Underrated, Little Seen Horror Films

[May Kasahara]

As an aside, I really love this site:

http://www.britishhorrorfilms.co.uk/index2.shtml

although it makes me want to spend even more on DVDs, as the write-ups are so enticing.

 

[Reno]

Is Dario Argento's version of Phantom of the Opera any good?

No, it's terrible one of his worst films. Not to be confused with his film Opera though, which is great and mad as a bag of frogs.

Just remembered two of the great "video nasty" era ones - Cannibal Holocaust and The New York Ripper.

I know Cannibal Holocaust is available on dvd, not sure about New York Ripper (which is more of a very violent thriller now i think about it)

The New York Ripper is out on DVD in the US. I don't think it would get a release in the UK unless it was heavily edited due to scenes of sexual violence.

 

[Louloubelle]

And Soon the Darkness, an atmospheric British thriller/horror film from 1970 about two young British nurses on a cycling holiday in France. They apear to be followed by a man in mirrored sun glasses and then one of the women dissapears. Her increasingly panicked friend keeps looking for her speaking very little French, the landscape is arid and the locals appear to be hostile and unhelpful. She finds out that several young women have dissapeard lately in the area, the man in the shades is on her trail and then the night moves in.

Great film
Made all the more terrifying by the fact that the girl is Michelle Dotrice - AKA Betty in Some Mothers do Ave Em.

On a different tip.... I was absolutely terrified by the 1975 original Trilogy of Terror, especially the one with the African fetish doll that comes alive after, against advice, she removes the chains that bind it. Then, clutching a big carving knife, it stalks Karen Black and chases her round her flat. The worst bit was when she locked it up in a suitcase and went into the other room and you could see the knife sawing its way out in the background.

Probably very tame by today's standards but it shared the bejaysus out of me at the time. One day someone is going to analyse what on earth it was about.

Does anyone have this on DVD that I could borrow BTW?

eta

I've watched a lot of the masters of horror and have been really disappointed by almost all of them
Just my 2p worth

 

[Groucho]

....... I was absolutely terrified by the 1975 original Trilogy of Terror, especially the one with the African fetish doll that comes alive after, against advice, she removes the chains that bind it. Then, clutching a big carving knife, it stalks Karen Black and chases her round her flat. The worst by almost all of them bit was when she locked it up in a suitcase and went into the other room and you could see the knife sawing its way out in the background.

Probably very tame by today's standards but it shared the bejaysus out of me at the time. One day someone is going to analyse what on earth it was about.
...

Yes, that was a good 'un. Don't have it. Loved it when I was a kid. Saw a fetish doll very much like it last year in a museum - The Horniman museum in fact. It winked at me.

 

[Groucho]

No, it's terrible one of his worst films. Not to be confused with his film Opera though, which is great and mad as a bag of frogs.
....

Ta. Saved me £19.99

 

[Louloubelle]

Yes, that was a good 'un. Don't have it. Loved it when I was a kid. Saw a fetish doll very much like it last year in a museum - The Horniman museum in fact. It winked at me.

IMMIC

The same film had a version of the monkey's paw in it, where a woman resurrects her dead son using magic but things don't go quite as planned. The ending terrified me as a kid but I saw it a few years back and, like most scary films, it looked almost comical. Ah well

 

[Louloubelle]

Oooh

and that easter European one with lots of bleak trains and that woman having sex with a weird multi-tentacled monster thingy

Possessed?
The Possessed?

What was it called?

Reno knows

 

[Reno]

Oooh

and that easter European one with lots of bleak trains and that woman having sex with a weird multi-tentacled monster thingy

Possessed?
The Possessed?

What was it called?

Reno knows

Possession, one of my all time favourite films, starring Isabelle Adjani and Sam Neill. Not a conventional horror film, more a surreal art house film about a marriage break down, though it inexplicably found itself on the video nasty list in the 80's.

Was shot in a still divided Berlin and is probably best enjoyed by people who like David Lynch at his most extreme.

 

[Louloubelle]

Is "Eyes Without a Face" obscure enough?
Great film

on a camper note...

Fiend without a Face is one of those films that terrifies you as a kid but is enjoyable in a different way as an adult. Invisible killer brains - anyone remember it?

 

[Louloubelle]

Possession, one of my all time favourite films, starring Isabelle Adjani and Sam Neil. Not really a conventional horror film, more a surreal art house film about a marriage breaking down, though it inexplicably found itself on the video nasie list in the 80's.

I last saw it over 20 years ago and it was visually bleak yet very beautiful, definitely an art film, I'd love to see it again sometime

 

[D'wards]

I last saw it over 20 years ago and it was visually bleak yet very beautiful, definitely an art film, I'd love to see it again sometime

Great scene where Adjani has a sudden breakdown in an underpass and rolls about on the floor throwing her shopping everywhere. Quite a piece of acting that.

 

[Reno]

edit

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Manhunter

Black Christmas

The Devil's Rain - good schlock

Near Dark

 

[Reno]

Johnny mentioning The Devil's Rain reminded me that there are loads of 70's and early 80's B-movies films, which while no masterpieces, are comfort films for me. These are some of the films I spent my pocket money to see at the time:

The Car (car possessed by the devil runs down the hapless denizens of a small desert town),

Kingdom of the Spiders (starring William Shatner, his toupe and hundreds of pissed off arachnids),

Bug (pyromaniac cockroaches as the next evolutionary step),

Burnt Offerings (Oliver Reed, Karen Black and Bette Davies in a cut price haunted house flick which gave me nightmares),

the It's Alive! films (especially It Lives Again!, the second one),

Alligator (written by indie maverick John Sayles, this has some snappy dialogue)

Empire of the Ants (real estate harpy Joan Collins gets brainwashed and then eaten by giant ants)

The Manitou (during the climax a topless Susan Strasberg floats through the fourth dimension in her bed while shooting laser beams from her hands at an evil Native American dwarf deity while channeling the spiritual energy of some clunky 70's computer. Pure trash gold!))

 

[Pseudopsycho]

Too many to mention but:
The Return Of The Living Dead - Send more paramedics!
Zombie Flesh Eaters
Ticks (superskunked up wee beasties mutate Wil Smith's cousin from Fresh Prince)
Tetsuo
Demons : dir Lamberto Bava, written with Dario Argento
Cronos
Serpent & The Rainbow

Edited to add really

 

[wishface]

Living Dead At The Manchester Morgue.

The best horror film ever made because not only it's title is amazing, but for no reason the start of the film opens with a shot of the city during rush hour with a female streaker running across the road. This has no bearing on anything in the film at all.

 

[secretsquirrel]

Would really like to see Paperhouse - I remember reading the book 'Marianne Dreams' it's based on as a kid several times - it's the one with the standing stones that keep moving closer to the house isn't it? *gets chills just remembering the story*!

ETA: just read precis of the movie - what?! no standing stones?!?! Bah! Rubbish.

ETA again: I didn't realise there were so many fans of 'In the mouth of madness' :-D - that kid/old man on the bicycle with the playing cards in the spokes - eek!

 

[Louloubelle]

Not quite horror but almost and utterly brilliant

How to Get Ahead in Advertising and Eating Raoul

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Johnny mentioning The Devil's Rain reminded me that there are loads of 70's and early 80's B-movies films, which while no masterpieces, are comfort films for me. These are some of the films I spent my pocket money to see at the time:

The Car (car possessed by the devil runs down the hapless denizens of a small desert town),

Kingdom of the Spiders (starring William Shatner, his toupe and hundreds of pissed off arachnids),

Bug (pyromaniac cockroaches as the next evolutionary step),

Burnt Offerings (Oliver Reed, Karen Black and Bette Davies in a cut price haunted house flick which gave me nightmares),

the It's Alive! films (especially It Lives Again!, the second one),

Alligator (written by indie maverick John Sayles, this has some snappy dialogue)

Empire of the Ants (real estate harpy Joan Collins gets brainwashed and then eaten by giant ants)

The Manitou (during the climax a topless Susan Strasberg floats through the fourth dimension in her bed while shooting laser beams from her hands at an evil Native American dwarf deity while channeling the spiritual energy of some clunky 70's computer. Pure trash gold!))

I've seen all of those: the Car would be my favourite.