Lesser known Halloween movies — Page 2

Isnt that the first sign of possession?

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The classic ISLAND OF LOST SOULS is finally coming out on DVD and Blu-Ray in the coming weeks -- definitely worth seeing. Based on Wells' ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU, with Charles Laughton having a grand old time as the wicked doctor. Good pre-code horror fun.

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I may have seen better days, Jordan, but I'd like to think that Alzheimer's is still a long way off. Doodle, however, may be onto something. Or he may just be on something.

I also really like Werner Herzog's remake of NOSFERATU. That's when I first fell in love with Isabelle Adjani.

I watched "Don't Look Now" again yesterday. That movie is so unsettling. It's like a nightmare I can't get out of. Lapses of time, logic, behavior, etc. Normally, I would say that makes a film a mess, but in this case (for some reason), I find it to be a minor masterpiece in horror. Not the conventional horror movie, by any means.

It really crawls under my skin. And it's not just the ending. It's the whole thing from start to finish.

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I forgot about Michael Powell's Peeping Tom. It really shocked critics and Michael Powell's career took a considerable hit from it. It got a second life on the criterion collection and Martin Scorsese has really championed the film. It deals with voyeurism, implicating the audience, and Freudian symbolism out of control. It is actually in my all-time top 10.


In the killer's point of view

THE BLOOD SPATTERED BRIDE....manages to be brutal, campy, and surprising all at once. CARMILLA meets BELLE DE JOUR!

THE BABY...looks like the weirdest TVM ever made (it wasn't, of course, but it has that TVM feel). Not scary, just...wrong. A twist ending that took me by surprise and I've seen 'em all!

FREAKS...still icky after all these years

If you haven't caught INSIDE yet...oh, nelly!

I caught THE WOMAN in theatres, which wasn't half bad. Not as good as Lucky McKee's MAY, though.

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Just want to point out that Audition and Inside* (both excellent movies) are very gory.

And one other really good film that happens to be gory is Martyrs.


*There are several horror films named Inside. The one I believe Borstal is recommending is the French one from 2 years ago.

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LOVE a lot of movies suggested here: Theatre of Blood, The Haunting, The Sentinel, Trick r Treat, etc.

I also like "Cemetery Man (Dellamorte Dellamore)" (1994). It's in a similar vein to movies such as Evil Dead 2 - with a blend of horror and comedy elements. The first 2/3 are great fun, the last 1/3 takes a turn for the weird, but it's still worth seeing.

I know these next few aren't lesser known, but are much better than their recent remakes - so see them if you haven't: "The Fog" (1980), "Black Christmas" (1974), "Fright Night" (1985).

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The sex scene in "Don't Look Now" is definitely over-the-top, but it balances with the rest of the movie. I think the whole think exists in its own surreal world, almost as if we're not watching reality at all. It's a nightmare unfolding in front of our eyes, void of logic, natural behavior, linear storytelling, accessible emotions, etc. Everything is heightened, so for me, it still works.

And the score is great! I love his score to "Carrie" as well, and this is very similar at times. I also love seeing Venice before it was cleaned up. I've been there twice since then, but it was 25 years after this film. It still looks gritty and dirty and nightmarish in the early '70s, which works well for the movie.

As for Audition or any of the "torture porn" movies ... I won't see them either. That's not "horror" to me. But "Don't Look Now" most definitely is.

To each his own.

EDIT: By the way, I was just watching an old episode of "Ab Fab" last night where Saffy finds out she's pregnant, and they actually spoofed "Don't Look Now" as if it were Edina's nightmare. It was very funny.

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Updated On: 10/20/11 at 01:41 PM

"strummergirl, I think it is interesting that Michael Powell considered Julie Andrews for the role, ultimately played by Moria Shearer, in PEEPING TOM, but decided she was too famous. About three full years before Jack Warner claimed she wasn't famous enough!"

That's pretty fascinating. It was not like Shearer's role was huge (though she got second billing based on her work and star-power with Powell and Pressburger years before). Still, seeing Julie Andrews die by camera tripod while being filmed would have made a weird anecdote in her career as the movie tanked and was so forgotten that there was just one known print in America that Martin Scorsese saw in the 80s. Scorsese and people at some studio were watching it for the first time because there was talk of doing a remake. Then they saw it and when it was over, almost in unison, quashed the idea of a remake.

As for the other movies, look more into Jacques Tourneur and Val Lewton. Bad titles, fun movies.

Also if you like horror films that have a little fun, I would suggest Return of the Living Dead. It was written and directed by Dan O'Bannon (who wrote the Alien franchise) and is a real blast.

And if you want something that is just insane (and cheap-looking) from beginning to end:

I love House.

I was so busy wondering if I just saw what I thought I saw, I didn't have time to notice that it looked cheap.

By the time I got to the "carnivorous piano" scene I decided someone had spiked my drink.

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I love CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE. Then, I like almost all of Robert Wise's films.

Wait, that sounds exactly like a movie called See No Evil.

I think you're thinking about that one.

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