Hey, if it’s horror flix you want, I’m your ace! I like horror movies as much as I do poetry and getting loaded, which is plenty, and my tastes are freakin’ impeccable in that realm. So here’s a bale of boss frights, in this jaded mofo’s opinion.
First let me second the following which were already recommended: The Haunting, Repulsion,Black Xmas, God Told Me To, Magic, Whatever Happened To Baby Jane, Freaks.…all excellent frighteners in their way. And then there’s…
**Cookers **- one seriously creepy little film: the story of two meth synthers on the run, a house that might be haunted, and…well, just watch it. It’s one of the best horror movies of the decade.
The Hand - with Michael Caine!
**The Shout **- is this guy as crazy as a rat up a drainpipe-or is he telling the truth?
Eaten Alive, aka Starlight Motel Massacre - early Tobe Hooper opus, about a guy going all to pieces at a disintegrating motel in the Deep South
**Alice Sweet Alice **- scary, grim movie about religious dementia and even worse things
Open Water - a real gut twister; the premise is bare-bones simple but it grabs you by the spine and won’t let go
The Addiction - seriously flawed (by which I mean the ending pissed me off so bad it almost ruined the movie for me) but effective and thought-provoking take on vampirism.
Near Dark - another flawed but effective vampire-with-a-twist movie; this one’s about a posse of white trash vamps who roam the Southwest in an RV.
Martin and The Crazies - two lesser-known but fine George Romero movies
The Other - based on Thomas Tryon’s classic chiller
Nightbreed - beautiful and horrific and strangely sympathetic tale of monsters, human and otherwise
Dead of Night aka Deathdream - a Viet Nam-era take on The Monkey’s Paw
Picnic At Hanging Rock - did somebody say mindfuck?
Rabid, They Came From Within, Videodrome, The Brood - if you’ve never seen these, you’ve missed a treat. These fdour movies are why people think David Cronenberg is God.
**Tourist Trap **- eerie, quasi-surreal number involving mannequins and Chuck Connors
The Conqueror Worm -nasty gem based on the real-life Witchfinder General of England, Matthew Hopkins. Includes Vincent Price *not *camping it up!
The Devils -a Ken Russell extravaganza about alleged demonic possession in an Ursuline convent. Oliver Reed, Vanessa Redgrave, Aldous Huxley – and wasps!
In A Glass Cage -creepy transgressive shocker, in Spanish with subtitles.
Lady In A Cage -exuberantly vicious outing starring Olivia deHaviland as a rich lady trapped in a private elevator and beleagured by young sociopaths
**Der Todesking **-sort of an abstract expressionist horror movie in German, which grows on you. Invokes real horror with a simple shot of a freeway overpass with superimposed text.
**Seance On A Wet Afternoon **-there might or might not be a supernatural element to this; the fact that it doesn’t matter at all is the scary part.
The Deathmaster -vampire entangles a group of hippies into a cult of nihilistic doom-lovers; it’s somewhat silly but ends on a truly horrific note of despair.