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frankendykes-monster · 3 years ago

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Halloween 2021 Countdown...ranked

I decided to go forward with tonight because fuck it, in spite of something like 25 - 40 films being left off the list because I could not get around to them, whateverrr. Here’s the breakdown of everything I was able to see since mid-September for spooky season, if I have the time between real life concerns and other films I need to get around to (...probably not), I might update this by the end of November with new addendums and everything but here is what we have to work with at the moment.

85. An American Werewolf in Paris (1997)

84. The Giant Gila Monster (1959)

83. The Amazing Transparent Man (1960)

82. Halloweentown (1998)

81. The Black Scorpion (1957)

80. When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth (1970)

79. Werewolf of London (1935)

78. Assignment Terror (1970)

77. The Astounding She-Monster (1957)

76. The Beast of Hollow Mountain (1956)

75. The Land Unknown (1957)

74. The Last Dinosaur (1977)

73. Mystery of The Wax Museum (1933)

72. The Blob (1958)

71. This Island Earth (1955)

70. The Mummy (1959)

69. Mighty Joe Young (1949)

68. Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)

67. The Sentinel (1977)

66. House on Haunted Hill (1959)

65. Phantom of The Opera (1943)

64. Mad Monster Party? (1967)

63. Man-Mad Monster (1941)

62. X: The Unknown (1956)

61. The Invisible Ray (1936)

60. The Deadly Mantis (1957)

59. Clash of The Titans (1981)

58. Jason and The Argonauts (1963)

57. Young Frankenstein (1974)

56. Evil Dead (2013)

55. Island of Terror (1966)

54. Son of Dracula (1943)

53. The Alligator People (1959)

52. The Abominable Snowman of The Himalayas (1957)

51. Tarantula (1955)

50. Planet of The Vampires (1965)

49. The Body Snatcher (1945)

48. Jack the Giant Killer (1962)

47. Konga (1961)

46. The Creature Walks Among Us (1956)

45. Revenge of The Creature (1955)

44. The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)

43. The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942)

42. Dracula’s Daughter (1936)

41. Dracula (1931)

40. It Came From Outer Space (1953)

39. Beetlejuice (1988)

38. The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951)

37. The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958)

36. The Birds (1963)

35. X: The Man With X-Ray Eyes (1963)

34. Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966)

33. The Phantom of The Opera (1925)

32. Doctor X (1932)

31. House of Dracula (1945)

30. The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (1953)

29. Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man (1943)

28. Isle of The Dead (1945)

27. The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

26. The Wolf Man (1941)

25. The Invisible Man Returns (1940)

24. Night of The Demon (1957)

23. The Howling (1981)

22. Blacula (1972)

21. Horror of Dracula (1958)

20. House of Wax (1953)

19. High Plains Drifter (1973)

18. 20 Million Miles to Earth (1957)

17. Scream (1996)

16. Forbidden Planet (1956)

15. Braindead (1992)

14. The Man They Could Not Hang (1939)

13. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)

12. Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)

11. Frankenstein (1931)

10. Creature From The Black Lagoon (1954)

9. House of Frankenstein (1944)

8. Psycho (1960)

7. Near Dark (1987)

6. Perfect Blue (1997)

5. Son of Frankenstein (1939)

4. Them! (1954)

3. King Kong (1933)

2. The Invisible Man (1933)

1. What We Do in The Shadows (2014)

Now for the liner notes:

This was a mixed season for werewolf films. An American Werewolf in Paris probably wouldn’t have been egregious enough on its own to justify last place, but the fact that it’s a sequel to An American Werewolf in London (1981) landed it there. Everything that works about London from the effects work to the locale establishing to the central conflict to the comedy just fucking fails in Paris. Like this shit is about the main characters using the fact that they’re werewolves to help stop an evil werewolf cult that plans to kill a large group of people and shit about drugs that accelerate the transformation and probably more stupid shit that I blocked out at this point. You know, I saw a half assed older article at some point about someone using the Evil Dead trilogy to illustrate a point about how horror gradually got replaced by action films, and it was obviously nonsense but if I came out of the theater in 1997 having seen Paris I would have taken their word for it. It’s sort of precursor to how Universal can’t revive their respective monsters without it being an action movie (Van Helsing, The Wolfman, Dracula Untold, anything related to The Mummy). Alright. Werewolf of London. It’s funny seeing which 1930′s-1940′s horror films have dedicated audiences to them and which ones don’t and it’s obvious why this one doesn’t and why it’s reputation is basically “oh yeah, there was a Universal werewolf film before The Wolf Man” (much in the same way Man-Made Monster is only interesting because “huh, there was a 1941 George Waggner film starring Lon Chaney Jr. unwittingly becoming a homicidal monster before The Wolf Man.”) Basically every element that made The Wolf Man work is absent here. Blah. Speaking of which, The Wolf Man is pretty fucking solid, though a bit more flat than you would expect. It probably has the best script and soundtrack of any Universal monster, though in execution it comes up a bit shorter than it should be. The performances, the indoor sets, and directing work, they’re all servicable but could be better, so it has to fall back on the script’s juggling act of so many themes concerning destiny, mental illness, being subtly ostracized from one’s community, etc. to work its stuff. Despite the fact that every subsequent piece of werewolf fiction is entirely indebted to this film, I cannot call it the definitive werewolf film if only because of how much it is weighed down by its racist depictions of Romani people, which is more or less the entire reason why I don’t consider it one of the “top” Universal monster films despite its reputation. In terms of genuine defining werewolf films, we have The Howling. I mostly know Joe Dante through the two Gremlins films like most people, so seeing him do pure horror is interesting, because this film goes into some disgusting territory that kind of made my skin crawl at times. I had mentioned that it’s something of a shame that this gets mostly overshadowed by An American Werewolf in London, because there’s some stuff I think I like better in this one such as how nightmarish the transformation scene is and the overall mystery surrounding what is actually going on and how leisurely it’s paced overall.

Alright, let’s fucking do this: 1950′s and 1960′s science fiction films. The Giant Gila Monster is the rare film I would actually call “cheap” in a pejorative sense because it looks like it had a budget of $100, don’t ask me where the actual budget went. I was surprised this was as bad as it was because I really enjoy Ray Kellogg’s other film, The Killer Shrews (1959), which is cheaper than this one but looks 10x more impressive. After five Universal films and three Japanese Invisible Man films, I don’t think it’s unreasonable of me to ask more out of The Amazing Transparent Man given the concept was well trodden territory at this point. The Black Scorpion was probably the only film this year that legitimately made me angry at any point, because by the final battle I just realized how much this thing was wasting my fucking time. It was a challenge not to put this at the bottom but I wanted this list to try and best reflect objective quality more than personal feelings. The Astounding She-Monster I would HIGHLY recommend ironically, this thing is so goddamn jaw droppingly hilarious in its ineptitude that I can’t wait to watch it with other people. The Blob is one where I have no idea where it got its acclaim, all the way up to a Criterion Collection release from, because it has some abysmal pacing and comedy, the whole town of oddball characters working together to stop The Blob in the last 20 minutes should have begun by the time the first act was done, just stick with the remake on this one. This Island Earth has impressive special effects but not much story to back it up...gutterball. I appreciate how the Metaluna Mutant is on all the posters and shit despite only being in the film for five minutes at the end. The Deadly Mantis I actually have an undeserved soft spot for despite it being a bad film, I couldn’t tell you why, it just tickles me for some reason. Sue me. The Alligator People was one of the biggest surprises of the season for me, I thought this one would surely suck ass but no, it’s like if The Fly (1958) was actually decent. Island of Terror I enjoyed for the opening mystery and having some unusual monsters that behave like giant bacterium. Tarantula is an oddball because 60 minutes of the 80 minute runtime is dedicated to a semi murder mystery involving growth hormones that work on animals but fuck people up, it isn’t until damn near the end that the tarantula, one of the lab test subjects, finally becomes the main focus. Planet of The Vampires is mostly enjoyable for its set design and color scheme throughout, I’ve seen better from Mario Bava (Blood and Black Lace (1964) was a casualty of me running out of time to put this list together), but stuff like the ending twist make it a worthwhile watch. Konga is a hilarious oddity that I rewatched mostly because I enjoyed the comic book follow up series, despite its name its actually not much of a King Kong knockoff and goes into some relatively new territory as far as giant ape films go. It Came From Outer Space and The Day The Earth Stood Still are two I don’t like as much as most people seem to, and while they both have great presentations and break from the usual hostile alien fare, they both suffer from the fact that they can’t 100% commit to their respective messages of non-violence in a way that’s wholly satisfactory because it’s so obvious they were both made in the 1950′s US (you know what I mean.) X: The Man With X-Ray Eyes is the rare genuinely good Roger Corman film, I’m actually surprised it isn’t more popular given its a fairly brainy film that shows genuine tragedy resulting from well meaning scientific experiments, on top of how the subject of x-ray eyes hasn’t been super well explored on film as far as I know. Between this film, The Birds, and The Terror, it seemed 1963 was the year that eye gouging was in vogue, for whatever reason. Now we get to the top tier: Forbidden Planet is one of those legitimate “ahead of its time” deals. The soundtrack is almost entirely distant mechanical noises, and taking place on a planet that’s mostly desert and having a fairly slow pace, it sets the atmosphere in such a great way through its audio. This is the closest that western science fiction got into “thinking man’s” territory in the 1950′s, given its central mystery, monster, and other random trinkets all orbit around technology that allows the mind to generate matter almost spontaneously, it’s just great stuff all around. Creature From The Black Lagoon I was kind of dreading because I’ve never liked this film and it’s a bit hard to go back to in a post The Shape of Water (2017) world but I’ll be damned, this is fucking great. Everything just comes together beautifully, it makes me wonder why more 1950′s monster movies can’t be this solid because this film makes it look easy. And then at the very top we have Them!, which is no holds barred the single greatest western science fiction film of the 1950′s, the only one that can compete on the international stage with Godzilla (1954) and Rodan (1956). What gets me about Them! is how ruthlessly efficient of a film it is, there’s no meaningless horseshit about the main character’s love triangle or whatever, it just goes full speed ahead straight from the title card and doesn’t waste a moment all the way to the end. It plays out more like a procedural than anything, just with the mystery following something that isn’t human. At the risk of spoilers, the monsters in this film are giant ants, and something I genuinely love is how it presents the fact that an animal that isn’t already somewhat dangerous immediately becomes an apocalyptic event in the making when blown up to giant size. This is probably the only film on this list that genuinely scares me, part of that is because of how much work the soundtrack is putting in, but scenes like the first survivor having a panic attack when she comes out of a state of shock, the eggs in the first ant nest all having to be burned, and plumbing around in the Los Angeles sewers for the new nest all genuinely got to me for one reason or another. Despite the exclamation point in the title, this one is 100% serious and damn if it isn’t all the better for it.

Halloweentown I didn’t plan on watching until some people on Discord had me do it and of all the films on this list, this is one I’m most obviously not in the target audience for and as such I’m probably being a but too hard on it but it’s a Disney Channel original movie so who gives a shit. I can leave it at that but I think what made this one get on my bad side was actually seeing Halloweentown for the first time and all the citizens are wearing discount Halloween costumes in a standard town that’s decorated for Halloween, in the effort of fairness I do recall the second and third films being better but goddamn at least try and put some effort in.

Oh what a sad year for dinosaur films this was. When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth might have the best stop motion monsters I’ve ever seen but goddamn are they few and far between all the plodding shit this one throws at you. If you want to see cavemen and dinosaurs tear shit up, just watch Primal, there is no reason to go back to this. The Beast of Hollow Mountain I have some odd respect for because for the first hour its a 100% western about cattle ranching disputes or some shit before the Tyrannosaurus shows up in all its awkward stop motion glory. You gotta think of how many westerns were pumped out during the 1950′s and how this one got preserved because it has a dinosaur in it, just goes to show how fucking insane and dedicated horror fans are compared to western fans. The Land Unknown and The Last Dinosaur are both the re-re-reheated leftovers of The Lost World (1925), but I’m actually upset in the latter case that the tokusatsu special effects weren’t used in a better film. Luckily I got to rewatch King Kong this year, and every time I see this film it’s like I’m seeing it for the first time all over again. This is the epitome of movie spectacle, there is no loud special effects driven extravaganza that can compete with this. Stuff like Kong’s first reveal, him killing a Tyrannosaur, his battle with airplanes, and more are burned into my memory, watching this gives the same effect that Godzilla does, I just forget everything about this film and get chills all over again. This could have easily gotten top spot but Kong is fundamentally a colonialist fantasy, unfortunately, and that prevents me from ever saying it gets the 100% clearance.

I had high hopes for Assignment Terror given that it involves aliens using a werewolf, a mummy, a vampire, and a Frankenstein to conquer the world but it ended up being a huge disappointment with barely anything actually interesting happening. The people suckered into this when it got retitled “Dracula vs. Frankenstein” suffered.

Mystery of The Wax Museum is a crock of shit, there’s no reason to touch this one because everything it does was handled better in Doctor X. They’re both pulpy pre Hayes code horror mysteries built on pseudoscience driven murder sprees and shot in that gorgeous two-tone Technicolor process, but Doctor X basically does everything right in a way where Mystery can’t compete. Mystery did give way to House of Wax, another one of the best surprises for me this year and genuinely one of the best horror remakes ever made. It takes the foundation provided by Mystery, excises all the horseshit, and expands on everything that needed more room to breathe. It is a night and day difference that completely replaces the earlier film with something legitimately great.

Harryhausen time. This might surprise everyone reading this who is somewhat familiar with my taste in film but I just do not care for Ray Harryhausen’s stuff beyond historical and technical respect, which does not translate into me enjoying his filmography on a more casual level. His films almost never have a super impressive setting, cast, setting, etc. which makes them feel more like tech demos than anything. Special effects need to serve a film but Harryhausen’s work literally started with planning the special effects scenes and then writing around them, so it’s a question of why I should watch the whole thing rather than just YouTube compilations, I mean there’s a reasom why Jack the Giant Killer, a ripoff of The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, is higher up on the list than half of the ones I’m about to mention. Mighty Joe Young is just a weaker more pussified version of King Kong and Son of Kong (1933), Clash of The Titans’ biggest contribution was allowing for Harry Hamlin to come back and voice Perseus in God of War II, and I have no idea why Jason and The Argonauts is so highly appraised. Stuff like how the Hydra’s heads independently move or there’s seven stop motion skeletons fighting three actors is impressive in terms of skill but doesn’t translate into fight scenes that are actually captivating or emotionally engaging. It’s odd that Harryhausen was inspired by King Kong yet he never made an environment that was as three dimensional and alive as Skull Island nor a film with as much energy. The 7th Voyage of Sinbad is probably his strongest fantasy work, albeit you have to get past the fact that all these characters are West Asian yet played by white people, badly at that (I’m usually never super impressed by acting nor annoyed by it, so when I say performances are bad, they’re fucking bad). The backhalf of the film is what makes it worth a watch however what with the strongest round up of monsters in any Harryhausen film, I’m particularly fond of the dragon. The Beast From 20,00 Fathoms is actually legitimately good, probably because it uses the standard 1950′s monster story format to decent effect plus Harryhausen only has a single monster to work with, which allows it to have much more character. It’s also weirdly ambitious with the Rhedosaurus moving in out of shadows, destroying buildings, or being shot at high and low angles to help convey size, all of which translate to a better audience experience than anything in Argonauts. Then there’s 20 Million Miles to Earth, definitely the best Harryhausen film, and aside from Beast a little bit, the one film where his work fully elevates the material and wraps it up in a nice bow. I never feel as if I’m just watching it because there’s a stop motion monster animated by Harryhausen, it feels like it’s a fully realized science fiction film that has a great monster character at the center.

The Sentinel desperately wants to be a 1970′s European horror or Don’t Look Now (1973), but it forgets that you need to put in the work to actually craft atmosphere to do that.

House on Haunted Hill would probably be great in the theater with the flying skeleton over the audience and shit but watching it alone at home reveals how much it needs William Castle’s funhouse tricks to make it work.

Mad Monster Party? I was excited about because I actually rather enjoy Rankin-Bass’ Christmas specials and their connective wintery mythos, but good god was this a slog during the middle chunk and barely funny whatsoever. I was excited to see this many monsters doing the mash in one place but it all goes downhill after the opening credits song number. I wanted to come back here and ask everyone why this doesn’t define Halloween in the same way they defined Christmas but having seen it, now I know.

I only got around to two versions of Phantom of The Opera this year. The 1925 film is overall pretty good with no major hangups to speak of, from what I gather it’s also pretty close to the book. I had a hell of a time trying to find the right version though, because I ended up discovering that none of the like six fucking cuts we have are 100% accurate to the original 1925 release which is now semi lost. It’s a rabbit hole that I won’t recound for you here but I watched the Photoplay restoration of the 1929 release. The 1943 film...is a piece of work. I have no idea why this is included in the essential Universal monsters home media releases over something like Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, but this is a wonderful looking film disguising a shitty half assed telling of this story. Erique’s motivations are never wholly touched upon, Raoul and Anatole are competing for Christine’s affections and it never pays off until the very end with a half decent gag, stuff that should take place early in the film like Christine being escorted to Erique’s lair is reserved for the very end, it’s confounding. Though there are some pure comedies and fantasies and science fiction films on this list, this one feels the least horror of them all. It’s total unchallenging Oscar bait that reminds me of The Red Shoes (1948) more than anything. In a [sees another 1940s color films that’s about opera] “getting major Red Shoes vibes from this...” type of way.

Young Frankenstein...I laughed at one joke in this.

Evil Dead I’ve always been mildly curious about because it seemed like it caught on just a bit more than most unnecessary remakes, which get all of 30 seconds of attention before no one ever talks about them again. When was the last time anyone said anything about Poltergeist (2015) or Child’s Play (2019)? Hell if I know. For a quick rundown on my Evil Dead thoughts: I don’t give a shit about The Evil Dead (1981), Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn (1987) is one of my top 10 favorite films of all time and one where I wouldn’t be the same person today if I didn’t see it at a young age, I don’t give a shit about Army of Darkness (1992). So, Evil Dead issss slightly better than The Evil Dead? There are large chunks of this one where I was bored but little things added up, like how unnerving the deadites role playing as their victims were in this one, the brutality with shit like the nail gun, the motivations for actually going to the cabin beyond shooting the shit, the fact it didn’t try and be shot-for-shot the same. All that said it feels more generic than the first film just by virtue of it coming out in 2013, after 30 years worth of the original’s influence, and there’s nothing about it that sticks out as much as the material in the first film, in spite of me enjoying it more.

Universal monster sequels that aren’t Frankenstein: go. Son of Dracula is standard 1940′s fluff horror, unless you have to see everything related to Universal’s Dracula you can safely skip this one, which was admittedly the Universal monster film I was probably least familiar with before watching it this month, so at least something came out of it. At least it gave us Alucard from the Castlevania series. Both Revenge of The Creature and The Creature Walks Among Us have solid concepts, they just can’t recreate the lightning-in-the-bottle (rare time I say that) sensation that was Black Lagoon. A lot of the character work and subtext of that first film along with genuine suspense and fight scenes and shit just isn’t here. Also, Gillman’s design in that 1954 film was perfect, don’t fuck with it, just don’t. Dracula’s Daughter is interesting if only because it’s the only true sequel to 1931′s Dracula, with everything following being soft reboots. This is mostly me being a lesbian but the titular character is “interesting”, work with me here. It feels a bit like Dracula riding the coattails of Frankenstein with a female centric direct sequel, but it feels inspired with Countess Zaleska trying to find a cure for her vampirism now that her father has been killed, speaking of which, Van Helsing is arrested for most of the film because “the foreign diplomat was a vampire” is a not a good defense for murder in court. The Invisible Man Returns is the real deal, feeling close enough to the original film while doing its own thing, focusing on a light crime drama rather than a mad murder spree, and perfecting the effects techniques of the first film. It is sorely lacking in terms of dark comedy and world building however, and coming out after the Hayes Code, you can tell how much more neutered this one is in comparison.

Boris Karloff...oh how I love him. I needed to spend much more time this season familiarizing myself with more of his work. The Invisible Ray is mid-tier 1930′s horror, nothing special beyond Karloff and Bela Lugosi’s performances, The Body Snatcher is upper mid tier 1940′s horror but once again only Karloff is the reason why it stands out. He plays such a great shit eating bastard, when he gives that toothy smile someone is about to fucking die. Isle of The Dead is far and away the best film produced by Val Lewton that I’ve seen, another slow burn decent into madness and one thing I’ve got to thank a shit ton of these films for is being well under 90 minutes. I think, do I have enough time for this, see that it’s 70 minutes, and realize yes I do have time for this. Movies now are just too fucking long. The real highlight is The Man They Could Not Hang, a film that’s only an hour long but somehow it fits a full courtroom drama and a Saw film into its running time, I have no idea why this one is still as relatively unpopular as it is, it’s a gem of 1930′s horror.

Tim Burton corner. Edward Scissorhands (1990) and Ed Wood (1994) were two big ones I had to skip over. With Burton in general I’m of the opinion that by the time you turn 17 you’re too emotionally mature for his stuff and Beetlejuice, in spite of my overall enjoyment, didn’t do TOO much to asway my consensus. I will say, it probably had the single best instance of comedy and tragedy coming together that I’ve ever seen, with its reason for why suicide isn’t the answer being that the afterlife still sucks ass. The Nightmare Before Christmas I find interesting in the sense that it’s a post modern take on Halloween but it’s become probably the defining special for the holiday. It’s overrated for sure but it gets points from me for how nearly every song is impressive in its own way, coming from someone that doesn’t usually watch musicals, and also because Jack Skellington is gender.

Moving onto Hitchcock. The Birds is an overall satisfying nature runs amok deal but I feel like it’s sandwiched between Them! and Jaws (1975) in terms of how great animals being hostile to people and on the attack could be. Granted I think the chunk of Hitchcock’s career is sandwiched between M (1931) and High and Low (1963) but we’re sticking with horror here. Psycho however is something else entirely. I’m usually ambivalent towards horror films that people who aren’t fans of the genre can’t shut the fuck up about, but I was wrong, this is it. Another easy contender for top spot had it not been for the very end, the film comes to a crashing stop with way too much exposition for its own good. If you’re watching this, just turn it off after Norman Bates is initially apprehended to get the full effect.

Night of The Demon stands out for having one of the most impressive movie monsters I’ve ever seen but only using it at the very beginning and end as the backdrop to a supernatural mystery, as far as 1950′s horror goes this is another high ranking one.

Hammer time...I was relatively disappointed by X: The Unknown given how much I enjoy the Quatermass films, but none of the charm of those rubs off on this one. The Abominable Snowman is half a great film. First half is a slog, second half is chilling and unnerving. You just gotta invest that time to get to the good stuff. But what we’re really here for is Hammer’s remakes of Universal’s films, in color with plenty of blood. The Curse of Frankenstein, much like the Universal film, has pretty much fuck all to do with the novel but takes the basic concept to go in its own direction. The major point of this version is that Frankenstein is a somewhat predatory, homicidal, self-centered fiend that will stop at nothing to complete his experiments. It’s an interesting direction to take the character, so far removed from what Frankenstein has been and should be that it should work just on the attempt, but it feels like a warm up round for next year’s Horror of Dracula (we’ll get back to that). The Mummy is a monster I’ve never been a huge fan of and Hammer’s 1959 film didn’t do much for me as such. The Mummy is something I’d regard as a fundamentally colonialist concept, with most films about the monster involving white westerners defiling Egyptian graves, then the evil spooky Egyptian religious practicians must punish them, and the former is the protagonist in this situation. Blah. One thing I will give this film is that Christopher Lee is probably the best Mummy I’ve seen. It’s the one film where his height is used to full advantage, the design is a nice update on Universal’s, and since he can’t speak or show facial expressions, he has to emote entirely with his eyes and it comes off great.

Alright now let’s talk about Dracula, Drac’s back. The 1931 film is a mess, you can spot editing mistakes and script nonsense and technical limitations from a mile away, and how much I like it is entirely dependent on my mood that day. But there’s a weird charm to it that draws me, much like Lugosi as Dracula in the film. Lugosi is so fucking great, it’s insane. The rhythm with which words come out of his mouth make even the most basic lines like “come here” sound like the most important thing in the world. It is no wonder why popular culture at large has deemed that Lugosi and Dracula are practically synonymous, I wouldn’t have it any other way, even if the film itself has aged poorly. Dwight Frye and Edward Van Sloan as Renfield and Van Helsing round out the impressive performances. Horror of Dracula, Hammer’s go at the material, is another unusual take in that it can’t decide how much it wants to be an adaptation of the novel or not, but this one gets by just how threatening it is. From the offset, the music over the title sequence is so loud and it culminates in blood dripping on Dracula’s coffin, letting you know you’re in for some hardcore shit. This is probably the only film where I’ve genuinely been intimidated by Dracula, and Christopher Lee puts his own stamp on the role by switching from a calm and reserved man that’s well spoken to an absolutely rabid animal with bloodshot eyes, blood dripping from his mouth, and hissing rather than speaking. The way he just runs everywhere or how he opens eyes instantly IMMEDIATELY as soon as the sun goes down just does so much to emphasize how much he hungers and how everything else is of second concern. I got around to Dracula: Prince of Darkness, for shits and giggles, and this inspired me not to watch many more Hammer Dracula films, where I understand it’s just the same shit every time. Prince of Darkness has atmosphere in spades once again but everything else kind of falters, I guess, but it’s an awkward film so I couldn’t say for sure or dismiss it entirely. It takes place almost entirely inside the castle and it takes over half the film for Dracula to be revived, but it’s not necessarily...a bad thing? I don’t know. Dracula being killed by running water still sucks. Honorable mention should go to Blacula, which I had so much fun with, it’s a hilarious fucking movie, just watch it. Bram Stoker’s Dracula is probably the worst film featuring the character that I’ve seen yet. All the pieces are there for something great but none of them come together. It’s too focused on spectacle, the original material separated from the novel goes nowhere, none of the cast is any good, I could go on. When Gary Oldman says “listen to them, children of the night, what music they make”, it’s almost insulting to Lugosi how much of a downgrade it is. Admittedly no Dracula film has really worked for me all the way yet. Someone recently told me that the ideal version would have the mystery of Nosferatu (1922), the grandeur of the 1931 film, the menace of Hammer’s film, and the production values of Coppola’s film. Maybe someday...

Scream is only Wes Craven film I’ve seen that I can say is actually worth a damn, no strings attached. Leaving it at that. Was planning on watching The Hills Have Eyes (1977) so I could have a definitive bottom spot entry, which probably shows my opinion on Craven’s work in general.

Considering I didn’t do anything like watch Martyrs (2008), that left High Plains Drifter as the most fucked up, gruesome, and hard to watch film I had to get through for this countdown. This is the intersection of the western and the horror film, with the brutality of both genres in full fucking force. In terms of plot it’s not much different from, say, A Fistfull of Dollars (1964): a nameless drifter played by Clint Eastwood comes into a town full of bad people and sells his services to them but ends up taking advantage of them, with no one being able to stop him because he’s too good at killing other people. But while Leone’s film was quaint and charming, this film is Hell. Almost literally, with the town being painted red and renamed Hell before the drifter sets half of it on fire. Bad people doing bad things, fucking each other over, killing each other in the end, it’s a food chain that you want to be on top of lest the person above you comes for you in turn. This is the missing link between Once Upon a Time in The West’s (1968) ending with industrialism expanding westward, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) showing the after effects of that violence.

Braindead! This was so putrid and disgusting yet I couldn’t look away. I think I figured out how Peter Jackson went from this to Lord of The Rings: this film shows his ability to effortlessly do huge crowd shots that are also complex special effects scenes that are also fight scenes with a shit ton of choreography. It’s just that before Jackson was making some of the longest movies ever made, he was making some of the goriest, and the gore is probably Braindead’s biggest selling point. For as much as it’s funny as hell and every character is insane in their own way, it’s the blood and loose limbs that fly everywhere and coat every surface in the finale that sticks with everyone.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is probably the most important film on this list, it’s easily the most influential horror film ever made, with every subsequent genre entry having a little bit of its DNA. But how does it actually stack up for being a film that just turned 100 last year? Well, it’s very dreamlike, perfect background noise for any occasion, you just let it wash over you, the images flickering on the screen as you go into a trance yourself.

Nearing the end, and we’re at my favorite part: Universal’s Frankenstein series. This is the best horror series that made it above three entries, and it’s gonna be hard to write about because I just love it that much. Had I watched Bride of Frankenstein (1935) for this countdown, it would have been #1. No questions asked. As is, the rest all claimed high spots. Frankenstein I can’t write about at all. It’s an enigma to me, I can’t do it. Son of Frankenstein is an odd one for me because objectively speaking I would say it’s as good as Bride, but it’s so different, it doesn’t have any of the dark humor or gay subtext or identity crises of the first two films in the series, instead being a very intense character drama involving a three way struggle to stay on top that has very little scares, it takes itself the most seriously of probably any Universal monster film, almost to a fault. Ghost of Frankenstein is where you can see the diminishing returns begin. It’s the awkward one of the bunch, coming after the first three great films and before the fun crossovers. If it never existed I wouldn’t miss it, but even at it’s weakest this series still isn’t bad, I swear it’s almost like magic fairy dust got sprinkled on these so they wouldn’t languish like Son of Dracula. Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man is another film where you can see all types of editorial mishaps behind the scenes but god its so much fucking fun that I don’t give a damn. This is the real monster mash, everything after is just trying to recapture its glory. House of Frankenstein...is so fucking great. You’ve got Boris Karloff as a mad scientist that fucks over Dracula, The Wolf Man, and whoever else gets in his way so he can get petty revenge on people that put him in jail. This is the best of the crossover films for me and the most fun of the whole Universal monster cycle probably in general, it’s like an amusement park ride of everything that makes 1930′s and 1940′s horror so great and it’s going at 90 mph. House of Dracula is another case of diminishing returns, I saw someone on Letterboxd call this film the equivalent of putting a bunch of your monster cereals in the same bowl six months after Halloween. While this another one I and no one else would actually miss...I love it, it’s still doing just enough to maintain my interest even after everything in the film itself is just going through the motions. Then we have the great and glorious Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. There’s a key difference between this film and Mad Monster Party? and Young Frankenstein...this film is actually funny as fuck. There’s too many great jokes to count, some of which get me every fucking time. For as much as I’d say House of Frankenstein would have been the perfect finale to the series, I’m glad this one came along and elevated it to new heights in terms of popularity. (It’s a shame Lugosi and Chaney Jr. never got to headline A-tier films after this, it was all downhill from here.)

I have no idea what happened in Perfect Blue.

The Invisible Man is THE Universal monster film. For as much as I might prefer Bride of Frankenstein, this is the one that is 10 out of 10 every day of the week. It just gets everything right on every level and never stretches it too far with its runtime. The scene that encapsulates everything great about this film is when a radio broadcast confirms the Invisible Man’s existence, sending everyone into a panic, a montage of locking doors, a montage of militias combing the country side in vain hope of finding him, and he’s sleeping softly in a bed in he pajamas. Comedy and horror mix best when it’s hard to distinguish whether you’re supposed to laugh or be terrified. This was definitely the #1 pick until we had a late entry take top spot.

Near Dark is the sexiest film I’ve ever seen. I can’t explain it but vampires embody a really perverse sense of body horror for me. You look the same you did before but now you can’t go out into the sun, you have to feed on blood, you have to kill to survive. But Near Dark makes it all so alluring and attractive, I’m disgusted by it every step of the way but at the same time endlessly fascinated. And then came What We Do in The Shadows. Let me explain the difference between these two films, and why Near Dark is not #1. Both of these films take place from the vampires’ perspective, we learn how they live and we get to know them in spite of how they’re the night monsters we’re supposed to fear. Near Dark wusses out at the end and cures the protagonist and kills all the vampires, an extremely disappointing ending that’s throw-popcorn-at-the-screen worthy. What We Do in The Shadows commits to its premise. I was a bit nervous about this one because I learned about it through Tumblr and it seemed like it was prime time media-overrated-on-Tumblr material, but then as SOON as I saw Viago reach out of his coffin to turn off his alarm clock, struggle to levitate out, and then cautiously check that it’s night (shouldn’t he have a better system by now?), this was the #1 pick. This is the best vampire film I’ve ever seen, with Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust (2000) and Near Dark rounding out the top three. This is genuinely one of the funniest fucking films I’ve ever seen. Over the course of two viewings, I don’t think there was a single joke that didn’t work. I get it now. I get the appeal of Taika Waititi. And it’s all thanks to this film.

#long post #racism tw #suicide tw

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beyond-crusading · 4 years ago

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A non-exhaustive list of barely credible anecdotes about Christopher Lee's life

(Long post but I can assure you it's worth it)

- He volunteered to fight with Finland against the Soviet Union in 1939, but was never sent to the front line because, in his own words, he "knew how to shoot, but not how to ski"

- As soon as he got back from Finland he volunteered into the British army and received training to become a RAF pilot. The day before his first solo flight, he suddenly had a failure in his optic nerve and was told he could never fly again.

- He then became an intelligence officer in the British army and took part in the Allies' attack in North Africa and Sicily.

- While spending some time on leave in Naples, he climbed Mount Vesuvius, which erupted three days later.

- As he spoke fluent French, Italian and German, he was tasked with helping tracking down Nazi war criminals.

- After the war, he began an acting career, but was told he was "too tall to be an actor" and played background characters for 10 years.

- After his critically acclaimed role in Dracula (1958), he reluctantly played a number of sequels. In Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1965), he has no lines, he merely hisses his way through the film. Lee claims it is because he refused to say the stupid lines that were written for him.

- In 1951, he was recruited to play a Spanish ship captain because he knew how to speak Spanish and fence.

- He auditioned for a part in the film The Longest Day (1962), but was turned down because he did not "look like a military man."

- Lee appeared as the on-screen narrator in Jess Franco's Eugenie (1970) as a favour to producer Harry Alan Towers, unaware that it was softcore pornography, as the sex scenes were shot separately.

I had no idea that was what it was when I agreed to the role. (...) When I had left Spain that day everyone behind me had taken their clothes off !

- He played a role in the TV series La Révolution française (1989) as the executioner, Charles-Henri Sanson, who beheaded King Louis XVI, Maximilien de Robespierre, and others.

- In 2010, he released Charlemagne: By the Sword of the Cross, a heavy metal album retelling the life of Frankish King Charlemagne, which was critically acclaimed. He became the oldest heavy metal performer ever, at age 88.

And I haven't even mentioned the witchcraft...

#christopher lee #cinema #horror #dracula #saruman #dooku #charlemagne #heavy metal #witchcraft #history #world war ii #ww2 #historyblr

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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The Horror Movies That May Owe Their Existence To H.P. Lovecraft

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With Lovecraft Country finishing its acclaimed first season, you may be looking to fill that new gap in your viewing schedule with more content based on or inspired by the works of the enigmatic author from Providence, Rhode Island.

Let’s get one thing clear upfront: Howard Phillips Lovecraft was very much a product of his time and upbringing, and his views on race, ethnicity, and class — while commonplace for where and when he lived — were truly noxious, an aspect of his legacy that Lovecraft Country addresses in its own themes. But it’s also clear that Lovecraft was arguably the most influential horror writer of the 20th century, with a reach that extends to this day.

While there have been a number of movies based directly on stories by Lovecraft — including titles like Die, Monster, Die! (1965), The Dunwich Horror (1970), Re-Animator (1985) and its sequels, From Beyond (1986), Dagon (2001), The Whisperer in Darkness (2011), and Color Out of Space (2020) — you may be surprised just how many more readily available major horror films and cult favorites have been influenced by his writing in terms of plotlines, themes, mood and imagery.

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Here is a readout of 20 movies, spanning the last 60 years, in which the pervasive presence of H.P. Lovecraft had an undeniable impact, making many of these efforts into mostly effective and often great horror films. Even the Great Old Ones would approve…

X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes (1963)

Legendary filmmaker Roger Corman had just adapted a Lovecraft story in The Haunted Palace (although the movie was marketed as part of his Edgar Allan Poe cycle), but this sci-fi film also clearly channeled some of the author’s sense of cosmic horror.

Ray Milland plays a scientist who invents a formula that allows him to see through just about everything, eventually peering into the center of the universe itself. What he views there leads him to a shocking decision that fans of Lovecraft’s work would appreciate.

The Shuttered Room (1967)

This British production was based on a short story by August Derleth, Lovecraft’s publisher and a noted author in his own right. Derleth based his story on a fragment left behind by Lovecraft after the latter’s death, with the movie expanding on the tale even further.

Behind the Scenes on Inside No. 9’s Most Terrifying Episode

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Gig Young and Carol Lynley star as a couple who inherit Lynley’s family mill only to find something horrifying living at the top of the house. Lots of Lovecraftian elements — a cursed house, a family secret, and strange locals — are all here.

Alien (1979)

Lovecraft’s work arguably existed on that knife edge between horror and science fiction — the Great Old Ones of his Cthulhu Mythos were, after all, ancient entities that existed in the darkest corners of the universe.

One of the greatest sci-fi/horror hybrids of all time, Alien, clearly took a cue from Lovecraft’s work: the origins and motivations of its xenomorphs were utterly unknowable to human understanding, and even the look of the alien echoed the gelatinous, glistening flesh of the Old Ones (too bad later movies like Prometheus and Alien: Covenant ruined it by explaining far too much of the alien’s history).

Scorpion

City of the Living Dead (1980)

Italian director Lucio Fulci directed several films inspired by the work of Lovecraft, starting with this gorefest starring Christopher George (Grizzly) and Catriona MacColl. When a priest hangs himself on the grounds of a cemetery in the town of Dunwich (a town created by Lovecraft), it opens a portal to hell that allows the living dead to erupt into our world.

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Fulci’s movie is often nonsensically plotted and more reliant on gore than Lovecraft ever was, but the otherworldly, surreal atmosphere is definitely sourced from the master.

The Beyond (1980)

The second film is Lucio Fulci’s “Gates of Hell” trilogy (the third was The House by the Cemetery) is perhaps the most heavily Lovecraftian, with Fulci regular Catriona MacColl inheriting a hotel in Louisiana that turns out to be — you guessed it — a portal to the world of the dead.

Like the director’s other work, it’s inconsistently acted and directed, but it oozes with a surreal, unsettling atmosphere that almost becomes intentionally disorienting. Hell of an ending too — literally.

The Evil Dead (1981)

Sam Raimi was just 20 when he and friends Rob Tapert and Bruce Campbell set out to make a low-budget horror movie called Book of the Dead, based on Raimi’s interest in Lovecraft. The finished product, The Evil Dead, featured plenty of Lovecraftian touches: a book of arcane evil knowledge, entities from another dimension, reanimated corpses and more.

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It also became one of the greatest cult horror movies of all time, spawning an entire franchise and — even as it veered more into comedy — staying true to its cosmic horror roots.

Universal

The Thing (1982)

Even though it’s squarely set in the science fiction genre, John Carpenter’s brilliant adaptation of the 1938 John W. Campbell Jr. novella Who Goes There? (filmed in 1951 as The Thing from Another World) is unquestionably cosmic horror.

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Although the title creature lands on Earth in a spaceship, its immense age, apparent indestructibility, utterly alien intelligence and formless ability to shapeshift make it one of the most Lovecraftian — and terrifying — monsters to ever slither across the screen. The remote, desolate setting and growing paranoia among the characters add to the terror and awe.

Ghostbusters (1984)

Yes, it’s one of the best combinations of horror and comedy to ever emerge onto the screen. But Ghostbusters’ second half — in which an apartment building designed by an insane architect turns out to be a gateway to a realm of monstrous demons led by “Gozer the Gozerian” — is pure Lovecraft.

The monstrous nature of the menace, the ancient rites and secret cult used to summon it — all of this is still quite cosmically eerie even as it’s played mostly for laughs and thrills.

Prince of Darkness (1987)

The second entry in what came to be known as John Carpenter’s “Apocalypse Trilogy” is perhaps the least influenced by Lovecraft. But it still packs a cosmic wallop with its arcane secrets long buried in an abandoned, decrepit church, its portal to another dimension ruled over by an Anti-God, its mutated, reanimated human monsters and its mind-bending combination of religious legends and scientific speculation (credit as well to British writer Nigel Kneale, an even more massive inspiration here).

In the Mouth of Madness (1995)

Carpenter completed his trilogy (arguably his greatest achievement outside of Halloween) with the most Lovecraftian of the three, in which a private insurance investigator (Sam Neill) looks into the disappearance of a famous horror author and learns that his books may portend the arrival of monstrous creatures from beyond our reality.

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An Introduction to HP Lovecraft: 5 Essential Stories

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How Lovecraft Country Uses Topsy and Bopsy to Address Racist Caricatures

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Not only are the ideas right out of Lovecraft, but the movie oozes with allusions to the writer’s work and ends up being as disorienting and genuinely disturbing as some of his most famous stories.

Event Horizon (1997)

While we will always argue that the execution of this film was faulty, which stops it from becoming a true cult classic, we won’t debate its central premise: a spacecraft with an experimental engine rips open a hole in the space-time continuum, plunging the ship and its crew into a dimension that appears to be hell itself and endangering the rescue team that arrives to find out what happened.

Movies

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Event Horizon: From Doomed Ship to Cult Gem

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Director Paul W.S. Anderson provides some truly macabre touches to an often incoherent movie, and again the whole invasion-of-evil-from-outside-our-universe concept points right back to old H.P. and his canon.

Hellboy (2004)

Hellboy creator Mike Mignola has often cited Lovecraft as a primary influence on his long-running comics starring the big red demon (Lovecraft’s vision has impacted a slew of other comics over the years as well), and it’s no surprise that Guillermo del Toro’s original movie based on the books touches on that too. The film’s Ogdru Jahad are a take on Lovecraft’s Great Old Ones, while the movie is stuffed with references to occult knowledge, forbidden texts, alternate realities and more.

Del Toro’s own direct Lovecraft adaptation, At the Mountains of Madness, remains abandoned in development hell, but his work here gives us perhaps a taste of how it might have looked.

The Mist (2007)

Stephen King has often cited the influence of Lovecraft on his own vast library of work, and both the novella The Mist and Frank Darabont’s intense film adaptation are perhaps the most overt example.

While the premise is vaguely sci-fi — an accident at a secret government lab opens a portal to another dimension, unleashing a fog containing all kinds of horrifying monsters — the mood and the entities are Lovecraftian to the extreme, as is Darabont’s unforgivingly bleak ending (altered from King’s more ambiguous one).

The Cabin in the Woods (2012)

Director/co-writer Drew Goddard and co-writer Joss Whedon take on two of horror’s most criticized subgenres, the slasher film and the torture porn movie, in this sharp satire that ends up being a Lovecraft pastiche as well. The standard set-up of five young, horny friends heading to a remote cabin in advance of being slaughtered turns out to be a ritual performed by trained technicians as a sacrifice to monstrous deities — the Ancient Ones — that reside under the Earth’s crust. The ending — in which the survivors decide that humanity isn’t worth saving after all — would have met the misanthropic Lovecraft’s approval.

Stephen King’s It (2017/2019)

The more metaphysical elements of King’s gigantic 1987 novel (such as the emergence of the godlike Turtle and the journey into the Macroverse) didn’t really make it into either this two-part theatrical version of the novel or the 1990 miniseries.

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But the influence of Lovecraft is still felt in the title menace itself, an unimaginably ancient, shape-shifting entity that can exist in multiple realities and feeds on fear and terror. The way that It slowly corrupts the town of Derry and its inhabitants over the years has precedent as well in Lovecraft tales like “The Dunwich Horror” and “The Shadow Over Innsmouth.”

The Endless (2017)

Indie horror auteurs Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead have touched on certain Lovecraft tropes in all their films, including Resolution and Spring, but The Endless is perhaps the most directly influenced by the author. The writers/directors also star in the movie as two brothers who return to the cult from which they escaped as children, only to find it has become the plaything of an unseen time-bending entity.

Genuinely eerie and more reliant on character and story than special effects, The Endless is a good example of what a modern twist on the Lovecraft mythos might look like.

The Void (2017)

A small group of medical personnel, police officers and patients become trapped in a hospital after hours by an onslaught of hooded cultists and macabre creatures in this virtual compendium of well-loved Lovecraft tropes and imagery. Writer/directors Steven Kostanski and Jeremy Gillespie channel an ’80s horror vibe, with all its pros (and some cons) but the overall atmosphere is surreal and the story taps effectively into the sense of cosmic horror.

Annihilation (2018)

Alex Garland’s (Devs) adaptation of Jeff VanderMeer’s frightening novel Annihilation is brilliant and terrifying in its own right, and both serve as loose rewrites/reinventions of Lovecraft’s classic “The Colour Out of Space.” In this take, four female explorers are tasked with penetrating and solving the spread of an alien entity over a portion of the coastal U.S. that is mutating all the plant and animal life within. The sense of awe and cosmic dread is strong throughout this underseen gem.

The Lighthouse (2019)

The second feature from visionary writer/director Robert Eggers (The Witch) is more a psychological drama than an outright horror film — or is it? The story’s two lonely lighthouse keepers (Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe) may be going insane or may be coming under the influence of an unseen sea entity and the beam of the lighthouse itself.

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With its black and white cinematography, windswept location, half-glimpsed sea creatures and sense of reality crumbling around the edges, The Lighthouse is just a Great Old One away from being a genuine Lovecraftian nightmare.

Underwater (2020)

It’s hard to believe that this Kristen Stewart vehicle came out in early 2020 — given the way the world changed since, it seems like it came out five years ago. Although its story of workers on a deep sea drilling facility battling monsters from the deep was an overly familiar one, the creatures themselves were more unusual than most. Director William Eubank took it a step further by saying that the movie’s climactic giant monster was none other than Cthulhu itself, the Great Old One sleeping under the ocean and namesake of Lovecraft’s entire Cthulhu Mythos — which takes us back to where we began.

The post The Horror Movies That May Owe Their Existence To H.P. Lovecraft appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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begitalarcos · 5 years ago

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100+ Years of Horror

This is not a definitive list. These are just the films I believe every Horror fan should see at least once. I’ve excluded any sequels that I didn’t feel needed including. I hope you enjoy.

For @mechamag

1922 – Nosferatu

1925 – The Phantom of the Opera

1927 – The Cat and the Canary

1931 – Dracula, Frankenstein

1932 – Freaks

1933 – The Invisible Man

1934 – The Black Cat

1935 – The Bride of Frankenstein

1939 – The Cat and the Canary

1941 – The Black Cat, The Wolfman

1942 – Cat People

1945 - Dead of Night

1953 – House of Wax

1954 – Creature from the Black Lagoon

1955 – Night of the Hunter, Les Diaboliques

1956 – Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Bad Seed

1958 – The Blob, Macabre, The Fly

1959 – House on Haunted Hill, The Tingler, The Killer Shrews

1960 – 13 Ghosts , Black Sunday, Eyes without a face, Peeping Tom, Psycho, Village of the Damned

1961 – The Pit and the Pendulum

1962 – What ever happened To Baby Jane?

1963 – The Birds, Black Sabbath, The Haunting

1965 – Repulsion

1966 – Island of Terror

1967 – Wait until Dark

1968 – Night of the Living Dead, Rosemary’s Baby, Spider Baby

1970 – Mark of the Devil, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage

1971 – The Cat O’ Nine Tails, Let’s scare Jessica to Death, What’s the matter with Helen? A Bay of Blood, Play Misty for Me

1972 – Ben, Children shouldn’t play with dead things, Deathdream, Don’t torture a Duckling, The last house on the left, Night of the Lepus, What have you done to Solange?

1973 – The Crazies, The Exorcist, The Legend of Hell House, Sisters, The Wicker Man, Don’t look now

1974 – Black Christmas, Deranged, It’s Alive, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Vampyres

1975 – Shivers, Trilogy of Terror, Jaws, Deep Red, The Stepford Wives

1976 – Alice Sweet Alice, Burnt Offerings, Carrie, Eaten Alive, The Omen, Squirm, To the devil a daughter, The town that dreaded sundown, The Tenant

1977 – Audrey Rose, Day of the Animals, Demon Seed, Eraserhead, Exorcist 2: The Heretic, The Hills have Eyes, Rabid, The Sentinel, Shock, Suspiria

1978 – Damien: Omen 2, Dawn of the Dead, Halloween, I Spit on your Grave, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Jaws 2, The Legacy, Magic, Martin, Piranha

1979 – Alien, The Amityville Horror, The Brood, Phantasm, Prophecy, Tourist Trap, When a Stranger Calls, Zombi2, Nosferatu the Vampyre, Salem’s Lot

1980 – Alligator, Altered States, The Changeling, City of the Living Dead, Fade to Black, The Fog, Friday the 13th, Hell of the Living Dead, The House on the Edge of the Park, Humanoids form the Deep, Inferno, Maniac, Motel Hell, Prom Night, The Shining

1981 – An American Werewolf in London, The Beyond, The Black Cat, The Burning, Dead and Buried, The Entity, The Evil Dead, Friday the 13th Part 2, The Funhouse, Galaxy of Terror, Halloween 2, Happy Birthday to Me, Hell Night, The House by the Cemetery, The Howling, My Bloody Valentine, Omen 3: The Final Conflict, The Pit, Possession, The Prowler, Wolfen, Scanners, Blow Out, Ghost Story

1982 – Alone in the Dark, Basket Case, The Beast Within, Cat People, Creepshow, Friday the 13th Part 3, Halloween 3: Season of the Witch, Madman, Pieces, Poltergeist, Q: The Winged Serpent, Tenebrae, The Thing, Visiting Hours

1983 – A Blade in the Dark, Christine, Cujo, Curtains, The Deadly Spawn, Eyes of Fire, The House on Sorority Row, The Hunger, Mortuary, Nightmares, Sleepaway Camp, Videodrome, The Dead Zone, Twilight Zone: The Movie

1984 – C.H.U.D., Children of the Corn, The Company of Wolves, Gremlins, Night of the Comet, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Razorback, Silent Night Deadly Night, Firestarter, Starman, Ghostbusters

1985 – Cat’s Eye, Day of the Dead, Demons, Fright Night, Ghoulies, LifeForce, Phenomena, Re-Animator, The Return of the Living Dead, Silver Bullet, The Stuff, Cut and Run, The New Kids

1986 – Aliens, April Fools Day, Chopping Mall, Critters, Deadly Friend, The Fly, From Beyond, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, The Hitcher, House, Invaders from Mars, Little Shop of Horrors, Maximum Overdrive, Monster Dog, Night of the Creeps, Poltergeist 2: The Other Side, Rawhead Rex, Terrorvision, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, Trick or Treat, Troll, Vamp, The Wraith

1987 – Angel Heart, Bad Taste, Creepshow 2, Dolls, Evil Dead 2, The Gate, Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night 2, Hellraiser, The Hidden, House 2: The Second Story, The Outing, The Lost Boys, The Monster Squad, Near Dark, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, Opera, Prince of Darkness, Predator, Stage Fright, The Stepfather, Street Trash, The Witches of Eastwick, Lady Beware, Fatal Attraction

1988 – Bad Dreams, The Blob, Child's Play, Dead Heat, Elvira Mistress of the Dark, Fright Night Part 2, Hellbound: Hellraiser 2, Killer Klowns from Outer Space, The Lair of the White Worm, Maniac Cop, Night of the Demons, Phantasm 2, Pin, Prison, Pumpkinhead, Return of the Living Dead Part 2, The Serpent and the Rainbow, Uninvited, Watchers, Waxwork, They Live

1989 – 976-Evil, The Church, Grim Prairie Tales, The Horror Show, Intruder, Leviathan, Night Life, Pet Sematary, Shocker, Society, Warlock, Dead Calm, The Forgotten One, DeepStar Six

1990 – Braindead, Bride of Re-Animator, Child’s Play 2, The Exorcist 3, Frankenhooker, Graveyard Shift, The Guardian, Hardware, IT, Jacob’s Ladder, Misery, Night of the Living Dead, Nightbreed, Predator 2, The Reflecting Skin, Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat, Tales from the Darkside: The Movie, Tremors, Two Evil Eyes, Arachnophobia

1991 – Body Parts, Cape Fear, The People under the Stairs, The Pit and the Pendulum, Popcorn, Scanners 2: The New Order, The Silence of the Lambs, Sometimes they Come Back

1992 – Army of Darkness, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Candyman, Demonic Toys, Dolly Dearest, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Innocent Blood, Sleepwalkers, Spilt Second, Man Bites Dog

1993 – Body Bags, Carnosaur, Cronos, The Dark Half, Leprechaun, Return of the Living Dead 3, Trauma, Kalifornia, Man’s Best Friend

1994 – Brainscan, Cemetery Man, The Crow, Death Machine, Hellbound, In The Mouth of Madness, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, The Stand, Wes Cravens New Nightmare, Wolf, Interview with the Vampire

1995 – Castle Freak, Demon Knight, Lord of Illusions, The Mangler, Mosquito, The Prophecy, Species, Village of the Damned, Screamers, Dolores Claiborne

1996 – Bad Moon, The Craft, The Frighteners, From Dusk till Dawn, Jack Frost, Scream, Tremors 2: Aftershocks, Mary Reilly

1997 – An American Werewolf in Paris, Anaconda, Campfire Tales, Cube, The Devils’ Advocate, Event Horizon, I know what you did last Summer, Mimic, The Night Flier, Nightwatch, The Relic, Quicksilver Highway, The Ugly, Wishmaster, Kiss the Girls, Se7en, Perfect Blue

1998 – Blade, Deep Rising, The Faculty, Ringu, Strangeland, Urban Legend, Vampires, Sphere

1999 – Audition, The Blair Witch Project, Deep Blue Sea, The Haunting, House on Haunted Hill, Lake Placid, The Mummy, Ravenous, Sleepy Hollow, Stigmata, Virus, The Sixth Sense, Idle Hands

2000 – American Psycho, Bless the Child, Blood: The Last Vampire, Cherry Falls, Final Destination, Ginger Snaps, Hollow Man, Ju-On, Pitch Black, Python, Versus, What Lies Beneath, The Gift, The Cell, Shadow of the Vampire

2001 – The Attic Expeditions, Brotherhood of the Wolf, Dagon, Jeepers Creepers, Mulholland Drive, The Others, Session 9, Thir13en Ghosts, The Devil’s Backbone, Frailty, From Hell, Hannibal

2002 – 28 Days Later, Blade 2, Bubba Ho-Tep, Cabin Fever, Dog Soldiers, Eight Legged Freaks, Ghost Ship, May, Queen of the Damned, Resident Evil, The Ring, They, The Mothman Prophecies, Red Dragon

2003 – Darkness Falls, Dream Catcher, Final Destination 2, Freddy Vs. Jason, Haute Tension, House of 1000 Corpses, A Tale of Two Sisters, Undead, Underwold, Willard, Wrong Turn

2004 – Alien Vs Predator, Club Dread, Dawn of the Dead, Dead & Breakfast, Exorcist: The Beginning, Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed, Godsend, Saw, Shaun of the Dead, The Village, Taking Lives, The Forgotten, Enduring Love

2005 – 2001 Maniacs, The Amityville Horror, Constantine, Dark Water, The Descent, The Devils’ Rejects, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Land of the Dead, Wolf Creek, Hard Candy

2006 – Abominable, All the boys love Many Lane, Black Sheep, Fido, Final Destination 3, Hatchet, The Hills have Eyes, Slither, The Woods, The Host, Silent Hill, The Tripper, Wild Country

2007 – 28 Weeks Later, 30 Days of Night, 1408, Grindhouse, I am Legend, The Mist, My Name is Bruce, Nature of the Beast, Paranormal Activity, Primeval, REC, Skinwalkers, Teeth, Trick r’ Treat, An American Crime, Rogue, Funny Games

2008 – Book of Blood, Cloverfield, Deadgirl, Diary of the Dead, Let the right one in, The Midnight Meat Train, Mirrors, Quarantine, The Ruins, Splinter, The Strangers, Eden Lake, Outlander

2009 – Case 39, Grace, The Haunting in Connecticut, Heartless, The House of the Devil, Jennifer’s Body, The Loved Ones, Orphan, Pandorum, Splice, Triangle, Zombieland, Carriers, Dread

2010 – Black Swan, The Crazies, Exorcismus, Frozen, Insidious, The Last Exorcism, Let me in, Primal, Tucker & Dale Vs Evil, The Wolfman, Troll Hunter, Devil

2011 – The Awakening, Don’t be afraid of the Dark, The Innkeepers, Livid, The Thing, The Woman, The Rite

2012 – American Mary, Bait, The Cabin in the Woods, The Devil Inside, The Possession, Prometheus, Sinister, Byzantium, Compliance

2013 – The Conjuring, Evil Dead, Jug Face, Mama, Under the Skin, Only Lovers Left Alive, Warm Bodies, Horns, Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, Contracted, Stoker

2014 – Annabelle, As Above So Below, The Babadook, Deliver us from Evil, A Girl walk home alone at Night, Life after Beth, Starry Eyes, Tusk, It Follows, Goodnight Mommy, The Voices, Digging up the Marrow, When Animals Dream, Gone Girl ,The Remaining, Late Phases, Cub

2015 – Crimson Peak, Krampus, The Lazarus Effect, Maggie, The Visit, The Witch, Bone Tomahawk, Green Room, Regression, The Devil’s Candy, The Lure

2016 – The Autopsy of Jane Doe, The Belko Experiment, The Boy, The Conjuring 2, Don’t Breathe, The Eyes of my Mother, Split, The Forest, The Love Witch, The Neon Demon, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Raw, Train to Busan, The Void, What We Become, 10 Cloverfield Lane, A Cure for Wellness, The Shallows, Pet, Hounds of Love

2017 – IT, Get Out, Mother!, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, The Ritual, Thelma, Veronica, It comes at Night, Life, Gerald’s Game, Revenge, 1922

2018 – Annihilation, Halloween, Hereditary, Mandy, Mom and Dad, The Nun, Overlord, Possum, A Quiet Place, Suspiria, The House that Jack Built, Bird Box, Apostle, The Meg

2019 – Brightburn, IT Chapter 2, Midsommar, Ready or Not, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, Us, I am Mother, Crawl, The Dead Don’t Die, Extremely Wicked Shockingly Evil and Vile, Glass

#begita #Horror #I'll probably add more #but these are the ones that come to mind first off

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swampthingy · 5 years ago

Photo

Christopher Lee being directed by Terrence Fisher in Dracula' Prince Of Darkness 1965

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chiseler · 5 years ago

Text

ONCE UPON A TIME AT THE DRIVE-IN: The Testament of Al Adamson

It was 50 years ago last year that the cheap and peculiarly patchwork films of Al Adamson first began to assert themselves on drive-in and grindhouse screens across America. Initially recognized for his horror films (Blood of Dracula’s Castle, Horror of the Blood Monsters, Brain of Blood, and especially Dracula vs. Frankenstein), he went on to add biker, action, blaxploitation, sexploitation, and even family fare to his rickety roster before retiring from his director’s chair sometime in the 1980s and vanishing into private life. The rise of Adamson’s unpretentious output happened to coincide with the decline of the Hollywood studio system as well as such old guard avatars as American International Pictures, Britain’s Hammer Films and Amicus Productions, whose imprints always guaranteed a certain level of production value and class. Adamson’s work was something of a throwback to the gore films of Herschell Gordon Lewis (Blood Feast, Two Thousand Maniacs!), but whereas Lewis’ work in horror was a taboo-breaking branching-out from his earlier nudie-cutie fare, Adamson’s pictures were endearing for their sentimental casting of veteran character actors well past their prime; technically, they didn’t bear comparing even to the old Monogram or PRC titles where Bela Lugosi was often found slumming during the 1940s, but the average drive-in patron could look at them and think, after his third or fourth beer of the night, “Damn, I could do better than this!” And sure enough, Adamson’s rough-and-ready example and his impressive earnings played a part in encouraging the powderkeg of DIY horror breakthroughs that went epidemic around the turn of the decade. Just to name the Americans, these feral young newcomers included George A. Romero, Wes Craven, Tobe Hooper, Bob Kelljan, David Durston, Andy Milligan, S.F. Brownrigg, even Oliver Stone, not to mention the many young and international filmmakers associated with Roger Corman’s New World Pictures.

1969’s Golden Anniversary honors were largely drawn to Quentin Tarantino’s behind-the-scenes movie fantasy Once Upon a Time... In Hollywood, which was much praised for its magical extrication of the beautiful and talented actress Sharon Tate from her hideous murder on August 9th of that year. For some of us, Once Upon a Time... In Hollywood links directly to thoughts of Al Adamson; in early 1969, he shot parts of his biker thriller Satan’s Sadists at the notorious Spahn Movie Ranch in Los Angeles’ Ventura County, where thwarted songwriter Charles Manson lived with his “family” members, inculcating in them a blood-lusting resentment for the established Hollywood order that would not invite him in. When Satan’s Sadists was first released in June 1969 (its trailer promising “A Rebellion of Human Garbage!” led by West Side Story star Russ Tamblyn), it quickly disappeared… but in the wake of the Tate/La Bianca murders just a few months later, its distributor Independent-International shipped it back out with a new, sleazier publicity campaign that actually emphasized its prophetic Manson Family associations. “See the Shocking Story Behind the Headlines… Wild Hippies on a Murder Spree!,” crowed the ads; “Actually Filmed Where the Tate Suspects Lived Their Wild Experiences!”And just in case this wasn’t enough, the film was frequently co-billed with Tate’s 1968 British film Eye of the Devil, now being sold with the tagline “Weird, mystic cult slaughters innocent victims!”

As irony would have it, almost thirty years after so grossly pandering to the public’s prurient interest in the murder, the director of Satan’s Sadists got the biggest headlines of his career when Al Adamson was named as the murder victim in a crime story nationally broken in August 1995, a couple of months after his mysterious disappearance.

This story is now the subject matter of a feature-length documentary by filmmaker David Gregory: Blood and Flesh: The Reel Life and Ghastly Death of Al Adamson, which premiered late last year at the Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal and at the UK Fright Fest.

The son of 1930s western star Denver Dixon (in truth, transplanted New Zealand native Victor Adamson), Al had been kicking around the exploitation film business his entire life. In 1960, working under the alias “Lyle Felice”, he took the lead role in a Western entitled Halfway To Hell, which he ended up co-directing with his father. The film was never released and the young Adamson wasn’t able to put another film together until 1965, when he wore all the various hats needed to make his first official feature Echo of Terror, a jewel heist programmer somehow given the breath of life on a mere $2,000 investment.

Low on thrills and boasting no stars, Echo of Terror followed in the footsteps of Halfway To Hell by never finding a distributor. It remained on the shelf until Adamson made the fateful acquaintance of Samuel M. Sherman, then working in the publicity department at Hemisphere Pictures, designing campaigns for the likes of Filipino imports like Eddie Romero’s war drama The Ravagers and Gerardo de Leon’s vampire opus The Blood Drinkers. Sherman had just finished a two-year stint as the editor of the Warren Publications magazine Screen Thrills Illustrated, devoted to the movie serials of the 1930s and ‘40s – so he was familiar with the name Denver Dixon and formed a fast friendship with his son. He screened Edge of Terror and, while agreeing it was unviable in its present shape, he was impressed by what Adamson had accomplished with so little money. They didn’t yet have the means to produce an entirely new picture, so they made a reel’s worth of changes to what they had, and that’s how Echo of Terror – with a modicum of new footage featuring some go-go dancers - became Psycho A Go Go.

Through Hemisphere, this jarring concoction was shipped out in support of The Ravagers in Rochester, New York at the end of 1965, and it remained in circulation in New England and Midwestern states through 1967, first playing with another Gerardo de Leon picture, Curse of the Vampires (retitled Blood Creatures) and later appearing at the bottom of triple – and even quadruple - bills with Hammer’s Dracula Prince of Darkness (1965) and Plague of the Zombies (1966).

Even as Psycho A Go Go was tempting sullen motorists to stick around for the free donuts and coffee being served to anyone who lasted till the fourth feature, Sherman and Adamson could see that the clock was ticking against the timeliness of its title. So yet another scheme was hatched to squeeze maximum earnings out of a minimal further investment. Sherman knew more about the film business than Adamson did, so it was likely he who suggested they write some additional mad scientist gobbledegook, hire John Carradine for a day or two, and ship out their brand new picture with a more exploitable title like Fiend With the Electronic Brain – pretty much exactly what producer Jerry Warren had done some years earlier with the reels of unmarketable Swedish and Chilean footage that he sold to unsuspecting patrons as Invasion of the Animal People (1959) and Curse of the Stone Hand (1965), starring John Carradine!

They followed through on the plan and did indeed secure a distribution deal (or at least an arrangement) with David L. Hewitt’s American General Pictures, who got Fiend With the Electronic Brain into a couple of drive-ins in Corpus Christie and Austin, Texas in late 1967 and early 1968 as a co-feature to Jack Hill’s as-yet-unrecognized classic Spider Baby. On the books, it gave them credit for having produced and released a new picture that year, which made their new partnership the beneficiary of a much-needed tax break and a foundation from which they were able to produce their first real joint effort. This was Blood of Dracula’s Castle (1969, also starring Carradine), made in partnership with Paragon International Pictures, as was its co-feature, Bud Townsend’s Nightmare In Wax starring Cameron Mitchell. Released through Crown International, the double bill premiered in May 1969 and Blood of Dracula’s Castle in particular was never out of theatrical circulation for the next two years.

You might think they would have moved on to more important things, but the Frankensteinian efforts to make a bigger, better Fiend With the Electronic Brain continued to occupy Sherman and Adamson. Sherman’s success with Blood-titled campaigns – ranging from 1970s Mad Doctor of Blood Island to 1971’s Frankenstein’s Bloody Terror – had convinced him that “Blood” was the most commercially vital word in horror terminology. His theory was subsequently bourne out by the success of his 1972 “Chiller Carnival of Blood” – a drive-in festival composed of old, decomposing Hemisphere titles (1959’s Terror Is A Man retitled Blood Creature, Mad Doctor of Blood Island retitled Blood Doctor, Theater of Death retitled Blood Fiend, and Brides of Blood retitled Blood Brides). Sherman’s “good luck noun” was prominently applied to their old warhorse the next time it surfaced, this time with new footage featuring Kent Taylor and Adamson’s wife Regina Carroll, who had become a fixture of his work since Satan’s Sadists. The rechristened Blood of Ghastly Horror actually headed drive-in triple bills upon its release in January 1973 – and some ticket buyers may have been understandably annoyed to discover that it was the same film that had been playing on television stations across the country as early as April 1972 under the title Man With the Synthetic Brain.

This is but one of numerous stories of patchwork reinventions and retitlings attending the filmography of Al Adamson, which will receive the fullest possible examination when Severin Films releases the mind-staggering tributary box set Al Adamson – The Masterpiece Collection, on April 21st. Compiling all 32 of Adamson’s surviving feature films and variants on 14 Blu-ray discs (all Region A, except for Discs 1, 12, and 14, which are region free), a 128-page book, as well as the David Gregory documentary, this Matterhorn of home video retrospectives will be limited to only 2,000 copies and supply is dwindling fast. The dwindling is faster still for two variants packed with additional incentives: you’ve already missed the “Bundle of Ghastly Horror” (limited to 200 copies and containing posters signed by Adamson stars John “Bud” Cardos and Zandor Vorkov), but the limited 300-copy “Bundle A Go Go” retains most of the contents - a T-shirt, dimestore vampire fangs, 7” soundtrack single of music from The Female Bunch, and Adamson patch and enamel pin - while substituting a signed postcard for the posters. Pick your poison at severin-films.com.

If you’re wondering, “Do I need this?,” only you can answer that question reliably. However, should you be open to further temptation, I can whole-heartedly recommend the documentary Blood and Flesh: The Reel Life and Ghastly Death of Al Adamson, which is available for purchase separately and now streaming on such outlets as Amazon Prime, Vudu, and Google Play.

by Tim Lucas

#Tim Lucas #The Chiseler #Al Adamson #Drive-in

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locke-writes · 5 years ago

Text

You’re In For A Scare

Alternatively, I love horror films and giving out film recommendations. Have a horror rec list.

Note: Horror films have the potential to be triggering, please do your research if you’re unsure about a film. Doesthedogdie is a good source to find out potential triggers in any film. If you’re looking for analysis based horror content I highly recommend the youtube channel Dead Meat as well as the Dead Meat podcast.

Tagging: @stars-serenity @berrycult @bogpeople @itsfangirlmendes @local-loverboy @commandershadowchild @garbagegoblingay @violet-mlm @razzlemyberries @aryn-the-wolfheart @thepumpkinwitchfromshrek4 @scorpio-1357 @klaustarr @lucifers-demonic-breast-milk @ikaid

Originally posted - 2019

The Infernal Cauldron (1903)

The Merry Frolics of Salem (1906)

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1908)

The Sealed Room (1909)

Frankenstein (1910)

The Inferno (1911)

The Werewolf (1913)

Fear (1917)

Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde (1920)

The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1920)

The Death of Dracula (1921)

The Haunted Castle (1921)

Leaves For Satan's Book (1921)

The Phantom Carriage (1921)

Haxan (1922)

Nosferatu (1922)

Phantom (1922)

The Monster (1925)

The Phantom of the Opera (1925)

Wolf Blood (1925)

Faust (1926)

The Fall of the House of Usher (1926)

Sweeney Todd (1927)

Blackmail (1929)

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1931)

Dracula (1931)

Frankenstein (1931)

M (1931)

Night Nurse (1931)

Freaks (1932)

Doctor X (1932)

The Mummy (1932)

Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932)

Vampyr (1932)

White Zombie (1933)

The Ghoul (1933)

The Invisible Man (1933)

The Monkey's Paw (1933)

Death Takes A Holiday (1934)

Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

Mad Love (1935)

The Raven (1935)

Werewolf of London (1935)

The Devil Doll (1936)

Tower of London (1936)

Black Friday (1940)

The Black Cat (1940)

The Wolf Man (1941)

The Corpse Vanishes (1942)

The Mad Ghoul (1943)

The Soul of a Monster (1944)

The Body Snatcher (1945)

Isle of the Dead (1945)

Bedlam (1946)

House of Horrors (1946)

She-Wolf of London (1946)

The Black Castle (1952)

House of Wax (1953)

Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954)

Les Diaboliques (1955)

The Phantom from 10,000 Leagues (1955)

The Bad Seed (1956)

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

Night of the Demon (1957)

The Deadly Mantis (1957)

The Blob (1958)

The Fly (1958)

Lake of the Dead (1958)

Curse of the Faceless Man (1958)

The Thing That Couldn't Die (1958)

Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959)

Jack the Ripper (1959)

A Bucket of Blood (1959)

House on Haunted Hill (1959)

13 Ghosts (1960)

The Hands of Orloc (1960)

Tormented (1960)

Black Sunday (1960)

Eyes Without A Face (1960)

House of Usher (1960)

The Little Shop of Horrors (1960)

Psycho (1960)

The Curse of the Werewolf (1961)

Homicidal (1961)

Th Pit and the Pendulum (1961)

The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1962)

Carnival of Souls (1962)

The Birds (1962)

Black Sabbath (1963)

The Haunted Palace (1963)

The Raven (1963)

At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul (1964)

2000 Maniacs (1964)

Castle of the Living Dead (1964)

The Flesh Eaters (1964)

The Masque of the Red Death (1964)

Nightmare Castle (1965)

Planet of the Vampires (1965)

A Devilish Homicide (1965)

The Skull (1965)

A Study In Terror (1965)

Circus of Fear (1966)

Kill, Baby, Kill (1966)

Persona (1966)

Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966)

Island of Terror (1966)

Tonight I'll Possess Your Corpse (1966)

The Blood Demon (1967)

Fear Chamber (1968)

The Living Skeleton (1968)

Beserk! (1968)

The Devil Rides Out (1968)

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Rosemary's Baby (1968)

The Exquisite Corpse (1969)

Horrors of the Malformed Man (1969)

And Soon the Darkness (1970)

The Beast in the Cellar (1970)

Flesh Feast (1970)

The Wizard of Gore (1970)

Scream and Scream Again (1970)

The Vampire Lovers (1970)

House of Dark Shadows (1970)

The Devils (1971)

Night of Dark Shadows (1971)

The Night God Screamed (1971)

See No Evil (1971)

Straw Dogs (1971)

Hands of the Ripper (1971)

Werewolves on Wheels (1971)

Willard (1971)

Asylum (1972)

Beast of the Yellow Night (1972)

Last House on the Left (1972)

Tales From the Crypt (1972)

Ben (1972)

Garden of the Dead (1972)

Lisa and the Devil (1972)

The Thing With Two Heads (1972)

Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things (1973)

The Exorcist (1973)

From Beyond the Grave (1973)

Horror Hospital (1973)

Black Christmas (1974)

Frightmare (1974)

The Hand That Feeds the Dead (1974)

Madhouse (1974)

Silent Night, Bloody Night (1974)

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

The Killer Must Kill Again (1975)

Legend of the Werewolf (1975)

Satanic Pandemonium (1975)

Alice, Sweet, Alice (1975)

Blood Sucking Freaks (1976)

Carrie (1976)

The House With Laughing Windows (1976)

The Omen (1976)

Demon Seed (1977)

The Hills Have Eyes (1977)

Suspiria (1977)

Are You In The House Alone (1978)

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (1978)

Dawn of the Dead (1978)

The Grapes of Death (1978)

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)

The Legacy (1978)

Halloween (1978)

My Bloody Valentine (1978)

Martin (1978)

The Amityville Horror (1979)

Human Experiments (1979)

Screams of Winter (1979)

When A Stranger Calls (1979)

Beyond Evil (1980)

The Changeling (1980)

Demented (1980)

Friday the 13th (1980)

Inferno (1980)

Maniac (1980)

Night of the Demon (1980)

Prom Night (1980)

The Shining (1980)

The Watcher In the Woods (1980)

An American Werewolf In London (1981)

Deadly Blessing (1981)

Final Exam (1981)

Evil Dead (1981)

Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)

The Funhouse (1981)

Galaxy of Terror (1981)

Possession (1982)

Basket Case (1982)

Creepshow (1982)

Days of Hell (1982)

Friday the 13th Part 3 (1982)

Hospital Massacre (1982)

The Living Dead Girl (1982)

Parasite (1982)

Poltergeist (1982)

The Slumber Party Massacre (1982)

The Thing (1982)

Christine (1983)

Cujo (1983)

The Deadly Spawn (1983)

The Demons of Ludlow (1983)

The Hunger (1983)

A Night to Dismember (1983)

Sleepaway Camp (1983)

Children of the Corn (1984)

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984)

The Initiation (1984)

A Nightmare of Elm Street (1984)

Day of the Dead (1985)

The Doctor and the Devils (1985)

Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985)

Fright Night (1985)

The Mutilator (1985)

Re-Animator (1985)

Silver Bullet (1985)

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985)

Chopping Mall (1986)

Critters (1986)

The Fly (1986)

Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986)

Invaders From Mars (1986)

Neon Maniacs (1986)

Slaughter High (1986)

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986)

Berserker (1987)

Blood Diner (1987)

Bloody New Year (1987)

Creepshow 2 (1987)

Demon of Paradise (1987)

Dolls (1987)

Evil Dead II (1987)

Hellraiser (1987)

The Lost Boys (1987)

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)

Child's Play (1987)

Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988)

Killer Klowns From Outer Space (1988)

Maniac Cop (1988)

Night of the Demons (1988)

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Master (1988)

Pumpkinhead (1988)

Watchers (1988)

Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989)

A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989)

Pet Sematary (1989)

Vampires Kiss (1989)

The Women in Black (1989)

Beyond Darkness (1990)

Brain Dead (1990)

Bride of Re-Animator (1990)

Child's Play 2 (1990)

Flatliners (1990)

It (1990)

Mirror, Mirror (1990)

Misery (1990)

Night of the Living Dead (1990)

Children of the Night (1990)

Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)

The People Under the Stairs (1991)

Candyman (1992)

Bram Stokers Dracula (1992)

The Lawnmower Man (1992)

Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993)

Leprechaun (1993)

The Tommyknockers (1993)

The Crow (1994)

In the Mouth of Madness (1994)

Needful Things (1994)

Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994)

Blood and Donuts (1995)

Demon Knight (1995)

Village of the Damned (1995)

The Craft (1996)

The Frighteners (1996)

From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)

Jack Frost (1996)

Scream (1996)

Thinner (1996)

The Uninvited (1996)

An American Werewolf in Paris (1997)

Cube (1997)

Scream 2 (1997)

Bride of Chucky (1998)

Carnival of Souls (1998)

The Faculty (1998)

Ring (1998)

The Blair Witch Project (1999)

Camp Blood (1999)

The Haunting (1999)

The Haunting of Hill House (1999)

Lake Placid (1999)

American Psycho (2000)

Depp In the Woods (2000)

Dial D For Demons (2000)

Final Destination (2000)

Scream 3 (2000)

Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001)

Children of the Living Dead (2001)

Cradle of Fear (2001)

How to Make A Monster (2001)

Jason X (2001)

Jeepers Creepers (2001)

Jesus Christ Vampire Hunters (2001)

The Others (2001)

There Is A Secret In My Soup (2001)

28 Days Later (2002)

Cabin Fever (2002)

Wolves of Wall Street (2002)

Final Destination (2003)

Freddy Vs Jason (2003)

House of 1000 Corpses (2003)

Willard (2003)

The Grudge (2004)

House of Voices (2004)

Madhouse (2004)

One Missed Call (2004)

Saw (2004)

Seed of Chucky (2004)

The Village (2004)

2001 Maniacs (2005)

Hard Candy (2005)

An American Haunting (2005)

Boogeyman (2005)

Dark Water (2005)

Demon Hunter (2005)

The Devil's Reject (2005)

The Exorcism of Emily's Rose (2005)

Hostel (2005)

House of Wax (2005)

The Red Shoes (2005)

Saw II (2005)

The Descent (2005)

Black Christmas (2006)

Final Destination 3 (2006)

Bug (2006)

Hatchet (2006)

The Hills Have Eyes (2006)

The Host (2006)

The Omen (2006)

Saw III (2006)

Silent Hill (2006)

Slither (2006)

Them (2006)

28 Weeks Later (2006)

30 Days of Night (2006)

Black Water (2007)

Dead Silence (2007)

Hostel 2 (2007)

The Orphanage (2007)

Saw IV (2007)

Teeth (2007)

Vacancy (2007)

Let The Right One In (2008)

The Midnight Meat Train (2008)

Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008)

Saw V (2008)

The Strangers (2008)

Case 39 (2009)

The Collector (2009)

The Descent 2 (2009)

Drag Me To Hell (2009)

The Final Destination (2009)

The Haunting in Connecticut (2009)

Orphan (2009)

Saw VI (2009)

Splice (2009)

Thirst (2009)

The Crazies (2010)

Insidious (2010)

My Soul to Take (2010)

A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

Saw 3D (2010)

Shelter (2010)

The Wolfman (2010)

Dylan Dog: Dead of Night (2011)

Final Destination 5 (2011)

Fright Night (2011)

Scream 4 (2011)

The Cabin in the Woods (2011)

The Lords of Salem (2012)

Sinister (2012)

The Conjuring (2013)

Mama (2013)

Insidious Chapter 2 (2013)

Annabelle (2014)

The Babadook (2014)

Creep (2014)

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night (2014)

Tusk (2014)

Sinister 2 (2015)

The Witch (2015)

The Anatomy of Jane Doe (2016)

The Belko Experiment (2016)

The Conjuring 2 (2016)

Morgan (2016)

Raw (2016)

Train to Busan (2016)

Creep 2 (2017)

Happy Death Day (2017)

Get Out (2017)

It (2017)

The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)

Halloween (2018)

A Quiet Place (2018)

Happy Death Day 2U (2019)

It Chapter 2 (2019)

Midsommar (2019)

Pet Sematary (2019)

Us (2019)

Velvet Buzzsaw (2019)

#movie recs #movie recommendations #film recs #film recommendation #as always I went way overboard

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svenson777 · 8 years ago

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Christopher Lee “Dracula: Prince of Darkness” Director: Terence Fisher, 1965

#christopher lee #sir christopher frank carandin lee #dracula: prince of darkness #dracula #1965 #terence fisher #bw movies #movies #in memoriam

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duranduratulsa · 2 years ago

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Now showing on Spooktober Stevegoolie Saturday Night...Dracula: Prince Of Darkness (1965) on glorious vintage VHS 📼! #movie #movies #horror #dracula #draculaprinceofdarkness #vampire #hammerfilms #hammerhorror #christopherlee #RIPChristopherLee #barbarashelley #ripbarbarashelley #susanfarmer #francismatthews #anthonyhind #ripfrancismatthew #ripanthonyhind #philiplatham #ripphiliplatham #andrewkier #ripandrewkier #60s #vintage #vhs #Svengoolie #stevegoolie #METV #spooktober #halloween #october

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theraistlinmajere · 6 years ago

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THE “”GOTHIC”” REC LIST

Edited for my own use.

LET’S START WITH THE GATEWAY DRUG BOOK

1. Flowers in the Attic (VC Andrews): Published in 1979 and technically considered contemporary Gothic. The style closely resembles a lot of “original” Gothic fiction I’ve read, but the themes, story arc and style are distinctly contemporary and very psychological. Gets a bad rap because it’s over the top insane and averagely written (which most Gothic is, tbh). Flowers is light reading, and I think it’s a good gateway drug into heavier Gothic. Has several sequels but stands alone as well. I wish I could call this Victorian-inspired Gothic but honestly it’s just knockoff Victorian in a contemporary setting. If you don’t enjoy this book, it probably means you don’t like the over the top insanity and average writing. Skip it if you like!

1.5. But if you do like it, I hear My Sweet Audrina is pretty good. All of VC Andrews and her ghostwriters are like a hellhole people sometimes don’t escape tbh it’s a raging aesthetic disaster down there.

Note: I have a strong suspicion that “contemporary” Gothic published between 1965 and 1989 will eventually have its own movement name; you will see a decent amount of it on this list.

THE VICTORIAN GOTHIC PART OF THE LIST Most of these are available for free online due to copyright law being born late or whatever. 2. Carmilla (Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu): Considered the first English vampire story (Germans invented the European vampire allegedly), and published in 187…9? 1871? Something like that. A novella. Arguably a same-sex romance (VERY arguably), but can also be read as a close friendship. The writing is good, but not the absolute greatest I’ve ever read. The real strong point here is the imagery and the dawn of the English vampire. Great Halloween read; I read it almost every autumn. 3. “The Trifecta,” according to Gothic fans: Dracula (Bram Stoker), Frankenstein (Shelley), and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Swift & Stevenson): First mainstream vampire, original English monster movie fuel, and the dawn of psychological fiction. Shelley’s the best writer out of all of them but she’s a Romantic and I’m sort of biased against Romantics. She’s a precursor to true Victorian Gothic. Dracula is still one of the creepiest books I’ve ever read and it’s the only one in the trifecta I really really love (and finished).

Note: If, by any chance, you find yourself seriously obsessed with vampires at any point in time, please consult me for an extended list of vampire fiction because I have a shit-ton of it in my reading history and left most of it out so vampires wouldn’t clutter this list lmao.

4. Edgar Allan Poe, Completed Works. The Cask of Amontillado, The Masque of the Red Death, The Pit and the Pendulum, and The Tell-Tale Heart are all notable. His poetry is lovely–Annabelle Lee and The Raven are most culturally significant. Just solid and wonderful work that I like a lot but haven’t explored in a lot of detail. Will appeal to your interest in darkness imagery.

5. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories (Washington Irving): QUINTESSENTIAL HALLOWEEN READING. SPOOPY. WONDERFUL. I truly love this anthology. Will also appeal to your interest in darkness as a concept and a physical thing. 6. Nightmare Abbey (Thomas Love Peacock): an 1818 novel that makes fun of the Victorian Gothic movement. Hilarious, contains all the typical Victorian Gothic tropes and has the added benefit of actually falling into the Victorian Gothic movement ironically. Usually comes packaged with another novel called Crotchet Castle which is similar. 7. If, somehow, you haven’t had it with Victorian Gothic yet (and I got to this point, it happens, Victorian Gothic is a slippery slope)… Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (Susanna Clarke): A really bizarre story behind how this was published, at least it is to me. Published in 2004, Over 10 years in the making and is written in the Victorian Gothic style but with a quirky and modern twist. The writer takes a page out of contemporary social commentary and includes pages-long footnotes, heads up (they’re funny and entertaining though). HUGE. You could kill a man with this volume. Excellent writing; I’m halfway through. I hear there’s time travel (?) and there are about ten thousand characters. Neil Gaiman is a fan. 8. The Phantom of the Opera (Gaston Leroux) is not technically Victorian (Technically Edwardian? Also French; I’m not familiar with French literary eras) but of course it has a huge following. I’ve read a little so far; I like the style and I think it’s culturally significant. You might want to read this because it’s heavily inspired by a French opera house, the Palais Garnier in Paris. Amber tells me she read literature in French to help sharpen her skills in the language; you may consider picking up an un-translated version of this? A BRIEF INTERLUDE FOR MORE CONTEMPORARY 9. Interview with the Vampire (Anne Rice): One of my favorite books of all time! Possibly the dawn of the romanticized vampire. Falls into that 70s contemporary Gothic bracket and is pretty amazingly written, but markedly more angst-ridden than anything else on the list (save for maybe Flowers). Lots of “what is evil?” and “what does immortality imply?” type speculation. Also gets a bad rap because Anne Rice made it big and haters are rife tbh it’s a very solidly built book in my opinion (BUT SUPER EMOTIONAL VAMPIRES). If you like this, continue with The Vampire Chronicles (The Vampire Lestat, Queen of the Damned, Prince Lestat, and about 8 others in between that concern minor characters). Lestat is one of my favorite fictional characters of all time. 10. Coraline (Neil Gaiman): Quick, cute, I found myself actually afraid for a little while despite the audience being middle grade readers?? I enjoyed it. The only Neil Gaiman on the list because his other work doesn’t impress me very much. 11. The Spiderwick Chronicles (Holly Black and Tony Diterlizzi): More middle-grade creepy aesthetic stuff. Cute modern fantasy stories, five volumes. I can read these books at twenty years old and still enjoy them (like Coraline)! The only good thing Holly Black has ever produced, in my opinion, though many people like her and her ~aesthetic.

11.5. Should you find yourself in the mood for more quick middle-grade aesthetic-y stuff, Pure Dead Magic (Debi Gliori) is really an adorable book with two sequels. Victorian Gothic tropes such as the creepy mansion, creatures in the dungeon, family drama, and Weird Newcomers are all present, but it’s set in modern times. One of the main characters is a hacker. Addams family-esque.

THE SURREAL-ISH FICTION PART OF THE LIST

Not true surreal fiction; these are contemporary surreal-inspired works. 12. The Bloody Chamber (Angela Carter): An anthology of short stories which retell fairy tales. Falls into the contemporary surrealism movement and is not traditionally considered Gothic, but this is definitely your aesthetic. Very quick read, very vivid imagery, lots of second-wave feminism and some brief eating disorder symbolism. Carter was a phenomenal writer! My favorite story is “The Lady of the House of Love"

12.5 (Just as a reminder since I’ve mentioned these) See also: Nights at the Circus (Carter) and Mechanique: A tale of the Circus Tresaulti (Valentine) for your interest in circus books!

13. The Palace of Curiosities (Rosie Garland), which I also rec’d before. Similar style to Chamber, similar themes. Both beautiful books. 14. Deathless (Catherynne Valente): Oh, Deathless. Technically contemporary lit, but hails to Russian Gothic (one of the earlier Gothic movements which I haven’t read much of). Retelling of about a million Russian folk tales. I could go on about this book for a thousand years. Stylistically similar to The Bloody Chamber as well, but far more poetic. (Very) structurally inferior to every other book on this list, but so heart-wrenchingly romantic you won’t notice or care on the first read. Visually breathtaking, absolutely the closest thing to death and the maiden imagery I’ve found in fiction. I’m fairly confident you’ll appreciate this one! Might as well read it to test my theory!! There’s controversy surrounding the fact that the writer is not Russian–something to be aware of. 15. The Enchanted (Rene Denfeld): TREAD WITH CAUTION. This is contemporary literary fiction (not Gothic) written from the pov of a death row inmate. Nominated for approximately a billion awards in 2014 (and won a few); high caliber of writing. Incredibly visceral, horrific, psychological imagery that was too much for me, though I still liked it. Short but dense–I had to take a two-day break to ward off the anxiety it caused. But you are darker~ than I so you might like it more!

THE SOUTHERN GOTHIC PART OF THE LIST 16. Beloved (Toni Morrison): Contemporary Southern Gothic. Incredibly creepy imagery, explores the connection between women’s issues and racial issues. Uses abortion and slavery as metaphors for each other. Gracefully written, but Southern Gothic (even contemporary) tends to be textually dense so it’s something to really think about as you read. 17. As I Lay Dying (Faulkner): “True” Southern Gothic. DENSE AS HELL but I think Beloved is a good precursor to Faulkner. A lot of almost comedic family drama, similar to Flowers in that sense, but very srs bsns nonetheless.

17.5. Basically all of Faulkner is considered Southern Gothic. He’s the father of Southern Gothic. If you enjoy this, you might also like Absalom! Absalom! and other such works. I loved As I Lay Dying but it’s possibly his easiest read, and while I love a good challenge I haven’t stepped up to this one yet.

Note: I use reading guides for all my classical works and Shakespeare, and I think there are good ones for Faulkner too, so that might be something to look into if you wanna vanish into this hell lol.

AN ADDENDUM: OTHER WRITERS

HP Lovecraft: Father of horror or whatever. Awful writer–anyone will agree. The guy had no command of language, but he’s known for over-the-top horror imagery that people really enjoy. Honestly I hate his writing so I haven’t bothered with much of it.

Oscar Wilde: If, by this point, you still want more Victorian-era writing, Wilde is here for you. Lots of social commentary, wrote basically one piece in the Gothic style (Chapter 16 of The Picture of Dorian Gray, my favorite novel), snarky as hell, incredibly gifted writer.

Neil Gaiman: Modern surreal in my opinion, sometimes called modern Gothic, well-loved and writes creepy things. I think he’s average because I’ve read too much Murakami (who does “modern surreal” way, way better) but many people really love him.

THE BLACKLIST Knockoff Gothic/Gothic themed things to avoid. I apologize if you like any of these okay ._.

The Grisha Trilogy (Leigh Bardugo): Contemporary YA, tries to be Russian Gothic and fails. Stick to Deathless. This book makes a mockery of Russian culture whereas at least Valente exhaustively researched her novel. Also doesn’t do romance very well.

The Night Circus (Morgenstern): What the hell is this book, tbh. 400 pages of obtuse and cliched imagery which you don’t have time for in your life. No plot. Two-dimensional characters, bad writing.

Those Across The River (Christopher Buehlman): Terrible. Just terrible.

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