It’s hard to do zombies well anymore. Mainly, you have to either
come up with an entirely novel concept or hope that the bloody mayhem works in
your favor.
In Yummy, the concept is only marginally original,
but the bloody mayhem is more than on target. Co-writer/director Lars Damoiseaux
assaults your gag reflex with a viscous mess of a horror flick. Blood and
entrails, of course, but expect a pretty inspired use of pus, liquid body fat,
tendons and other tissues and goos.
It makes for some slick surfaces, I tell you what! Plus some
unexpected little monsters keep things interesting and fun.
Set inside a cut-rate Eastern European cosmetic surgery
clinic, the film follows a mother, daughter and her boyfriend into a very bad
decision. Mom (Annick Christiaens) is after a series of nips and tucks; daughter
Alison (Maaike Neuville) wants breast reduction; boyfriend Michael (Bart
Hollanders) is just a good dude willing to drive everyone even though he’s
afraid of blood.
Here is a ripe premise for horror. Mom is a Cronenberg-esque vehicle for body horror as well as vanity shaming. Alison provides comedic possibilities (no one in the clinic can begin to understand her point of view). Hemophobic Michael offers the clear hero’s arc. (Or he’ll simply die of shock by the gooey second reel.)
And no, it’s not incredibly novel—zombie movies so rarely
are. But it’s smart, witty and fun. Damoiseaux accomplishes much with his
budget. Practical effects are great, performances are delightful, and nothing
beats a little well placed Stooges. (The band, not the knuckleheads.)
Yummy represents Damoiseaux’s feature debut as
director and writer, but he’s garnered attention and awards for years with his
work in shorts. Award winning co-writer Eveline Hagenbeek (Rokjesdag)
channels her affinity for conversational comedy into a script that may follow a
familiar structure but delivers a believable, funny edge that the game ensemble
takes advantage of.
Their collaboration is no masterpiece, but it is a lot of sloppy fun.
Witches, starvation, ghouls, oppression, Church and governmental oppression—there’s a reason they call them the Dark Ages! Filmmaker George Popov (Hex, The Droving) joins us to discuss the best horror movies about the Dark Ages.
6. Black Death (2010)
What Christopher Smith (Severance) delivers with Black Death that few if any horror filmmakers tackling the same themes match is a clear eye as to the flaws and merits on both sides of the witch hunt.
Eddie Redmayne is an innocent and a believer; Sean Bean is no innocent, but he does believe. Both are part of a Christian army who get word of a village untouched by pestilence—a village where some say the dead have been raised.
What follows is a punishingly human drama about using religion to suit your own ends, about what evil we are and are not willing to accept, and about the end of innocence.
5. The Masque of the Red Death (1964)
The sixth of seven Roger Corman/Vincent Price Poe films—and maybe the best—sees Price in a role that delights in its own evil.
No Corman film has ever used color to such glorious extreme, a tactic absolutely in keeping with Poe’s text. The film works from a short story, padding with subplots (one from Poe, one from elsewhere) that work well within the story and generate a little emotional depth beneath the lurid color and debauchery.
Stay through to the end, whatever you do, but do give this one a chance.
4. Hex (2017)
Two soldiers separated from their companies during England’s Civil War chase each other into a deep forest. The rebel Thomas (William Young) is young, soft and open to the dark poetry and doom of witchcraft. He’s not long in the woods before he sees his true enemy is not the countryman behind him with his sword drawn.
Richard (Daniel Oldroyd) fights for King and Country, strident and single-minded, logic keeps him from believing until he has little choice.
There is more happening here than you realize, and it’s to the filmmakers’ credit that you only recognize the film’s purpose when they are ready for you to do so. The result is a satisfying tale with more power than just magic.
3. Army of Darkness (1992)
Easily the most fun you’ll have with a Dark Ages film, Army of Darkness is Sam Raimi’s third and silliest installment in his Evil Dead trilogy. In it, like a Connecticut Yankee, hero Ash (Bruce Campbell at his buffest) finds himself transported to dark times.
You know what he finds. Deadites.
Ash must woo the girl (and then maybe accidentally get her changed into a deadite, which will necessitate killing her), say the spell (which he may or may not entirely screw up, inadvertently raising an army of darkness), and save the day.
Endlessly quotable, utterly bananas, and just a thrill ride of Monty Python meets Three Stooges meets Ray Harryhausen fun, Army of Darkness is a treasure.
2. The Head Hunter (2018)
In a land of yore, the geography forbidding, a far off
trumpet calls for the hardiest of warriors—those equipped to fight beasts.
Director Jordan Downey shows much and tells little in his
nearly wordless medieval fantasy, The Head Hunter. The filmmaker parses
out all the information you’ll need to follow this simple vengeance myth, but
pay attention. Very little in this film is without meaning—no creepy image, no
creak or slam.
In what is essentially a one man show, Christopher Rygh
delivers a quiet, brooding performance for a quiet, brooding film. He cuts an
impressive figure as the Vikingesque warrior at the center of this adventure
and his work speaks of joyless endurance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZqtRbifT6Q
1.Hagazussa (2017)
Making a remarkably assured feature debut as director, Lukas Feigelfeld
mesmerizes with his German Gothic poetry, Hagazussa: A Heathen’s Curse.
Settled somewhere in the 15th Century Alps, the film shadows lonely, ostracized women struggling against a period where plague, paranoia and superstition reigned.
It would be easy to mistake the story Feigelfeld (who also writes) develops as a take on horror’s common “is she crazy or is there malevolence afoot?” theme. But the filmmaker’s hallucinatory tone and Aleksandra Cwen’s grounded performance allow Hagazussa to straddle that line and perhaps introduce a third option—maybe both are true.
The film lends itself to a reading more lyrical than literal. Feigelfeld’s influences from Murnau to Lynch show themselves in his deliberate pacing and the sheer beauty of his delusional segments. He’s captured this moment in time, this draining and ugly paranoia that caused women such misery, with imagery that is perplexingly beautiful.
Basing a horror film around the “scariest movie ever made” premise is ambitious. Is it smart?
Well, it’s ambitious. Because at some point, you’re going to have to show at least a snippet of this deadly frightening flick your film is referencing, and your audience is already poised to dismiss the impact.
Remember the “killer” tape in the The Ring? We had to see it, and if it didn’t totally creep us out when we did, the entire movie would have crumbled. But that video WAS creepy as Hell, giving The Ring the anchor it needed to stand as one of the best PG-13 horror flicks ever made.
Shudder’s Warning: Do Not Play remembers The Ring/Ringu quite well, building a familiar mystery around some urban legendary long lost film footage.
Mi-Jung (Ye-ji Seo) is a “film festival prodigy” on a two week deadline from a big South Korean studio to come up with a great horror script or she’s out.
She needs inspiration!
Film students at the local university hip Mi-Jung to the legend of a graduation film from years earlier. They can’t remember the title, but it supposedly screened once, with repercussions so dramatic the film was rumored to be directed….by a ghost.
Mi-Jung asks for help in an online forum and is instantly met with an ominous demand to cease the inquiries, which only draws her deeper into the mystery.
Writer/director Kim Jin-won provides some nifty atmospherics in the early going, but little else to demand your attention. While Kim doesn’t rely on cheap jump scares (thank you), he pushes the unreliable narrator trope via enough “waking from a dream” sequences to quickly become tiresome.
But the blood and the body count pick up in act two, as the film adopts some Blair Witch tactics – and openly cops to it, which is nice. Mi-Jung finds herself deep inside the cursed production, and we’re left to sort out the psychological strands of her experience.
The film-within-a-film may never grasp the elusive Ring ambitions, but hang in past the setup and Warning delivers a competent mystery and some fun terror in the aisles.
We didn’t want to let Black History Month slip by without recognizing the best Black characters in horror. Obviously, this is actually a countdown and podcast we could have done at any time, but any particular excuse to talk about William Marshall must be taken!
Regardless of the (far too often proven) cliche that the token Black character in any horror film is simply the first victim, there are many amazing characters and actors worth celebrating in this list. The all time kickass Pam Grier stars as a voodoo practitioner in Scream Blacula Scream (1973), Morgan Freeman brings his characteristic gravitas to the role of mentor cop and general smartypants in Seven (1995). Wesley Snipes combined vampire and badass in the Blade trilogy, as did Grace Jones in Vamp (1986) – and these are just a few of the candidates we will not be mentioning.
Nope, instead we present you with the five best Black characters in horror.
5. Selena (Naomi Harris), 28 Days Later (2002)
When it outbreak comes – and you know it will – what you want on your team is a pharmacist (someone with some medical training) who is not afraid to use a machete. Naomi Harris was the brains and the backbone of the ragtag group of survivors in 28 Days Later. Without her, Cillian Murphy wouldn’t have made it.
The great Danny Boyle, working from a script by Alex Garland (who wrote and directed the magnificent Ex Machina last year), upended a lot of expectations, giving us tenderness in the form of the great Brendan Gleeson, and a vulnerability in the newly-acquainted-with-the-apocalypse Murphy, but the brains and the bravery are Selena’s. That isn’t to say the realities of gender inequality disappear during the apocalypse – Nope! But this is a really uncommon character in a horror film: a strong, Black female survivor.
4. Peter (Ken Foree), Dawn of the Dead (1978)
When George Romero returned to his zombie apocalypse in 1978 – nearly a decade after he’d rewritten the zombie code with Night of the Living Dead – he upped the ante in terms of onscreen gore, but there were some pieces of the formula he wasn’t ready to let go of.
Two members of SWAT join their newsman buddy and his producer girlfriend, take off in a helicopter, land at a mall, and set up house while that whole zombie thing blows over. Ken Foree and Scott Reiniger as the buddies from SWAT create the most effective moments, whether character-driven tension or zombie-driven action. While the leads were flat and bland, Foree not only delivers the film’s strongest performance, but Peter is the most compelling character and the one you’re least willing to see go.
Oh my God, that voice! Yes, Candyman is a bad dude, but isn’t he kind of dreamy?
Like a vampire, the villain of Cabrini Green needed to be both repellant and seductive for this storyline to work, and Todd more than managed both. With those bees in his mouth and that hook for a hand, he is effortlessly terrifying. But it’s Todd’s presence, his somehow soothing promise of pain and eternity, that makes the seduction of grad school researcher Helen (Virginia Madsen) realistic.
Clive Barker wrote the original story, and the racial tensions that run through the film are both intentional and required. Madsen’s raspy-voiced heroine offers a perfect counterpoint to Todd, both of them a blend of intelligent and sultry that make them more parallel than opposite.
Todd would go on to love again in the Candyman sequel Farewell to the Flesh, as well as star or co-star in countless other horror films, but it was the first time you hear that voice in this film that sealed his fate as an iconic horror villain.
Did someone mention awesome voices and onscreen presence? The great William Marshall is the picture of grace and elegance as Mamuwalde, the prince turned vampire.
The film is a cheaply made Blaxploitation classic, with all that entails. For every grimace-inducing moment (bats on strings, homophobic humor) there’s a moment of true genius, almost exclusively because of Marshall’s command of the screen and the character.
Though he’s often hampered by FX as well as writing, the character remained true throughout the film, even to his death. It’s the kind of moment that could be brushed aside, in a low budget flick with a lot of plot holes and silly make up. But there’s more to Blacula than meets the eye.
Blacula is a tragic antihero and it’s all but impossible to root against him. Marshall brought more dignity to the role of vampire than any actor has, and the strength and respectability he imbues in the character were not just revolutionary at the time, but were so pivotal to that particular character that he has become a legendary character in the genre.
1. Ben (Duane Jones), Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Over the years, much has been made of director George Romero’s assertion that Duane Jones’s casting in Night of the Living Dead had nothing to do with his color; Romero simply gave the role to the best actor.
Maybe so – and certainly Jones’s performance alone has a great deal to do with the success of the film – but casting a Black male lead in this particular film at this particular juncture in American history is among the main reasons the film remains relevant and important today.
Jones plays Ben, the level-headed survivor holed up in a Pennsylvania farmhouse trying to wait out the zombipocalypse. Ben is the clear cut leader of this group of survivors, caring for the shell-shocked young white woman (Judith O’Dea), working in tandem with the young couple also hiding out, and engaging in a needless and ugly power struggle with that dick Mr. Cooper.
Jones’s performance is, as Romero points out, easily the strongest in the ensemble, and that work alone would have made the role and the film memorable. But it’s the kick to the gut documentary-style ending that not only marks the film’s sociological period, it is a horrifying reminder of all that has not changed in the world.
Micro-budget horror movie The Deeper You Dig is co-written and co-directed by husband and wife John Adams and Toby Poser, who co-star alongside their daughter Zelda Adams. This is a story about an unusual family created by an unusual family.
The film centers on a close if unconventional mother/daughter duo (Poser and Adams the younger). The two make ends meet in a rugged mountain town by taking advantage of townies looking to hear their fortunes. But when her daughter goes missing, Ivy (Poser) reconnects with her long-forgotten abilities to determine what the police can’t.
Poser is particularly impressive, and what may be the most
intriguing thing about the way the film is written is how both Ivy and daughter
Echo are characterized. No cliché suits these two—each is carved out uniquely,
a blend of dissonant ideas that feel authentically human. Their undiscussed but
clearly present “outsider” nature only serves to underscore their emotional
need for each other, which gives the mystery resonance and adds a little
integrity to the supernatural elements as well.
Ivy’s relationship with new-in-town Kurt (John Adams) is
even more peculiar—rightly so. Adams the elder delivers a twisty, haunted
performance that’s the real heart of the film’s horror. His work is both
physical and emotional, with personality changes that never feel forced or
showy.
Not every performance is as strong as the central three, and
not every beat in the plot works. Certain moments feel pulled from TV
melodramas, and the film’s micro-budget is most felt whenever CGI is employed.
But The Deeper You Dig makes an excellent case for
seeking out low-budget indies. It’s creepy and satisfying. It explodes clichés,
keeps you guessing, and takes advantage of the clear trust among the actors to
create an unusual and compelling family dynamic.
Even with its handful of missteps, The Deeper You Dig clearly represents a group of filmmaking talent to keep an eye on.
There are moments in Bruce McDonald’s head trip Dreamland
that are just bizarre fun, like that self-aware line delivered by Henry
Rollins. A lowlife gangster kingpin, his statement is as much a moment of
self-defense as it is a warning.
Rollins’s Hercules is one of many unseemly characters orbiting each other in this surreal, jazzy noir. Veteran character actor and welcome sight Stephen McHattie (Pontypool) plays dual roles: jazzman junkie and conflicted hitman.
One needs to exact retribution on the other, you see, but
maybe redemption of sorts could be arranged for both of them?
From one flesh-peddling nightclub to the highfalutin debauchery of a palace, McDonald’s fever dream offers consistently weird moments, each loosely connected to the next, all meandering toward a wild climax. Dreamland is a nutty drug trip of an underbelly film.
McHattie’s fun, especially as the anesthetized trumpet player. The other McHattie is having a tough time learning that you can’t rely on a junkie.
Both Rollins and Juliette Lewis are clearly enjoying themselves—Lewis, in particular, relishing every moment of over-the-top decadence and weirdness. Belgian character actress Stéphane Bissot impresses most as the sole voice of reason in the entire film. She’s deadpan hilarious.
Not that Dreamland is a comedy. Not that it isn’t,
either. It’s a tough film to characterize.
McDonald hit his artistic high water mark in 2008 with the inspired lunacy of Pontypool. For Dreamland he teams again with writer Tony Burgess, and together they dive back into themes of sanity, reality and jazz. But Dreamland lacks the fidelity of vision and the internal logic that made Pontypool simultaneously hilarious and terrifying.
Dreamland occasionally feels like a cheat. Worse still, it too often feels predictable when its every breath is meant to be just the opposite.
Still, there’s more than enough carnage and madness packed into this 90 minutes to keep you gawking.
There is a moment that currently fascinates horror filmmakers. It is the moment when we forever lose the sweet little white boy destined to become a sociopath.
Director Brandon Christensen (writing with Colin Minnihan) examines
parental involvement and even responsibility with the imaginary friend horror, Z.
Beth Parsons (Keegan Connor Tracy) and her husband Kevin (Minnihan
regular Sean Rogerson) are at odds about how best to handle son Josh (Jett
Klyne) and his new buddy.
This sounds familiar.
Mother is immediately creeped out. Dad is lenient. Boy
begins to lash out, blaming imaginary friend. Mom wants to enlist expert help.
Dad agrees within reason, but begins to pull away once Mom becomes convinced of
a supernatural presence. Bodies begin to pile up.
That’s just in the last three years. This phenomenon means
two things: filmmakers have hit upon a provocatively of-the-moment topic and it
will be hard to find a unique perspective on that topic.
Though Z never seems fresh, there are moments that
feel more authentic than they have any right to. Christensen’s direction lets
conversations, in particular, breathe. Actors get the chance to give their
characters a heartbeat. Adult family relationships have a lived-in quality that
both reinforces themes and carves out layers for the story.
As is often the case in this subgenre, the film lives or
dies on the role of the mother. Lucky, then, that Tracy gives such a powerful
performance. Never showy, Tracy’s weary, passive, put-upon delivery creates a
mysterious yet believable character. Beth’s actions feel both natural and
unpredictable, which creates a lot of space for the filmmaker to build in
surprises.
Too much convenience, too many unearned jump scares and too
much predictability threaten to sink the effort, but a handful of narrative
choices and a few truly solid performances (plus a cameo from the always
welcome Stephen McHattie) elevate the film.
It’s no We Need to Talk about Kevin (the high water mark for the category), but what is? It is an unsettling way to worry about what we pass on to our kids.
Here it is—the topic to test the marriage. Luckily, so George did not have to watch every film on the list, we were able to snag a couple of experts. Phantom Dark Dave and Jen Dreadful join Fright Club to gush, ooze, splurt, spray and basically get sloppy with Troma.
5. Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead (2006)
Are you squeamish? If so, best of luck trying to make it through anything on this list. Poultrygeist is certainly not recommended.
Part Better Off Dead, part Night of the Living Dead, a whole lot of Poltergeist, Kaufman’s film picks apart horror tropes and fast food chains. The film will do nothing for your appetite.
4. Tromeo and Juliet (1996)
James Gunn is one of many cinematic giants who got started with Troma. Along with Troma co-founder Lloyd Kaufman and Shakespeare, Gunn penned a troma-tastic version of the Bard’s star-crossed romance. Truth be told, things work out a little better for Gunn’s cute couple.
Incest, cannibalism, homoeroticism, body fluids, poor food safety protocols and more delirious nastiness mark this as a bone-deep Troma effort, so don’t let the highbrow source material throw you.
3. The Toxic Avenger (1984)
Here’s the classic. No way we could put together a tribute to Troma without Toxie. The Eighties underdog flick feels tame compared to what came before and after, but Eighties Troma tended to be a little friendlier, almost mainstream.
Well, that might be an exaggeration, but Toxic Avenger offers an excellent first toe into the massive, polluted gene pool that is Troma.
2. Father’s Day (2011)
The creative team behind loving giallo spoof Editor started off making what could reasonably be considered a spoof of a Troma film that wound up being an actual Troma film because, let’s be honest, who could tell the difference?
Story schmory—the film sets up every conceivable way to offend, disgust and dismay and it has the best time doing it. You’ll know if this film is for you within two minutes. Chances are good you won’t make it through that opening scene, and even better that you be sickened before the end of the movie if you do stick it out. What they do is vile and hilarious.
1. Killer Condom (1996)
A Troma-distributed splatter/horror/comedy, Killer Condom is an enormous amount of fun. This is a German film—German actors delivering lines in German—but it’s set in NYC. You can tell because of the frequent shots of someone opening a New York Times newspaper machine.
Luigi Mackeroni (Udo Samel) is the grizzled NYC detective who longs for the good old days in Sicily. In German. He’s assigned to a crime scene in a seedy Time Square motel he knows too well, where it appears that women just keep biting off men’s penises.
Or do they?
This film is refreshingly gay, to start with, as nearly every major character in the film is a homosexual. The run-of-the-mill way this is handled is admirable, even when it is used for cheap laughs. (Babette, I’m looking at you).
It’s fun. It’s funny. It’s gory and wrong-headed and entertaining from start to finish. Who’d have guessed?
A tidy opening sets the stage, spilling enough beans to prepare you for the full tale while creating an atmosphere of genuine horror. Some excellent soundtrack choices establish a time and generate a mood.
So far so good, The Wretched!
As sometimes happens when a horror movie starts out strong, this one falls into familiar tropes to move things forward. Writers/directors Brett and Drew T. Pierce (Deadheads) stumble slightly as they usher in Act 2, relying on stock concepts as well as shorthand character introductions: rich asshole, hot girl, unfussy hot girl wearing eccentric socks who you should actually care about, Dad who’s trying but just isn’t that good at this.
Basically, there’s too much here that you’ve seen before and
may not need to see again. If horror movies have taught me anything (they have,
too!), it’s that Never Have I Ever is a lame game that only brings on death.
Still, the Pierce brothers and a game (if mainly unknown)
cast keep even the familiar pretty fresh.
High school kid Ben (John-Paul Howard) finds himself out at
the lake, working the docks with his newly single dad (Jamison Jones). Sure, he’d
planned to spend the summer tooling around town in the Lincoln his mom was
passing down to him, but he got himself into a little hot water and now it’s a
summer job catering to pampered townies and vacationing families.
If only that was going to be his biggest problem.
Zarah Mahler is especially effective in breaking through
tropes as the neighbor lady who is not what she seems, and The Wretched
uses the “child in danger” plotline to worrisome effect throughout its running
time.
Weird behavior from those tourists next door finds Ben doing
a little sleuthing. Quickly, The Wretched turns into Rear Window/Fright
Night/Disturbia—but without the actual house arrest kind of thing,
which seriously limits its tension.
There are other, lesser-known films that are thematically closer
and, honestly, better, including last year’s Irish horror The Hole in the
Ground and Oliver Frampton’s almost entirely unseen 2014 gem, The Forgotten.
At about the time you begin to weary of the film, it recovers with a nice surprise that reaffirms the promise of Act 1. There’s far too much borrowed and rehashed between Acts 1 and 3 for it to stand the test of time alone, but The Wretched delivers enough to entertain and to leave you interested in what’s next for the Pierce brothers.
There is something appealing to the glam trainwreck that is Bit,
Brad Michael Elmore’s anti-Twilight.
An angsty adolescent fresh from high school graduation voice
overs: “You know those teen vampire movies that feel like the horny soap opera
fever dreams of an 8th grade diary? Here’s how mine began.”
Like it. It’s self-aware, a little deadpan funny, a little whatever.
Go on.
Laurel (Nicole Maines), the recent grad, packs up her Oregon-plated
car and takes off to spend the summer with her brother in LA. On her very first
night in town, she’s hit on by the super
hot girl Izzy (Zolee Griggs), brought to an after hours full of incredibly cool
people, and immediately she feels as if she’s found acceptance, found home.
Naturally, Izzy and her also-hot friends are lesbian
vampires who see Laurel’s specialness and invite her to Bite Club.
First rule of Bite Club: No. Fucking. Boys.
Maines is a transgender actress, a fact that elevates Laurel’s
angsty “oh, high school was kind of a horror show” schtick because it probably
was. Maines does not show an enormous amount of range, unfortunately, and
Elmore’s script offers her few opportunities to shine.
She’s entirely convincing with her eyes at half mast, enduring the well-meaning but clueless affection of her family. But Elmore penned very few realistic reasons for Laurel’s behavior and Maines is left struggling to convince us, simply repeating the phrase “I’m fine” ad nauseam.
Diana Hopper, on the other hand, cuts an impressive figure as Bit’s Tyler Durden. Hopper elevates Elmore’s sometimes weak dialog (there are times when it works) with wearied badassedness.
It is fun and sometimes really witty the way Bit mocks
boys, though, even if Elmore’s core theme is, “Some of us are OK!” Indeed, Bit
undercuts its feminist intent as often as it offers genuine insight.
But maybe its main thesis is that kids are stupid, because Laurel’s
philosophy for the future of the human race is…well, it’s stupid.
Still, there’s low-rent garbage fun to be had with this. Everything about it could have been better, but like most guilty pleasures, it appeals in a sugar high kind of way.
