October Horror Thread

Had my best night of October yet......

The Man Who Haunted Himself (1970) 8/10. Directed by the daring Basil Dearden - the inciting incident and the ending here involve a car wreck and Dearden eerily died from one not long after this was done and before it was even released in the US. Excellent pace and very clever idea seen thru, not a horror though it dabbles with spooks and Bava-esque lighting around the climax. Roger Moore is terrific, questioning himself, and losing himself, after hitting a mid-life wall. His doppelgänger, a womanizer and gambler, has a steely charm sort of like James Bond.... Um!

Trilogy of Terror (1975) 7.5/10. I wasn't a Karen Black fan before this movie. Things have changed. She has wicked, unexpected fun with these four roles, really going for it. The first two segments are about halves of sexuality, secrecy, self-sabotage. The 2nd part is the weakest as there are plot holes and its twist is predictable. The 3rd part is pre-Chucky fun and convulsively freaky and violent - the director Dan Curtis (creator of Dark Shadows) knows how to frenzy the frame, he likes using handheld closeups in his action shots like in The Norliss Tapes.

The Strange Possession of Mrs Oliver (1977) 8/10. As a TV movie, maybe one of the very best. Shocked at this, it crushes complacent fears like The Man Who Haunted Himself, as well as the bicameral mind stuff, and it feels like Richard Matheson wrote this for Karen Black, like a bigger piece out of the Trilogy of Terror. Ingenious mystery too, the twist knocked the wind outta me.

Also known as Shocking Dark, and despite being marketed as Terminator 2, it's actually a complete rip off of Aliens. Bad, cheap, over the top and quite funny at times.

The Redeemer: Son of Satan (1978) - ~5+/10 but yet in some ways much more and also much less .......re-watch on TUBI

Glorious trash that I saw under a different title.......a long time ago and which functions on some level like pornography which is linked to horror in many ways and in some ways will haunt you a whole lot too.

This movie is a grade Z budget, technically inept piece of junk but it is, in design and execution closer to a kind of true terrifying intent - a slasher picture centered around a fake reunion it connects the murders (a lot......memorable!) to a fake philosophical premise - killings linked around a vague religious judgment/reckoning......in a way that's quite vivid if not entirely logical.......which lends it a creepy otherworldly vibe.

In fact, this movie - on TUBI in a bad print, sketchy and blotchy at times gives you the impression that you've come across something genuinely forbidden created by disturbed people......I'm not recommending it exactly because hey I value your time after all MAR but it's a kind of classic in the genre in an absurdist way and that should be seen by some horror afficionados......I bet Rob Zombie loves this movie for example ......and unlike me he isn't feeling guilty about it

Welcome to my nightmare:

The Babysitter (Netflix) - this was actually a lot of fun. I'm completely shocked, to be honest. Definitely more in the comedy side of horror/comedy, but it's definitely the most fun I've had on a new watch in a long time.

Also Samara Weaving is pretty great. And greatly pretty.

The Babysitter 2- I was all for this until the ending... it was hysterical and then... that. WHAT THE HELL???

Finally re-watched Rosemary's Baby last night after a few years since first viewing. Still the greatest, most unsettling horror film ever made, for my money. 

Ah, no should have clarified. The 2015 film. 

Blood and Black Lace (1964) - ~7/10 rewatch

In my review of "The Redeemer - Son of Satan" in this thread I mentioned the overlap with horror and pornography and this film has it in several ways too - one of which is star Cameron Mitchell who 20 years after this would appear in an American porn film (in a non-explicit role).

Mario Bava makes this horror-porn connection overt in one of the first giallos both in his setting (the fashion world that pops up later in Hatchet For The Honeymoon) but also in the way that murders are sexual in feel or orchestration. The mannequins and wooden actresses - fictional fashion and real life film have much in common - and Bava seems in on that sick joke and he twists the form to that way of thinking.

The kills are pretty spectacular and alluringly, unnaturally colorful - as if the world is merely what happens when murder does not and the murders are what gives the world its energy.

The colors seep out of everywhere and even if they are not red - they all suggest blood seeping out too or an ecstatic, perverse vibrancy......on one hand this is a nothing film in 1964........unless you were looking at it in a way no one else was and in that way of looking at it........it's more like a sinister revolution.

Form......structure.......color....

I finally got around to seeing this earlier this year and it did not disappoint.

This is one of those iconic horror films that I never thought could live up to the hype -- and while it doesn't terrify me, make me sick or have me on the verge of fainting like it did upon release... it is such a well crafted film about good vs evil. I prefer the third one but it's terrific stuff.

The Mothman Prophecies (2002) - Probably one of the most underrated horror films of the 2000's. For at least the first hour and a bit, it features some of the most spine-tingling sequences of any horror I've watched. And what makes this one so compelling is the minimalist approach which amplifies the suspense tenfold. We are very rarely ever shown what is haunting these individuals so much, but rather told in bone chilling accounts of their experience coming face to face with a terrifying entity. Richard Gere is very solid as is Laura Linney. The subtlety of the performances go hand in hand with the dark and foreboding atmosphere. The climax quite can't reach the dazzlingly spooky heights of the rest of the movie, but this is still a well crafted and frightening piece from Mark Pellington.