13 Lesser Known Horror Films

By: DThompson | in: Movies |

Slither

I originally set out to make a list of the 10 scariest movies, but when I finished, I decided there was no need. After all, do you really need me to tell you that The Exorcist, Night Of The Living Dead and Halloween are scary movies? The most frightening movies are well known, and generally well-agreed upon. I decided it would be more helpful to give you some movies that are scary, or good, or fun, that you might not have seen.

In making this list the criteria was ‘obscure but not unheard of’, so, if you’re as big a horror fan as I am, chances are you’ve seen most (or all) of these already. The list is divided into thirteen categories, one film to each. Hopefully this will satisfy all the myriad desires there can be this Halloween.

The Body Snatcher

1) Something Old – The Body Snatcher (1945)
Boris Karolf gives a great performance as coachman and grave robber John Gray, in this Val Lewton chiller about doctors buying bodies on the black market. Apparently, the whole business was frowned upon and led to doctors associating with some rather sordid gentlemen of a low moral character. Moody black and white combines with old-school expressive lighting design to create one creepy classic.

2) Something Short – Spirits Of The Dead / Histories Extraordinaires: Toby Dammit (1960)
Spirits, otherwise known as Histories Extraordinaires, is actually three short films by three different directors. The first two parts are terrible but DVD technology will allow you to easily skip them in favor of the third section, Federico Fellini’s take on Poe’s story Never Bet The Devil Your Head which he decided to rename ‘Toby Dammit’. It’s a psychogasmic journey into egotism,total madness and death, Fellini style!

3) Something British – Scream And Scream Again (1969)
Plenty of those tiny British police cars scream around the green belt sirens blaring and little blue lights flashing as thick headed coppers try to stop whatever it is that’s going on. Meanwhile, Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee and Vincent Price plot some sort of something or other using hyper-strong, mutant, dead, swinging Londoners. You may not scream and scream again but you will have a great time trying to figure out what the heck is happening in this SO sixties, SO British horror film.

The Changeling

4) Something Seriously Spooky – The Changeling (1979)
Concert pianist George C. Scott loses his family but gains a really huge house in Seattle along with the company of an insistantly restless ghost. Not bloody or in your face, this film delivers a relentlessly eerie atmosphere and the scariest tiny rubber ball in the history of cinema. This movie kicks The Shining’s ass all over the playground. The Changeling is easily one of the ten best ghost stories ever put to film.

5) Something Lovecraftian – From Beyond (1986)
Stuart Gordon achieved instant fame with his first film, Re-Animator, then slid back into undeserved obscurity with this excellent follow up featuring several of the same cast members. More Lovecraftian in tone, this movie features one of H. P.’s patented shapeless monsters from the outer realms. Or, at least as close to shapeless as the pre-CGI era would allow. Finally out on DVD just this moth, and in bloody good uncut form, this extravaganza of weird monsters, slime, gore and kinky sex is truly one of the best horror films the 80’s have to offer.

6) Something Funny – Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986)
There was a great deal of fury about this, Tobe Hoopers’s sequel to his own indie hit The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I mean really furious fury; seething, frothing, overwrought fury. Why? You might well ask. This film is well-made, it’s violent, scary and funny as hell. Ah, and there, as they say, lies the rub. Fangoria obsessed fan boys were sick of the Freddy Kruger school of wisecracking horror they’d help make popular through their own slavish fandom. Fanatically they cried out for something different by which they meant, “Give us a film exactly like your last one!” Fan boys. Pfffft. Trust me. Watch this movie. Blood sprays, laughter ensues, love for a film is born.

7) Something Totally Disgusting, I don’t mean gross or gory man, I mean completely disgusting. Got it? Dis-Gus-Ting – Nekromantik (1988)
Not just disgusting, but totally vile. This tale of a man attracted to dead bodies and his struggles to find a steady “date” isn’t funny, and isn’t very scary either, but, it is totally disgusting. Lest you think me something of a wuss and you made of sterner stuff – I saw this screened at a VERY hip hipster coffee house catering to a VERY hip hipster clientele of much too cool for school kids. When the lights came up at the gruesomely awful end I was a little surprised to see that I was the only patron left in the room. So, I ordered another cup of coffee and one of their excellent blueberry scones and settled in for Nekromantik 2. I won’t go into Nek 2, or how it is indeed possible for a film to be put-you-to-sleep boring and quick-hand-me-a-bucket disgusting at the same time because, really, one of these films should be enough for any given Halloween.

Something Good From The 90’s That Isn’t Scream – Ravenous (1999)
Is this a vampire story, or a cannibal story? Search me. It’s a darn good story is what it is. At a snow bound outpost that gives new meaning to ‘desolate’ a stranger staggers in from the woods begging for help. Of course, the only people who need help are the would-be rescue party. First time director Antonia Bird makes the most of her snowy old west locales. Imagine McCabe And Mrs. Miller as a horror film and you’re halfway there.

Dog Soldiers

9) Something Red In Tooth And Claw – Dog Soldiers (2002)
The first good werewolf film in ages. This combines the house under siege aspect of Night of the Living Dead with some brutally fast, powerful and nasty werewolves. (Are there any other kind?) The movie maintains a relentless pace, especially when night falls, proving that some Scottish forest is no place to be, even for well-armed soldiers, when the moon is full.

10) Something Brand Spankin’ New – Slither (2006)
Icky turd-like slugs must be a cheap special effect because they feature as the monster in any number of low-budget horror films. So new it squeaks, Slither wastes no time getting to the good stuff. By my count it’s little more than ten minutes before the first infestation and the rollercoaster starts from there. Slither is David Cronenberg meets Mayberry via Lovecraft. Every yokel stereotype you can think of plays out against a backdrop of slimy, bloody, oozy ick. And, there’s a foul-mouthed mayor tossed in free of charge. Let’s just say if infestation is your cup of tea there’s a whole pot full of happy waiting for you here.

11) Something Gore Drenched – Feast (2005)
Part of Bravo Network’s cable show, Project Greenlight; it’s a real wonder Feast even got made. Director John Gulager couldn’t have done a worse job in his presentation and his later insistance on casting friends and family against one of the producer’s wishes almost killed the project before they’d filmed a single scene. Sometimes the light shines at the right time and even in Hollywood good films occasionaly get made despite their best efforts. This is one of those cases. The Feast is, naturally, on humans and by some very unpleasant monsters for which (thank you John) no explaination is ever truly given. Blood spews, both monster and human, people get killed, er, ripped to bloody shreds, that you wouldn’t expect to die. And hey, there is nowhere else you will get a chance to hear multiple members of a cast shout in terror, “Monster dick! Monster dick!”

12) Something To Make You Say, “Madre De Dios!” – The Day Of The Beast [El Dia De La Bestia] (1996, Spanish)
The antichrist is due to be born in Madrid tonight and the only way Father Cura thinks he can find the, er, blessed event is by “becoming evil”. Thing is, he’s not very good at it, so when he runs into death metal scum bag Jose Maria, he enlists his help, then they both try to get fake TV psychic and “exorcist” ‘Doctor’ Cavan to join up. If you think that’s weird wait unil Jose Maria drops acid and they climb down the side of a building. Bloody, funny, and outrageous by turns this Spanish import is worth chasing down. Unfortunately, in America you’ll have to chase a little harder as The Day Of The Beast is only available on VHS – but my local store has a copy – it’s not impossible to find. For my money, it’s the best film on this list.

The Prophecy

13) So Bad It’s Good – Prophecy (1979)
Not to be confused with the Christopher Walken vehichle The Prophecy (1995). This movie has three of the 70’s favorite horror components: 1) A socially conscious theme – here: “pollution is bad”. 2) Indian magic – Indian magic is stronger than the white man’s techno ju ju, especially when a white man is around to show the indians how to use it. 3) Killer animals – The seventies had an entire mini-genre of killer animals, here our animal run amok is a mutated bear that looks a lot like a towering strawberry-vanilla fro-yo with teeth. Added on as a bonus is TV grade B-actor Robert Foxworth sporting a vintage seventies perm and giving us his best “concerned scientist”. Prophecy is indispensibly lame, much like Pirahna II: The Spawning with its mutant killer flying fish or Night Of The Lepus’ hordes of buffalo-sized carnivorous cotton tail rabbits.

Did I miss anything? Of course I did! Please make your own suggestions, there’s nothing I like more than discovering another worthwhile horror film.

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Posted on October 31, 2007

Comments

13 Responses to “13 Lesser Known Horror Films”

My Ghillie » 13 Lesser Known Horror Films on October 31st, 2007 3:41 am

[…] Check it out! While looking through the blogosphere we stumbled on an interesting post today.Here’s a quick excerptI originally set out to make a list of the 10 scariest movies, but when I finished, I decided there was no need. After all, do you really need me to tell you that The Exorcist, Night Of The Living Dead and Halloween are scary movies? … […]

Tibi Puiu on October 31st, 2007 4:18 am

Great list D, i can’t believe I haven’t seen or even heard of any movie from the list :D. I’ll definitely check some of these out

Charbarred on October 31st, 2007 4:22 am

Neil Marshall, the guy who did Dog Soldiers also has a great movie called The Descent. It must be the best horror movie I’ve seen in years. Extremely well directed, tense and scary.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0435625/

mozzer on October 31st, 2007 6:54 am

Kick ass write-up and a damn fine list, Mr. Thompson. Again, I’ve seen not one of these. Oh, the shame!

DThompson on October 31st, 2007 8:25 am

Charbarred: The guy who directed Dog Soldiers directed The Descent? I had no idea. The Descent is an awesome film. It just goes to show you, talent will out.
Mozzer: Stop it, you’re making me blush!

Charbarred on October 31st, 2007 11:09 am

So D, you’ve seen just about every horror in existance…do you still get scared?

Alibastard on October 31st, 2007 11:11 am

Nice write-up. I have to see a lot of these films. Toby Damnit is amazing. Nothing like Terence Stamp’s decapitated head being carried off by a blond little girl who is actually the devil.

In the documentary about Fellini, Stamp tells how the maestro directed him, all fed up with method actors like Stamp, first day on the set. He goes into a tirade about, “What’s a you motivation? Well, imagine lasta night, you a go to an orgy, you a fuckin two women, a blacka man, he’s a fuckin you. You’ve had so much to drink you can hardly stand up — cocaine, marajanna, ecstasy…everybody fucking each other…you get on a plane directly to here and right before you get into the airport, someone puts three tabs of acid in you mouth. THAT’s you motivation.”

DThompson on October 31st, 2007 2:20 pm

Charbarred: I almost never get scared anymore. The last time I got totally wigged out scared was 1983, watching The Evil Dead, though I’ve gotten creeped out since then by the little rubber ball in “The Changeling”. I actually covered my eyes and started screaming “I CAN’T LOOK AT THAT!” after Kathy Bates whacked James Caan’s foot with the sledge hammer in “Misery”, and that was in a crowded theater! And, of course, unmotivated loud noises and / or something jumping out at the camera can still give me a jolt. Also, the current crop of torture horror has been more than capable of grossing me out.
However, sadly, I have to answer NO, I really don’t get scared anymore.
Alibastard: Fellini is pretty much unique among highly regarded international directors for filming a pretty darn scary horror film. Kurosawa came close with “Throne Of Blood” and some people regard Bergman’s “Hour Of The Wolf” as a horror film, but not me. I wish Truffaut had tried.

Diane on October 31st, 2007 2:49 pm

Ssssss (1973)

DThompson on October 31st, 2007 5:23 pm

With Strother Martin as the mad scientist, Doctor Stoner! Awesome! Strother Martin was also in a vampire bat horror film called “Nightwing” (1979).

Itax on October 31st, 2007 9:25 pm

Nothing is more scary then Ishtar.

DThompson on October 31st, 2007 11:46 pm

Ishtar! I lied, Charbarred, I do still get scared.

Karen on November 1st, 2007 4:26 pm

Wow, that’s a great selection of movies there,out of the 12 I’ve seen 9 of them, my favourite has to be Dog Soldiers.