This Halloween season, we at Between the Reels are asking you: Don't answer the phone. Don't look in the basement. Don't go in the house. Don't go in the woods. Don't deliver us from evil. Don't be afraid of the dark. Don't panic. Because if you think of skipping horror this year in favor of the 153rd Marvel movie...
Every Halloween, I make it a goal to watch as many horror films I can. With one major caveat- the bulk of them have to be ones I have never seen. Classic staples remain like The Exorcist, Rosemary's Baby, etc. Then there are the one's that demand to be watched because of their seasonal flavors- the Halloween series, Night of the Demons, The Midnight Hour.
If there's one thing about the horror genre, it's that the well is bottomless. As soon as you think you've seen it all, out comes a new blu ray of a film you never heard of from a blu ray label you respect. I've sung the praises of Vinegar Syndrome many a time, but I can't understate their importance in this regard. They are rescuing obscure horror from the depths and giving them transfers we never would have dreamed of. Severin, Blue Underground, Scream Factory, AGFA, Mondo Macabro, Synapse, Scorpion Releasing own our wallets. They know exactly what they are doing. And we happily fork over the hard earned cash.
It's not that horror fans already don't have discerning taste. Everyone has their own ways of combing over the selection out there and cherry picking what sounds interesting to them. Through the years, I've found lists and podcasts by horror experts like Stephen Thrower, Troy Howarth, Kat Ellinger, Samm Deighan, Kim Newman, Joseph Ziemba, Kier-La Janisse and many others that have helped me weed out the ones I need to see.
These books have proved invaluable to me in my hunt:
Fangoria: 101 Best Horror Movies You've Never Seen
Fangoria Issue 300: The Ultimate Horror Movie Guide
House of Psychotic Women by Kier-La Janisse
Nightmare Movies by Kim Newman
Nightmare USA: The Untold Story of the Exploitation Independents by Stephen Thrower
So Deadly, So Perverse: 50 Years of Italian Giallo Films Vol. 1 1963- 1973 by Troy Howarth
So Deadly, So Perverse: 50 Years of Italian Giallo Films Vol. 2 1974- 2013 by Troy Howarth
Bleeding Skull: A 1980's Trash Horror Odyssey by Joseph Ziemba and Dan Budnik
Bleeding Skull: A 1990's Trash Horror Odyssey by Joseph Ziemba, Anne Choi
Between those books and various online lists, I managed to cull together a list of films I have never seen before. As always, anything I don't get to this year, spills over into next year.
Leading the charge this year will be Mario Bava's 1971 slasher classic Bay of Blood aka Carnage aka Twitch of the Death Nerve. Or, the coolest sounding horror title. And what better movie to lead. Beyond 2021 being the movie's 50th anniversary, it kicks off a major theme I will be chasing this season: The Gothic, The Ghastly and the Godfather. Each one belonging to a director whose body of work I am either woefully underseen or barely seen at all.
The Gothic World of Mario Bava
I've seen and fell in love with the classics: Black Sunday, Black Sabbath, Blood and Black Lace, Kill Baby Kill, Bay of Blood. I haven't really delved into his 'second tier' work. The films that are not as popular but still are held in regard as good work. The films that caught my eye the most are The Girl Who Knew Too Much, The Whip and the Body and Lisa and the Devil.
Andy Milligan: The Ghastly One
Andy Milligan is a name I never heard of until Vinegar Syndrome dropped Fleshpot on 42nd Street. His name was sung high and low (mostly low) on the streets of The Deuce back in the 70s. In The Ghastly One, Jimmy McDonough the time where Andy was at his mother's funeral. He shouted "She was a bitch!" and walked out. Much to the disgust of everyone else there. Family trauma and mother issues abound in his films.
As grimy and perverse as his films are, he hated drugs and alcohol. From what I have gathered from Fleshpot, sadism, lurid melodrama and a streak of white hot anger are sprinkled all throughout his filmography.
The Godfather of Gore: Herschell Gordon Lewis
He's the Powell and Pressburger of horror. When I think of his movies I think of dayglow reds and bright colors. Tongues being pulled out. I've neglected his filmography for too long. It's time to rectify that.
WHAT I'M READING
I started this book last year and I will continue it this year. A compendium of horror like this one doesn't demand to be read all at once. Put together by David Hartwell, The Dark Descent chronicles the evolution of horror fiction from Lovecraft to King. I can see this becoming a seasonal tradition.
"On a scorching hot summer day in Elkwood, Alabama, Claire Lambert staggers naked, wounded and half-blind at the scene of an atrocity. She is the sole survivor of a nightmare that claimed her friends, and even as she prays for rescue, the killers- a family of cannibal lunatics- are closing in."
Trauma isn't give a lens nearly enough in the genre. So upon reading the synopsis for this, I instantly bought it. Burke wrote a 70 page novella called Blanky that I think about constantly since I've read it. This novel, in which Burke begins at the end of nightmare, studies the aftermath of survivors upon their return to the real world.
The horror fiction scene is lighting up with praise for Stephen Graham Jones. This one sees him take on the werewolf story.
I've read his novella Mapping the Interior and came away haunted and impressed.
LAST BUT NOT LEAST
I've posted my Top 100 horror films before. Like any list, it has mutated. It's current form will be unveiled on Halloween.
The first update has already posted below: Jacob's Slashers: The Black Sheep. Check it out and stay tuned for more to drop.
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