gothic imagery, and melodrama, Rue Morgue is surprisingly poignant, and perfectly atmospheric. The plot is wacky, and the bizarre production design features a literal stew of body parts, an acid bath, and a man in a monster suit. What else do you need? News of an official Region 1 release was looking bad when BCI Eclipse went under, but recent news states that the relatively new Mya Communications is releasing a DVD on November 24th.
The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue (aka: Let Sleeping Corpses Lie, Non si deve profanare il sonno dei morti, Breakfast at the Manchester Morgue, and Don't Open the Window):
Hopefully this classic zombie film, one of the best and most important to be released between Romero’s Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead, has been available on DVD long enough that my recommendation here is moot. First released under the title Let Sleeping Corpses Lie by Anchor Bay and Blue Underground, then re-released as The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue by Blue Underground, Jorge Grau’s gruesome and moody movie is a little dated, and it lacks the visceral impact of Fulci’s post-Dawn of the Dead films, but it features more likeable characters and a more involved narrative than most non-Romero flesh-eater opuses. This Tuesday Blue Underground re-released the film on Blu-ray, and the transfer is a knock out. There aren’t many classic cult horror flicks in hi-def yet, and this is a good start.
Don't Open the Window trailer (a major inspiration on Edgar Wright's Grindhouse fake trailer Don't)
Lisa and the Devil (aka: Lisa e il diavolo, The Devil and the Dead):
Though it might be easier to simply demand everyone that labels themselves a connoisseur of horror sees every one of Mario Bava’s films (myself included, as there are some that still aren’t available on DVD), I’d like to aim special consideration towards one of the maestro’s most overlooked films. Lisa and the Devil isn’t as perfectly gorgeous as Black Sunday, or as entertaining as Bay of Blood (Twitch of the Death Nerve), but it’s likely Bava’s most mature film, and deserves a place among art house ‘horror’ preferences like Bergman’s Hour of the Wolf and Virgin Spring, or Herk Harvey’s Carnival of Souls (it’s certainly better than the bafflingly acclaimed Spirits of the Dead, directed by Fellini, Louis Malle and Roger Vadim).
The plotting is loose at best, secondary to the haunting, hallucinatory imagery. There are few films that so perfectly evoke the feeling of a dream state, and even fewer that remain largely accessible. The majority of the cast, including the beautiful lead Elke Sommer, blends into the imagery, but the always enigmatic Telly Savalas is riveting as one of cinema’s most memorable satanic avatars. When the film was first completed producer Alfredo Leone was unhappy with Bava’s more cerebral turn, and personally recut the film with scenes of Sommer doing her best Linda Blair impression, and the whole mess was retitled House of Exorcism in an effort to cash-in on William Friedkin’s hit. Though it features a little more sex and violence, this version is not recommended.
Unused Lisa and the Devil trailer.
Razorback:
Toted as ‘Jaws on Trotters’ by its producers, this flamboyant Australian mixed genre gem from music video wonder child Russell Mulcahy (who would go on to direct the cult favorite Highlander) has finally seen a minor Region 1 DVD release thanks to the Warner Bros. vault program. The extra packed Aussie disc is the preferred way to see the film (it features the cut for an R violence), but 2.35:1 widescreen is good enough, especially for those that haven’t had the chance to see the film before. Razorback is very much a child of the ‘80s, but like Richard Stanley’s genre work, it embraces these stylistic flourishes without all the campy comedy of the most popular American horror of the era. Though lacking in compelling plot, or lead characters, the film succeeds through sheer will of logically challenged and colorful images, not to mention a few memorable supporting roles, specifically David Argue as a deranged poacher. The whole exercise isn’t exactly thought provoking, but the action and suspense elements are unmistakably well executed, the monster pig looks cool, and the colors are pretty stunning.
“But I don’t have access to Netflix, and my legs are broken, or I’ve been snowed in, and the only thing I have is my computer”, you say? Well here are a couple treasures I’ve found across the web’s various free streaming sites:
Scarecrows (unrated zombie scarecrows vs. bank robbers): HULU LINK
Mario Bava's Black Sunday: HULU LINK
Mario Bava's Black Sabbath: HULU LINK
I’ve done this kind of thing before for DVDActive.com too (though not specific to horror), so if you like what I’m laying down here feel free to give me some hits HERE and HERE.
Thanks for reading, and Happy Halloween!
