31 days of horror films – October 2021

This film scared the shit out of me as a kid, I was around ten at the time. It was one many films that got me kicked out of Sunday school for asking too many questions.

Ernest Borgnine is terrifying in this one and he gave me nightmares for months as I had an uncle that looked like him. He might even be more terrifying out of makeup. This is one of my favorite movies of his, second only to The Wild Bunch or The Dirty Dozen. Even William Shatner’s campy over acting can’t ruin this one for me. I mean look at the makeup work.

Is it a neo-noir?
A black comedy? Exploitation film thriller? Both? all?
A crime genre mixed with elements of eroticism and horror. Not for the faint of heart or stomach. Right? This is a lot to take in! And it’s just a film.

When I first saw this film, I said WTF aloud quite a few times. It made me feel uncomfortable and its unrelenting. It really shook me out of my comfort zone. I’ve often said art works if it makes you feel something, anything at all. I might have to rethink that.

Thanks to my friend, Nirav Vyas for nudging me to revisit this truly cinematic, masterpiece again. Nirav and I both love German expressionism art, and cinema. Fritz Lang’s is at the top of this game here and with each screening, it’s astounding this film was made in 1932. The subject matter is to say the least, very unsettling. It’s suspenseful at a Hitchcockian level, well-acted and well- told. Lorre is perfectly cast, and this could be his best performance. That whistling still haunts me to this day, 89 years later. Cinema is timeless magic!

Film fact: Peter Lorre couldn’t whistle well so the whistling of “In the Hall of the Mountain King” heard in the film was done by director Fritz Lang. ##31daysofhorror

I was the only kid in the neighborhood who was not only not scared of Frankenstein but upset that he was bullied, and the townsfolk went after him. He didn’t ask to come back stitched and zapped, I’d tell my dad. “Pathos young son, pathos!” he retorted

I remember watching this film, so clearly, with my dad, and the second the space monster blew off half of Frankenstein’s face I ran screaming for my bedroom. Not sure why, maybe because Frankenstein was my superman and superheroes don’t get hurt. Ever! EVER!

Love this film so much that I bought the shirt.

My wife introduced me to these films many moons ago. I was fortunate enough to see all three at Dragon City mall in our Chinatown one evening. Sure, like all sequels, the second and third one isn’t that good but the first one…. Woah!

I had never seen anything like it. It was a film that took various ingredients that Hong Kong cinema had used for years (flying swordsman, wildly choreographed martial arts, horror, demons and the supernatural) and blended them to create a film that was unique in its look, feel and execution. Oh, and there’s a little romance smattered in.

Sure, if you look closely, you can see the wires but that’s its charm. It doesn’t matter. It’s pure fun with some good scares.

Director Siu-Tung Ching and David Wu went on to be John Woo’s action choreographer and editor respectability.

People think I’m joking when I say Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee and Vincent Price were my babysitters growing up. They and their films most certainly were. One of my favorite type of horror films are the anthologies (Creepshow etc.). Especially, when they are interconnected like the best of the best, Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors. Since I’m going for the lessor known this year, I present to you, From Beyond the Grave.

From Beyond the Grave stars Peter Cushing, Donald Pleasance and David Warner. Four customers buy or steal items from Temptations Limited, an antique shop whose motto is “Offers You Cannot Resist”. A nasty fate awaits those who cheat the shop’s proprietor. Although not as good as Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors, it’s still worth a watch if you like horror anthologies. I sure do. This film feels like a warm blanket on a chilly, rainy night.

Fun Fact: A friend of mine had the film poster’s artwork (shown here) tattooed on his forearm. He borrowed my VHS tape box. I don’t think he even watched the film. Shame. To this day, I still call him a poser. 😁

I’ve always had some difficulty describing this film so I’m going to let Criterion do it as they nailed it.

“How to describe Nobuhiko Obayashi’s indescribable 1977 film House (Hausu)? As a psychedelic ghost tale? A stream-of-consciousness bedtime story? An episode of Scooby-Doo as directed by Mario Bava? Any of the above will do for this hallucinatory head trip about a schoolgirl who travels with six classmates to her ailing aunt’s creaky country home and comes face-to-face with evil spirits, a demonic house cat, a bloodthirsty piano, and other ghoulish visions, all realized by Obayashi via mattes, animation, and collage effects. Equally absurd and nightmarish, House might have been beamed to Earth from some other planet. It’s one of the most exciting cult discoveries in years”

I watch this film at least once a year and it still has an impact. Mostly, WTF? but in a good way. It has a bizarre fairy tale quality and at times it’s horrific. A horror-parody with a delightfully macabre and grotesque humor rather than scares. The film gets weirder and weirder as it unfolds.

Tombs of the Blind Dead or La noche del terror ciego (sounds better) is the first of the Amando de Ossorio’s tetralogy. I’ve been a huge fan of Spanish horror films and have always managed to find one each year at our film festivals. They never disappoint. This one is a classic that hits all the notes for me. Amando created a fresh mythology, unique atmosphere, and unforgettable zombies, all set against imposing scenic backgrounds. The soundtrack of monk chanting just takes it to another level and the knight’s slow and deliberate, purposely movement just builds the suspense.

Check out the plot!

“Legend has it that in the abandoned medieval town of Berzano, at the border between Spain and Portugal, the Knights Templar (a fictionalized version of the real-life order that was dissolved in the 14th century following charges of witchcraft and heresy) leave their tombs at night and come back from the dead as revenants. The reanimated corpses are blind, because their eyes were pecked out by birds while their hanged bodies rotted on the gallows.” (from Wikipedia).

I first saw these films when I was about sixteen and never forgot them. Imagine my delight when, at one our Fan Expos many years later, I came across the box set in a bargain bin of DVDs. The packaging was a black coffin, and it had all four films. SCORE! I still have it prominently displayed in my media area.

Fun fact:

One Halloween, I made my own Blind Dead knight costume (less the horse). Only my dad knew what I was, and it didn’t matter at all. I just wish I had pictures, well, maybe not, as it might have been shitty.

Happy spouse, happy house! Nothing happier in the house when sci-fi and horror meld harmoniously in film. My wife brings the sci-fi component, and you already know my allegiance. The film Alien is the gold standard for us. However, there are some lesser-known films that are worth noting and watching. Hardware is one of them. This film is about a self-repairing robot that goes on a rampage in a post-apocalyptic slum. Toss in Iggy Pop as Angry Bob, a radio announcer and Lemmy Kilmister of Motorhead fame as a water taxi driver, what’s not to love about this film? This film was made for a midnight madness screening, and that’s where we first saw it. With a packed, excitable and ravenous crowd. It was a sublime experience. I’m so happy this film has received the cult status it deserves. Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote, “Watching Hardware is like being trapped inside a video game that talks dirty.”

There is a lot packed into this film and with some impressive stylistic direction by Richard Stanley. Stanley wanted to emphasize themes of fascism and passive acceptance of authoritarianism, as he had recently come from the apartheid regime of South Africa. Stanley says that the robot does not know that it is committing evil, and it only obeys its programming, which could be likened to a spiritual quest.

Richard really needs to make more films. I was so happy that he took on the seemingly impossible task of bringing H.P Lovecraft’s The Color of Space to the big screen a couple of years ago. Magnificent work! Keep going Richard!

Everything about Bubba Ho-Tep is fun. Sure, it could be scarier, but you have an elderly Elvis Presley (still alive) played by Bruce Campbell, Ozzy Davis who thinks he’s JFK, investigating murders in a retirement home by a mummy (Bubba Ho-Tep) who’s taking souls.

Another excellent Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) midnight madness screening at the old Uptown (my all-time fav Toronto theatre). The director of Bubba Ho-Tep, Don Coscarelli had developed an extremely passionate fanbase from his Phantasm films, me included. We were all here to see something different, and we got it. What sets this movie apart from other horror comedies is it’s setting, and the way it handles the sadness of old age. Despite all of the humor, the true terror lies in growing old, being forgotten. Making a mummy the welcome distraction was genius.

“Watching it is like whistling, giggling, and defiantly marching past the graveyard” – azathothpwiggins

What made this film experience over the top great, was the Q&A after the film with director Don Coscarelli and Bruce Campbell. They sat on the edge of the stage and proceeded to answer every question, related to the film or not for about two hours. Bruce was his usually self-deprecated, sardonic, and hilarious self. I remember laughing so hard that I hurt my stomach. They both stayed and shook hands with everyone leaving the theatre, class acts. There was supposed to be a sequel. Where is it Don?

Fun fact:

I don’t like Elvis Presley and I almost didn’t buy tickets as I was concerned I’d have to listen to his music. I was so relieved that none of his music was in the film.

The film has stuck in my subconscious ever since I first saw it back in film school. When I re-watch it over the years, one viewing I get bored, shut it off and another viewing, I’m riveted, engaged, and inspired. This film is a cinematographer’s master class in composition and lighting. I think I’m drawn to it more technically than dramatically.

Existential, poetic, slow and grim, Ingmar Bergman’s great classic The Seventh Seal has haunted cinephiles, confused and bored film students, inspired so many, and challenged both believers and unbelievers. Some say it’s one of the greatest films of all time, it can be difficult to watch but it is impossible to forget. We have the black plague sweeping through Sweden and a knight (Max Von Sydow) challenges Death to a game of chess so that he can try to understand the meanings of good, evil and who God really is.

I have been playing chess since I was very young, and I’m fascinated with religion in all its forms. So, playing chess with Death is something that both excites and terrifies me. I simply better not lose. No, that’s not all I got out of this film, just trying to end on a lighter note as this is not a light film by any means.

Film Fact:

Ingmar Bergman credited the film with helping him overcome his crippling fear of death. Because the film dealt so overtly with the subject, he found it a highly cathartic experience.

Nuclear disasters are terrifying. We recently witnessed the horrors of Fukushima. The more you dig into that story, the more frightening it gets.

Films like The Day After and my favorite, BBC’s Threads deal with nuclear war, the horrifying aftermath, and the toll taken on humanity. The recent mini-series, Chernobyl, starring Jared Harris is brilliant and a must see but before that there was Raspad.

In 1990, The Toronto International Film Festival showcased Russian films that had been previously censored and locked up from view. Raspad (Decay) was one of these films. A mixture of real footage and docu-drama about the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. The film follows couples, friends, and a risk-taking journalist woven into the larger framework of the disaster. Panic follows of course.

This film is a deeply disturbing portrait of a moment when things really went to hell, and no one knew just how bad it would be, all the while the government was desperately trying to deny that anything much was even really wrong. Sound familiar?

There’s real footage of the chilling sights of Pripyat, the city closest to the nuclear plant showing it being evacuated, deserted and dead. There are some scenes shot from within the nuclear plan itself. The haunting background radio music works perfectly. When you leave this film, you feel contaminated.

The National Guard, training deep in the Louisiana swamp, have a
“misunderstanding” with some nasty Cajuns. What could go wrong? Sounds like a war movie. Is it really a horror film? I can assure you; it most definitely is. It’s situational war horror.

The members of this part-time guard are not prepared for this particular situation and proceed with mixed results and accompanying paranoia. Even those who are the best and the brightest of the bunch faulter. None are quite as good or bad as they seem. This is not to be an easy drama. It’s a very suspenseful and violent film. Southern Comfort is a very tense movie all the way through, with great direction by Walter Hill. Has Hill ever made a bad film?

The ensemble of actors are at the top of their game, Powers Booth, Keith Carradine and Fred Ward knock this one out of the park. Ry Cooder’s soundtrack creates the perfect mood and ambience for this film. It’s still on my playlist.

Film Facts:

The movie’s closing credits declare: “The title ‘Southern Comfort’ is
used with the permission of Southern Comfort Corporation, producers of Southern Comfort liquor”

What a gem! I can’t believe I’ve not watched this in years. So happy I did today. It’s a freakin’ brilliant film! A thriller horror with the plot focusing on a woman and her husband’s mistress who conspire to murder the man; after the crime is committed, however, his body disappears, and a number of strange occurrences ensue. There is so much more to the plot and this film but I’m fearful of spoiling. What I love about this film is the ending which forces you to reassess everything you thought you had been told earlier in the film. It’s unforgettable and the most disturbing elements of the movie are implied, not seen.

Les Diaboligues was considered (until Psycho) one of the scariest and best psychological thrillers ever made. It builds slowly but it’s never dull and it tightens up the suspense until the final 15 minutes which still scares the shit out of me. Henri-Georges Clouzet said he wanted to scare the audience silly, and he certainly succeeds!

Film Facts:

Hitchcock wanted to make this film but Clouzot option the rights before Hitch could. This film is definitely an inspiration for Hitchcock’s Psycho. Robert Bloch, the author of the novel Psycho, stated in an interview that his all-time favorite horror film was Les Diaboliques.

A man wrote to Alfred Hitchcock: “Sir, After seeing ‘Les Diabolique,’ my daughter was afraid to take a bath. Now she has seen your ‘Psycho’ and is afraid to take a shower. What should I do with her?” Hitchcock replied: “Send her to the dry cleaners.”

I need to throw in a vampire film now. Something good but lesser known. It’s also a Hammer film without Peter Cushing or Christopher Lee. I didn’t think I could pull that off.
A small village revolts and invades the castle of Count Mitterhaus. Metterhaus is a vampire and has been killing and feeding off local children. This film has no problem with a high child body count. The count escapes with help from his mistress and hides out in a cave for fifteen years. She returns to the cave with the count’s vampire cousin who owns a circus. They endeavor to bring the count back to life.

One of the better and underrated Hammer films, Vampire Circus offers all Hammer’s standard stuff, rich visuals, grandiose sets and costumes, beautiful women, handsome heroes, and Gothic atmosphere to spare. There’s plenty of blood and gore, and a generous amount of gratuitous nudity. This film sticks to storytelling conventions well, but adds unique visual elements to the mix, including obvious homages to the arthouse cinema of the day.

“Vampire Circus threatens to deliver the Devil’s goods – and then opens up Satan’s shopping bag and spills the craven contents all across the screen” – Bill Gibron

Film facts: Darth Vader (Dave Prowse) shows up in a supporting role.

I’m at the #31daysofhorror halfway point and I couldn’t wait to watch this one. So, this film will be my break in the convention I’m trying to adhere to. That is, the profiling of lesser known, overlooked and forgotten horror film gems.

I only like the first Halloween film and Halloween III. The rest are barely watchable to me. I could only watch the Rob Zombie versions once and I don’t think I even finished the second one. They are terrible films. So, I had extremely low expectations going into this one.

The good news is that this new offering, Halloween Kills, is good and watchable. It feels fresh. David Gordon Green does a decent job of reimaging this property. There is a lot of Carpenter in this one. From his writing credits with Deborah Hill to his work on the soundtrack. Add Danny McBride to this writing pool and you have something here, a very enjoyable, scary and fun film. It sicks close to Carpenter’s vision while modernizing and adding some exciting new elements. No, I won’t tell you what they are. Go watch the film. Jamie Lee Curtis reprises her role as Laurie Strode for a sixth time. She didn’t even need to be in the one and it still would have been a good film, but there’s plot point that needed to be kept.

I like how the film jumps around in time to show the effect on Haddonfield that Michael Myers has had over the years. I was on the edge of my seat for most of the film. Good pacing, acting, beautifully shot and everything done so well. I admire the beauty of how everything is put together, as terrifying as it may be.

Film facts:
Jamie Lee Curtis, Charles Cyphers, Kyle Richards, Nancy Stephens, and Nick Castle were all in the original Halloween and all returned for this sequel. The characters of Tommy Doyle and Lonnie Elam from the original also returned, but were recast with Anthony Michael Hall and Robert Longstreet.

A motorcycle gang called the Living Dead terrorize a small town. The make a deal with the devil to gain immortality. After their leader dies and returns from the dead, they all commit suicide. Nothing goes as planned and all hell breaks lose. The film benefits from a very black streak of humor. Many of the scenes in the film are really shocking but filmed in such a way that it’s obviously not meant to be taken seriously. While the film does not have a lot of horror imagery it does make up for it with some spectacular sequences. It’s interesting how it plays light with the idea of suicide as we get to witness the gang offing themselves in several imaginative and amusing ways. Psychomania is an excellent cult horror flick with a great Black Sabbath-like soundtrack. OH, they also pray to the frog god.

“Bottom line: With its quirk, psychedelia, and rich 70s score, Psychomania is a weird gem and endlessly fascinating”

Film Facts:

The script was written by “two expatriate Communist sympathisers” and that George Sanders’ scenes were shot in ten days to save money as he was being paid more than anyone else in the cast. George Sanders is the odd-ball Butler Shadwell, and is perhaps best known for his turn as Jack Favell in Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller, Rebecca.

The film starts off with a double axe murder and who doesn’t like Joan Crawford in anything. Especially right after her performance in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, right?. Straight-Jacket was written by Robert Bloch who also wrote Psycho. So, it’s about another psycho of course.

Convicted axe-murderess (Joan Crawford) is released from the asylum where she was sent 20 years ago for chopping up her unfaithful husband and mistress. She goes to stay at her brother’s farm and reconnect with her grown daughter who saw her mother chop her father to pieces as a child. She suspects that history might be repeating itself when anyone who angers her mother turns up hacked to death. It is a camp William Castle horror film. Surprisingly graphic for its time. It has a bonkers twist ending of questionable credibility

Film Facts:

William Castile was known for gimmicks given to the audience attending his films. During this film’s original release, moviegoers were given little cardboard axes as they entered the theater. At the end of the closing credits, the Columbia logo’s torch-bearing woman is shown in her traditional pose, but decapitated, with her head resting at her feet on her pedestal.

This is another film that terrified me as a child. It’s all about what you don’t see that scares you and it’s done very effectively in this film. I imagine this film was a reference for Spielberg who had to work without an operational shark for most of JAWS. He still had to build suspense and let the audience know, the shark is out there. Bobbing yellow buoyant barrels was the way and it worked well.

Fiend Without a Face is a film about the mysterious deaths by a mentally created invisible life form that feeds on atomic power and then steals human brains and spinal columns to use as bodies to multiply its numbers. I have been waiting for a remake of this film for an awfully long time. Unexplained deaths begin to occur in a village near the American base. Autopsies reveal the victims were murdered and the brains and spinal cords are missing, and the only clue left behind are two puncture marks at the base of each skull. Sounds gruesome, eh? Well, it has been stated that it might have been the goriest film of its time. Maybe.

“During July 1958, Fiend Without a Face first opened in the United States at the Rialto Theatre in New York City’s Theater District. The film’s producers placed an outdoor, front-of-the-house exhibit near the sidewalk that highlighted a “living and breathing Fiend” in a steel-barred glass display case. It periodically moved its spinal cord tail, startling onlookers, and made menacing sounds with the help of a concealed electrical device. The crowds that gathered to watch the caged Fiend grew so large that NYC police finally ordered the display case removed because it was creating a public disturbance” (from Wikipedia)

Film Facts:

The film was made entirely in England. Its Canadian setting was chosen because it would appeal to both American and British Commonwealth movie audiences, while still being easy to replicate using the English shooting locations. The producers used primarily American and Canadian actors working in the United Kingdom, plus a few British actors dubbed by Americans.

“He’s pure evil. Pure power. Pure terror. Burying him was their first mistake. Unleashing him was their last”

Although this film stayed true to the Clive Barker written screenplay and short from his Books of Blood, he hated it. He didn’t like the acting and was very unhappy with the monster design. However, good things come from bad. . This dissatisfaction inspired him to take more control when making Hellraiser. So, you might say that without Rawhead Rex we may not have had the exceptional design of the cenobites and Pinhead (Hell Priest) in Hellraiser.

Now on to the film itself. While spending vacation in the north of Ireland with his wife Elaine and children, writer Howard Hallenbeck is researching legends and myths for his book. A farmer is trying to remove an old column on the field and accidentally unleashes the evil pagan god Rawhead Rex that wreaks havoc in the village where Howard and his family are staying. Rex is sadistic and brutal, killing everything he sees, even children, with great delight. It’s more apparent in the short story, where the creature’s smile is written in words.

I do agree that the monster is pure cheese and not really the fault of the production designers. As with most low budget films, time is everything. The special effects team only had four weeks to make Rawhead Rex and without CG. The 4K print makes it look even worse as high def is not kind to makeup flaws. It’s difficult at times to separate the bad monster design from the film but if there was ever a movie in need of a remake, it’s this one. Barker has recently stated he would like to remake this film. Have at it, Clive!

Film Facts:
Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca) was originally considered to play Rawhead Rex, but his fee was too high.

Second only to clowns, creepy dolls (Chucky) and ventriloquist dummies terrify me. Oh man, does this film really hit that mark. James Wan did it with a more in your face intensity, less grace and too many jump scares with the film Dead Silence. Magic is a much better film though, hands down. This is due to its subtlety, a well-crafted story, and the amazing performance by Anthony Hopkins (pre-Hannibal). Add Anne Margaret and Burgess Meredith and you got a winner here. There are moments in the movie that make you wonder, various borderline moments designed to keep the possibility in the audience’s mind. But the ending resolves the issue once and for all. This film does not go where you think it will. This is a horror film in its purest sense. It’s unsettling.

Magic is about a failed magician Corky (Hopkins) who reinvents his act with the addition of ventriloquism using a foul-mouthed dummy named Fats. While on the verge of his own television show, Corky is afraid to take the network’s required medical examination for fear of exposing some severe mental issues. Is the dummy Fats a manifestation of Corky’s id? Or something even more sinister as Corky slowly loses the ability to control Fats.

Film Facts:

The first draft was written for director Norman Jewison. Jewison wanted Jack Nicholson to star, but Nicholson turned it down, claiming he did not want to wear a hairpiece. Steven Spielberg expressed interest in directing the film and considered casting Robert De Niro for Corky. (from Wikipedia).

Along with Stephen King and Clive Baker, H.P Lovecraft and Edgar Allen Poe continue to fuel my imagination. I love Lovecraft! However, he is not easy to bring to the screen and there’s so much material that I’d like to see adapted. Most recently, Richard Stanley brought the seemingly impossible film adaptation of Lovecraft’s Color of Space to the screen, and it was good. So, I have hope for more. To date, there has been no one better at making films from Lovecraft’s work than Stuart Gordon. Re-Animator, From Beyond, Castle Freak and my favorite, Dagon, all pure delight.

Iä! Iä! Cthulhu fhtagn!

Based on two Lovecraft short stories ¨Dagon¨ and ¨The Shadow Over Innsmouth¨ and tells the story of Paul Marsh. A boating accident off the coast of Spain sends Paul and his girlfriend Barbara to the fishing village of Imboca looking for help. At night, townsfolk start to disappear and things not quite human start to appear. They find themselves pursued by the entire town and he uncovers Imboca’s dark secret: that they pray to Dagon, a monstrous god of the sea. And Dagon’s unholy offspring are freakish half-human creatures on the loose in Imboca.

There’s a lot in Dagon to like. It’s terrifying with unrelenting twists and turns. The truth will not set you free instead it will condemn you to a waking nightmare. Excellent makeup on the freakish half-human creatures by the company (DDT) that subsequently won an Academy Award for ¨Pan’s labyrinth¨. Dark and colorful cinematography by Carlos Suarez and atmospheric musical score by Carles Cases that includes Galiacian sounds. Director Stuart Gordon’s love for Lovecraft’s work is the driving force making this film so good and so well done. His passion is apparent.

Film Facts:

Dagon appears in the Judeo-Christian Bible and is the name of a half-fish/half-man deity who is the father of Baal. Dagon was worshiped by the Assyrians in Ninevah, whom the prophet Jonah was sent to preach to.

Most of this film was shot with a hand-held camera.

“Imboca” means “Innsmouth” in Spanish, one of Lovecraft’s fictional locations.

Some extra-terrestrials aren’t friendly.

Ok. I’m in. I was hoping this film would be another sci-fi\horror meld classic that I could watch with my wife. She hated it and I can understand why. Definitely horror and definitely science fiction, but far too strange to be a straight narrative in either genre.

Xtro is VHS comfort food for me. It brings back good memories of a time and place, rather than a memory of it being a good film. It is a fun watch, even after all these many years later, it holds up. Some may find it too silly (my wife) and inconstant but if you like your films to be weird and high on imagination; you can’t go wrong with Xtro!

“A young boy, Tony, watches helplessly as his father Sam is abducted by aliens; three years later, Sam, genetically altered to survive on another planet, returns to Earth to find his son and take him to his new home. Convinced that Sam simply did a runner for the past three years, his wife Rachel and her new boyfriend Joe aren’t exactly happy to see him back on the scene—even more so when he begins to turn nasty and imbues his boy with other-worldly powers” – BA Harrison

XTRO is an extremely odd movie with loads of jaw-dropping set pieces. The film offers plenty of strange atmosphere and lots of cheap but effective special effects. The gore is suitably nasty. The film itself finds strength in what other movies count as weaknesses. Low budget with unknown actors and plastic non-CG creatures. I think a remake would rob us of the surrealist feel of the film. At the film’s conclusion, there’s a feeling of “WTF, did I just watch?”.

Film Facts:

The film was often incorrectly listed as a UK video nasty though it was never officially listed among the original 72 titles.

Director Harry Bromley Davenport humorously described his score for the film in an interview as “screaming synthesizers”. He also stated in an interview on the DVD release that the bizarre atmosphere of the film was completely unintentional.

“The most effective and disturbing Spanish film of the period”. – Glenn Kay

“If Lucio Fulci directed Night of the Living Dead” – Smite

“Let Sleeping Corpses Lie” is a great zombie movie directed by Jorge Grau. The film is set in a rural part of the UK. The Department of Agriculture have deployed a machine that kills bugs by using sonic waves. However, it also causes gestating babies to be born evil and the dead become flesh- eating zombies. A cop chases two hippies suspected of a series of Manson family-like murders; unbeknownst to him, the real culprits are the living dead.

This film IS exciting. The blood, gore and other effects are excellent for the early 1970s and the movie does have a very scary aura about it. The zombies are very slow moving but this makes them quite effective in a day when we weren’t used to them running. The are zombies, not infected. It’s this atmosphere that really makes this movie stick out from the countless zombie films that would be released after the Romero’s film Night of the Living Dead. Jorge Grau’s modest horror masterpiece is stuffed with ingenious findings, strong plot-twists and adorable black humor. And surprisingly great acting too. The cinematography is beautiful, and you should be prepared for a few impressive shocks. `Let Sleeping Corpses Lie’ is an excellent horror film with a lot of style and substance.

Film Facts:

The film was released in the United Kingdom under its title The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue, even though the film takes place in South Gate, not Manchester.

George Romero refused to fully explain why the dead in his movies rise, several other filmmakers decided to take a stab at ecological factors. There are always side effects, often unforeseen, in attempts to kill off invasive species and pests. For instance, DDT, which Grau name-checks in the movie. DDT may have gotten rid of a lot of nasty bugs for a while, but it also meant cancer in people and death to wildlife.

My 31 days of horror would not be complete without a good giallo film or two. What is giallo?. Well, giallo means yellow in Italian. Crime novels from fascist-era Italy had yellow covers, and in the 1960s, films began to take inspiration from these pulp novels and the name stuck.

The giallo genre is diverse in scope and can encompass horror, mystery, and thriller elements. What sets it apart as a genre is the more specific elements used. Candy red blood, black leather gloves, robes, knives, and lots of POV shots to name a few.
To know giallo, you must watch giallo. Where to start you might ask? It would be easy for me present more well know giallo examples from Mario Bava, Dario Argento and even Lucio Fulci but I’m on a mission to surface the lesser known, excellent but forgotten.

What Have You Done to Solange? It is one of my favorite giallos and has all the goods. A tight plot with a leather-gloved, knife-wielding killer, endearing 70’s aesthetic and a brilliant eerie score by Enno Morricone to name a few. A compromised gym teacher Enrico accidentally becomes the primary suspect in a string of murders targeting girls at his school. All the schoolgirls all murdered in the same horrible manner, it’s up to Enrico to clear his name by finding the real killer. More than any giallo, Solange is a skin-crawling watch and is a so well-executed twist heavy and complex.

Film Facts:

Mindful of the American aversion to dubbed foreign films, the production team decided that the shooting would be exclusively made in English language despite the accent of the actors. Consequently, the English looping coincided so well with the lip movements of the actors that no one in the U.S. noticed the film was dubbed.

This is the film I wish I had of seen back in film school when I owned a 16mm Bolex camera. Anything would have been possible! I think second only to clowns, hospitals would be next up on my all-time fears list. This entire film is set in a hospital.

Tales from the Gimli Hospital is surreal and often compared to David Lynch’s Eraserhead and for good reason. However, in this case, the director is Winnipeg’s own film auteur Guy Madden. Strangely enough, this film was rejected by the Toronto International Film Festival although it’s a perfect film for their Midnight Madness Program. I’ve forgotten where and when I first saw it, but the imagery of this film has remained in my psyche to this day. Possibly due to my love of German expressionism and films like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Nosferatu etc.

It’s a wonderfully strange and puzzling film filled with haunting and disturbing imagery. It takes place in the small fishing town of Gimli, Manitoba, in some indeterminate time. While their mother is dying in the modern Gimli, Manitoba hospital, two young children are told a tale by their Icelandic grandmother about Einar the Lonely, his friend Gunnar, and the angelic Snjofridur in a Gimli of old.
Einar and Gunnar, two men afflicted with the deadly smallpox virus, are housed in this small Gimli Hospital, their bodies covered with the scars of disease and their minds slowly slipping into paranoia and fear. A lot of this film is silent, only an old timey soundtrack is used regularly. The film is shot in black-and-white and looks fantastic. Gunnar entertains the nurses with his good humor while Einar lapses in and out of consciousness. As they undergo strange medical treatments involving seagulls (yep seagulls), the two discover they have something in common: they both had sexual relations with Gunnar’s late wife.

“A series of self-hating Icelandic “heritage moments” filtered through a surrealist sensibility (heavy on the fish) and the entire vocabulary of silent cinema” – Mark Peranson

Film Facts:

Tales from the Gimli Hospital, made over 18 months with a script jotted down on Post-It notes, was eventually nominated for a Genie.

The film is often underlit and from only one light source. The camera focuses on unusual body parts such as kneecaps and the space between eyebrows.

Through my wife, I have embraced and melded Chinese culture to my own. It has led to much richer life experience, and I am a better for it. Food is an obvious benefit of this but there is a strong cinematic one as well. I have been a lifelong Bruce Lee fan but thanks to my wife and our very eclectic film festivals (both TIFF and Asian Reel), I’ve done deeper dives into Chinese and Asian cinema. It started with highly stylistic Hong Kong gangster films from the likes of Johnny To and John Woo but has also opened the doors to further explore my favorite genre, horror.

Which brings me to The Shaw Brothers’ 1983 horror film Seeding of a Ghost. Now I was already familiar with the Shaw Brothers. Apart from Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon, they had produced my favorite and, in my opinion, the best martial arts films. 36th Chamber of Shaolin, Five Deadly Venoms, and The One-Armed Swordsman just to name a few. The Shaw Brothers also made horror films. I was delighted to discover Seeding of a Ghost and incredibly surprised at just how terrifying it is. Yes, it is also very silly at times.

Heading home from a hectic night shift, taxi driver Chow is shocked when a stranger runs into the path of his vehicle. The stranger proves to be a shaman, on the run from neighboring villagers whose ancestral cemetery he’s defiled. Whilst Chow drives the shaman back to his rundown home, he is warned that their crossing paths can only lead to bad fortune or death for the cabbie and his loved ones. Chow finds out his wife is cheating on him and seeks revenge using the shaman. Forcing the shaman into a promise of supernatural vengeance, Chow is given final warning that his revenge will be undeniably horrific, but also come at devastating cost to himself.

I think this film might have made into one of my previous year’s 31 days of horror countdown. Even if so, here it is again. The beginning of this film may have the most horrifying murder ever shown on film. What I find odd about this film is that after this murder, the film pivots to almost a horror-comedy. It is startling to say the least. It is one of the strangest, most original movies to come out of the 1960s. Imitated many times since but never duplicated. A great dark comedy with some genuinely eerie and creepy moments.

The film centers around the inbred Merrye family who once powerful, are now reduced to childlike idiocy through years of inbreeding. They have inherited curse of a disease that causes them to mentally regress from the age of 10 or so on as they physically develop. Distant relatives looking for cash decide to mess with this family with very predictable and nasty results.

Stealing the film is Lon Chaney Jr’s performance as the kind driver who is so devoted to this savage and horrible family. Rather than acting like a monster as you would expect, he shows a sense of humanity and pathos that’s hard to match. Sadly, this is one of Chaney’s final films. On the other end of the scale, we have a young Sid Haig, who plays the most animalistic of the Merrye children, Ralph. Spider Baby had a huge influence on Rob Zombie and was the inspiration for his first film, House of 1000 Corpses which included an unforgettable performance by a much older Sid Haig.

Film Facts:

Thought to be a “lost” film in the 1990s, it was learned there was a badly dubbed 16mm VHS copy in release. Writer/director Jack Hill found the original negative, got a clean digital transfer from it and put that in circulation. As the picture was not copyrighted, he was able to market it on his own. Hill added a scene cut from the original theatrical release and promoted it as the “Director’s Cut”.

As the film ends, “THE END” appears on the screen, then suddenly changes to “THE END?”

A remake better than the original? Yes, it is possible. I just love this film. This is the first film that comes to mind when someone asks what I think the most underrated horror film is. One the critics got wrong. Reviews for the film were mostly negative when it premiered. Ebert even included it on his list of “Most Hated” films of 2005. Praise was directed toward the production design, which is stellar, but the film was criticized for its lack of scares. Lack of scares? Bullshit! Hello! Meet the Juggernaught and the Jackal. This film is very scary. All the ghosts are terrifying and being trapped in a house with them keeps the heart thumping film all the way through. I love all the actors in this film, F. Murray Abrahamm, Tony Shaloub and Shannon Elizabeth. Matthew Lillard, an underrated actor in an underrated film, is excellent in this one. Add in specially designed googles where only the wearer can see the ghosts and everyone else can’t makes for some intense moments.

It’s 2021 and I want a 13-episode Netflix series for each ghost.

“Arthur and his two children, Kathy and Bobby, inherit his Uncle Cyrus’s estate: a glass house that serves as a prison to 12 ghosts. When the family, accompanied by Bobby’s Nanny and an attorney, enter the house they find themselves trapped inside an evil machine “designed by the devil and powered by the dead” to open the Eye of Hell. Aided by Dennis, a ghost hunter, and his rival Kalina, a ghost rights activist out to set the ghosts free, the group must do what they can to get out of the house alive”—Ahmet Kozan

Film Facts:

The special effects and sound mixing were so elaborate in this film that many people claimed that the movie was physically painful to sit through.

Excluding the opening scene, the entire film’s events take place over the course of a single day.

Shit! I was too busy yesterday and missed a day so there will be two posts today to conclude #31DaysOfHorror

Night of the Eagle (aka Burn Witch Burn) gave me reoccurring nightmares for years. I first saw it when I was around ten.

A college professor discovers his wife has been practicing magic for years. Alarmed, he forces her to destroy all her magical charms and protective devices, and stop. She insists his professional rivals are working magic against him, and her protections are necessary to his career and possibly save his life. The plot is a little uneven but this is great film. Probably, because it was written by Richard Matheson. This is a very terrifying low budget witchcraft story, with excellent direction and performances. A well-made British thriller filmed in atmospheric black & white. It’s a kind of movie where the chills creep up on you and quietly scare you. And as I mentioned above, nightmares for years to come.

Film facts:

There is no The End closing title, just a final “Do You Believe?” to conclude the film.

The opening narrator is delivered by The voice of Paul Frees (who provided the voice of Boris on “The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle”

Looks like I’ve been overruled this evening. This film needs no introduction. Thus concludes my #31DaysOfHorror

P.S. Both John Carpenter and Debra Hill felt that Dr, Loomis should be played by a “classy” British actor with star power. Peter Cushing was the first choice to play the part but his agent declined on his behalf. Christopher Lee declined due to the low salary of $25,000. Donald Pleasance took the role as he was in loads of debt having to pay alimony to his four ex-wives. I can’t imagine this film without Donald.