The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

[mfunk9786]

I haven't seen the film, but I've read plenty about it and nothing I've read suggests that it's more than what Sausage has described, which places it approximately 500,000th on my to-watch list. This is your big chance to improve that placing.

It seems like you've already made your mind up about the film, I wouldn't want to inconvenience you by suggesting that you watch it before formulating a definitive opinion

[zedz]

I haven't actually expressed any opinion on the film, only on what you claimed to be its redeeming message, which seemed to me incredibly shallow and dubious.

So now I don't even have a right to decide for myself which films I do and don't want to see based on conscientious research? Like I said, it's up to you to convince me to see the film, since you're one of its handful of champions. If you can't make a convincing argument that will change my mind that it's not a film I want to see (and this is something that happens all the time around here - it happened yesterday and it will probably happen again tomorrow), it's not my problem, and I'm not going to submit myself to seeing a film which I was never particularly interested in in the first place and which better men than you have told me is a waste of time simply to stop you whining about me not seeing it.

[Mr Sausage]

SpoilerShow

True, though I'm not sure that the quest for enlightenment is anything more than a MacGuffin for the real concerns of the film - the film suggests that the afterlife may exist but that cult are doing the wrong thing by trying to hurry the process and get there by proxy. Which is why the ending can be seen as ironic - how can you force somebody to experience something on your behalf when you quite literally do not feel their pain?

SpoilerShow

I would agree if the film did not heavily imply that the martyr herself achieves transcendence, which brings her blessedness, holiness, exaltation, and unnaturally prolonged life. Again, the film is clearly making a very crude depiction of the traditional symbolic idea (which you can find in much more sophisticated forms all the way from Dante to T.S. Eliot) that in order to get to heaven you must go through hell. Except Martyrs literalizes that idea in order to exploit its capacity for torture and violence, and then does an even worse thing by fitting the idea into an ambiguity that it then refuses to guide you through. (This is not even to mention the way in which the very brief moments of tonal relief in the movie always coincide with the victim's spiritual ecstasies).

Perhaps this religious nonsense is a Macguffin, but if so, what else in the movie is there? There is so precious little that isn't torture and murder. In terms of the abuse of power, this movie is so outrageous and extreme that it forfeits its ability to make any reasonable or serious comment on social ills. Fincher's recent Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was too busy being a pot-boiler to tackle the issue of the systemic abuse of power in the depth that it requires, and yet even it offers a much more clear-sighted and perceptive critique of that theme when compared to Martyrs (and without assaulting the viewer with unrelenting pain and cruelty). Most of the defenses of Martyrs I've read here are all built around the notion that its religious ideas are profound and justify the movie, so I'm turning my focus mostly to that. If you have other ideas, they are welcome. If anyone on this forum can make a convincing case for a movie that I thought had no merit, it's you (or John Cope).

[mfunk9786]

I haven't actually expressed any opinion on the film, only on what you claimed to be its redeeming message, which seemed to me incredibly shallow and dubious.

So now I don't even have a right to decide for myself which films I do and don't want to see based on conscientious research? Like I said, it's up to you to convince me to see the film, since you're one of its handful of champions. If you can't make a convincing argument that will change my mind that it's not a film I want to see (and this is something that happens all the time around here - it happened yesterday and it will probably happen again tomorrow), it's not my problem, and I'm not going to submit myself to seeing a film which I was never particularly interested in in the first place and which better men than you have told me is a waste of time simply to stop you whining about me not seeing it.

Wait... you're the one who keeps lobbing the ball to me, saying "Convince me that I should see it, come on, convince me - because I already think it's really stupid and have no interest in seeing it, so!" You obviously are somewhat fascinated by the film because you can't stop posting about it even though you've already resigned yourself to never seeing it, so you're trying to make it my problem that you're conflicted about whether or not to ever watch it. It's not my problem. I recommend it to people who think they're interested in seeing it. There are people who got a lot out of it, like colinr, Michael, and myself - and there are people like Mr Sausage who didn't. If you want to oversimplify a very brief post that I only made to counter what Mr Sausage posted speaking to specifically what he was discussing, fine. There's more to the film than that one sentence, but you are very insistent on taunting me with it over and over again as if I'm supposed to come back at you with some sort of desperate plea for you to watch Martyrs. At the end of the day, I couldn't give a flying fuck if you ever watch it. If you were truly uninterested in the film, you'd move on and stop posting obsessively about why you're not interested in it.

[zedz]

I think you're confusing "desperate plea" with "coherent argument (non-petulant)," but obviously that won't be forthcoming. Like I said, if you want to put some effort into making the kind of persuasive arguments that people like colin, John Cope and domino make all the time for films I'd overlooked, then I'm happy to listen, but ad-hominem screeching tells me nothing about the film. (Though the "secretly, I bet you're really into it" tone of your last comment does tell me a lot about you.)

[mfunk9786]

I feel it's a film that relies heavily on an element of surprise to lend the proceedings more drama and emotional weight, and regardless of one user's peevishness, I'm not about to get into a spoiler-filled discussion about any film with someone who hasn't seen it just because they're essentially trying to bully me into it. If you want to read a bunch of spoiler-filled opinions and philosophical discussions about the film, you can do so on the film's thread (which I contributed to quite a bit, in detail, along with Grand Illusion), read Colin and Mr Sausage's excellent discussion on this thread, or go elsewhere - but I'm not going to stand on a soapbox about it just because you're telling me to over and over and over. I've said what I want to say about it unless I decide I want to join in on further conversation about it. This isn't the 'mfunk begs zedz to watch Martyrs until zedz is satisfied' thread - there are hundreds upon hundreds of other films that also need to be discussed here.

Here's the link to the thread for Martyrs, in which I made multiple lengthy posts about why I find it worthwhile.

[domino harvey]

In lighter news, I'm throwing out a strong recommendation for something that's not eligible for voting at all: Scharpling and Wurster's brilliant Trent L Strauss call from the Best Show on WFMU. For those not familiar with the duo, Scharpling hosts the aforementioned radio show, which features weekly calls from Jon Wurster assuming the full personality of a character, often from the fictional New Jersey town of Newbridge, who engages the host in unexpected narratives live on the air. If I had to pick the single smartest work of satire of the last ten years, it'd be the collected works of these two, hands down.

In this bit, an angry listener calls into the show to lambast Scharpling for mocking George Clooney's self-important comments at the 2006 Oscars. Through the course of discussion, it's revealed the caller is Trent L Strauss, a slasher-film (or "extreme cinema" as he insists those in the industry prefer) director, who talks about his career (complete with a litany of directed film titles so finely tuned that you can tell the duo did their homework) and his latest opus, the Tool Belt Killer. The less spoiled in advance, the better, as the whole point is the slow burn of the absurdism. Being long-form radio comedy, it requires some patience and attention, but this bit features many of the duo's strengths, including a satiric attack so accurate that it often fools casual listeners, Wurster's ability to give comedic cadence to even the most mundane descriptors, and the duo's ability to weave a complete visual picture of an utterly insane premise (after listening I always feel like I did see the Tool Belt Killer). Scharpling and Wurster released a severely edited version of this bit on one of their CDs a few years back, but this is the original forty minute live broadcast version.

Scharpling and Wurster "The Tool Belt Killer"

[Mr Sausage]

Scharpling and Wurster "The Tool Belt Killer"

I don't know why, but "Facepeelers 1-4 and 6" had me in stitches. Number 5 did not quite reach the same quality of face peeling set by number 4?

Thanks for that.

[YnEoS]

Today I had myself a little Maurice Tourneur double feature based on 2 recommendations from this thread.

The Man With Wax Faces - Kind of a slow build up, but being only 11 minutes long the time flies by. The ending did actually get me a bit so this was quite enjoyable. The film damage as mentioned before is pretty sexy. Not sure though if I'd put this film on my list for it's brief period of effective horror against so many features. Certainly worth checking out though for its run time.

La Diable du Main - This was really enjoyable to watch. Beautiful cinematography, wonderful dialog, and a great attention to small details that kept me latched onto the story for the whole run time. Unfortunately while I might put this on a list of "favorite movies in the horror genre" I don't think I'd put it on a list of "favorite horror movies", which is to say that is has enough horror imagery to fit into the genre, but I didn't really find it frightening as a traditional horror film, though I was quite wrapped up in the story. Won't be making my list, but I highly recommend others check it out, just cause it's so damn good to watch.


Seeing The Man with Wax faces made me think about silent horror films and which ones would make it into my list. Certainly at least 1 Lon Chaney title if not several. Also reminded me of one of my favorite Horror comedy shorts which will very likely appear on my list.

Spotlight Title (If I'm allowed a 4th short as my final spotlight):

Au secours! - Just revisited this horror comedy from Abel Gance and Max Linder. Another place a bet to stay in a haunted place film, though instead of the usual overnight, it's just for 1 hour. So the set up is quick and Max quickly has non-stop scares and gags thrown at him when he enters the haunted castle. Gance uses the haunted house to try out some crazy cinematography techniques and rapid editing that aren't always effective but are fun to watch, but overall the cinematography is more subdued, and allow the various prop gags to play out uninterrupted. I have to say I find this film legitimately frightening while simultaneously hilarious, which is exactly what I want from a horror comedy. Max Linder is wonderful in this, in addition to just being comically brilliant, he also puts forth some really convincing acting when he shitting-himself-scared by the very end of the film, and really makes you feel it. He's really one of the most brilliant silent comedians, and though it seems quite a few people were doing these horror-comedies around the same time, this one is by far my favorite.

[Mr Sausage]

The Man With Wax Faces - Kind of a slow build up, but being only 11 minutes long the time flies by. The ending did actually get me a bit so this was quite enjoyable. The film damage as mentioned before is pretty sexy. Not sure though if I'd put this film on my list for it's brief period of effective horror against so many features. Certainly worth checking out though for its run time.

If anybody is interested, the writer of this movie, Andre de Lorde, was the chief playwright of the Theatre de Grand Guignol in Paris, specializing in the one-act horror plays that made the theatre so famous (you can read one of them here). His plays were filled with extravagant madnesses and psychoses and usually ended in some kind of outrageous (occasionally ironic) scene of murder.

As well, the man who played the wax museum overseer was an actor from the Grand Guignol's troupe, a fact that'll be unsurprising given how he looks.

[Lighthouse]

I think that Martyrs is a very remarkable film, and a remarkable viewing experience.

[Matt]

I think that Martyrs is a very remarkable film, and a remarkable viewing experience.

Maybe you could remark on why you feel that way.

[swo17]

Silent Horror Guide

This is probably not an entirely comprehensive list (I would invite others to fill in what they believe are my gaps) and many of these should be obvious to those already well versed in the silent era, but if nothing else, I'm typing some of these out just to see how horror I think they are, and who agrees with me. (Most are replete with horror imagery, though I still need to think about whether I consider some of them to be "horror films.")

After Death, The Dying Swan, and Daydreams (Yevgeni Bauer) - available on Mad Love: The Films of Yevgeni Bauer and Early Russian Cinema, Vol. 7
I believe the forum has already agreed upon Bauer being the first "greatest director in the world." These, among his best films, are obsessed with death and filled with ghost visitations and nightmare imagery.

Au secours! (Abel Gance)
Seconding YnEoS's recommendation.

The Avenging Conscience (D.W. Griffith)
The Kino DVD cover cites this as "the first great American horror film." I suppose I agree.

The Bewitched Inn and The 400 Tricks of the Devil (Georges Méliès) - available in the Flicker Alley set
If you care to go all the way back to cinema's earliest days, or if you just really liked Hugo, there are probably plenty of Méliès shorts you could watch for this project, featuring wizards, devils, decapitated heads, etc. These are the two IMDb tells me are horror films.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and The Hands of Orlac (Robert Wiene)
Caligari was probably my first or second silent film--I assume it needs no introduction. Orlac is definitely worth seeing as well, even if the story was bettered a decade later by the excellent Mad Love and 80 years later by an episode of Angel.

The Cat and the Canary and The Man Who Laughs (Paul Leni)
I especially recommend the latter, which really serves as a warning for our times about how creepy Lana del Rey's face will look if she has any more plastic surgery done.

Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler (Fritz Lang)
Testament feels more like a horror film to me, but this is playing partly in the same sandbox. I'm curious what others think.

The Fall of the House of Usher (Jean Epstein)
A flat out masterpiece--horror as poetry.

Faust and Nosferatu (F.W. Murnau)
Some of Murnau's earlier films dabble in horror as well but these two seem like the behemoths in the canon to me, which you've either already seen or need to.

Frankenstein (J. Searle Dawley) - Internet Archive
A pretty good Edison short.

Il fuoco (Giovanni Pastrone) - hosting here
A great, creepy film that's perhaps a bit of a stretch as a horror film, but if the Bauers are then so is this, I think. Deranged love leads to madness.

The Golem and The Student of Prague (Paul Wegener)
The sequence of the creation of the Golem is one of the most haunting of any I've seen from the silent era. Prague is also worthwhile (though unfortunately only available from Alpha video) but obviously I prefer Arthur Robison's sound version (one of my spotlights).

Häxan (Benjamin Christensen)
You've seen it, right? It's a Criterion.

Homunculus (Otto Rippert) - link to where I'm sharing this here
Unfortunately only a relatively small portion of this survives (like if we only had one episode of Les vampires) but this should still not be missed. The creature here is like Frankenstein's monster endowed with Hitler's brain and Mitt Romney's persistence. You can apparently also stream this at the George Eastman House's website.

L'inferno (Bertolini, Padovan, & de Liguoro)
Set in hell, with lots of decapitated heads and stuff. That's horror, right?

The Man with Wax Faces (Maurice Tourneur)
One of my spotlights.

A Page of Madness (Teinosuke Kinugasa) - link here
Hopefully you recorded this off TCM last month. If not, or if you want to hear it with the great In the Nursery score, there's the above link. Not to be missed.

The Penalty (Worsley), The Phantom of the Opera (Julian), and The Unknown (Browning) - the last of these available on TCM's Lon Chaney collection
Lon Chaney physically tortured himself to make these movies for you. (The bulk of The Penalty even required him to walk around on his kneecaps!) The least you can do is watch them.

The Phantom Carriage (Victor Sjöström)
Shiny new transfer this year thanks to Criterion.

Secrets of a Soul (G.W. Pabst)
You know who's scary? Psychoanalysts. The dream sequences in this are emblematic of the height of German Expressionism.

Sir Arne's Treasure (Mauritz Stiller)
Our forum's #1 film from the first 30 years of cinema. But is it a horror film? The whole idea of murderous guilt and being stalked by the ghosts of your victims would seem to serve this reading.

There It Is (Bowers & Muller) - available on More Treasures from American Film Archives, Disc 2
Another silly haunted house film, like Au secours! but also, oh so much more. The effects here are completely insane, and have to be seen to be believed. This movie really should be discussed as much as, if not more than, Citizen Kane.

Unheimliche Geschichten (Richard Oswald)
aka Eerie Tales. A good early example of the horror anthology film.

Warning Shadows (Arthur Robison)
Another good example of German Expressionism, including some of the shadowplay usually associated with Lotte Reiniger.

[YnEoS]

Silent Horror Supplement

Une Excursion Incoherente aka Travelers' Nightmares (Segundo de Chomon) - This film no doubt owes a lot of Melies nightmare film formula, but definitely ups the ante with a bunch of new innovations. This might be the earliest example of "gross-out horror" I've seen, where the travelers cut open their food to find it filled with worms and disgusting insects. It also features among other things, stop-motion animation, silhouettes, 2D animation, and crazy monsters. A treasure trove of pioneering special effects for 1909. If you don't have the Spanish Segundo de Chomon DVD, you can watch this early horror gem on youtube right here.

The Bells (James Young) - Starring Lionel Barrymore with an early performance by Boris Karloff as a hypnotist. Psychological horror film about a guilty conscience of having committed a murder. Pretty effective film, and Karloff gives a great performance for the short minutes he's on screen.

Noidan Kirot aka Witches Curse (Teuvo Puro) - Finnish horror film that might be considered an early example of the Rape Revenge genre. A really fascinating but perhaps flawed film. For starters as with a lot of these Nordic silents, we get tons of beautiful landscape shots, and a cool climactic ski chase at the end. The storyline hits on a lot of fascinating topics intelligently, and it feels like each of these could've been a brilliant film if it focused on them and explored them in detail. But instead it skips around and feels unfocused, often leaving ideas behind just when they were getting interesting. Also a tricky case of how deserving this is for a horror list, since a lot of the supernatural more traditional horror elements are often cheesy, but the real-life horror aspects are much better handled. Worth a watch, if anything just to break up the stream of German and American silent horror films.

The Ghost Train (Géza von Bolváry) - Germany-British co-production of the horror-crime-mystery branding with light comedy sprinkled throughout. Lots of fun to watch, and quite visually inventive utilizing stylized inter-titles, miniatures, wire-work, stop-motion animation, and a bunch of other fun visual gags. Not a great film, but definitely an exceptional and superior work of the silent horror genre.

Starring Lon Chaney

The Black Bird (Tod Browning) - In isolation this might be one of the weaker Chaney Browning collaborations. It fits into the usual Chaney formula without much solid character development. However I would argue it also uses the audiences familiarity with Chaney films as a short hand to motivate Chaney's most complicated disturbed personality yet, without need of explanations that accompany other films like The Pentalty. It also has some really nightmarish visuals like a dance number involving a life size girl's head over a puppet's body. While The Unknown is the perfect blend of efficient character driven story-telling and horror imagery for me, The Black Bird is definitely a must-see for Chaney fanatics.

West of Zanzibar (Tod Browning) - Chaney plays Dead Legs crippled king of cannibals. Torture and devastating plot twists are this films game. If you can't get enough of the Chaney formula, this is another great one.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame(Wallace Worsley) - This is one of my less favorite Chaney films, but also more explicitly horror, so check if out if you're a fan of Chaney when he's covered in make-up.

Also worth noting are He Who Gets Slapped (Sjostrom) and The Unholy Three(Browning).

Directed By Roland West

The Monster - Roland West directed horror film with Lon Chaney as the villain. Lightly comedic horror mystery about the investigation into some mysterious killings that eventually leads the main characters to an "abandoned" insane asylum. Lon Chaney plays the villain. Not an overall masterpiece but it has a few pretty chilling moments, and some awesome physical stunts. Chaney is playing a more straight-forward villain here, but is effective in the part. Maybe not a masterpiece but worth looking into if you're going to check silent horror out in detail.

The Bat - This is a murder mystery and the film invites you to try and guess the identity of The Bat, a masked super-villain. The story is pretty mediocre, but enjoyable for what it is, and this film showcases some really wonderful lighting effects. Also worth noting is that this got a sound remake in 1930 titled The Bat Whispers also directed by West, which was shot on 65mm film and is an early example of widescreen.

Horror Comedy Shorts
Worth noting that a lot of silent comedians did a short entry into the horror genre. In addition to Linder/Gance's collaboration I mentioned earlier, there's also.

The Haunted Spooks - Harold Lloyd horror-comedy. Lots of set-up before it gets to the scares, and then you know that all the scares are fake so it's not really attempting to scare the audience. Funny well made comedy, but not a particularly scary film.

The Haunted House - Buster Keaton horror-comedy. More of a horror film than the Lloyd one, but this too lets you know that the house isn't really haunted so it ends up being primarily comic. Very funny, and it even has a few scares that might've worked better if it was trying to be scary.

[swo17]

I absolutely love He Who Gets Slapped but wasn't sure I could make the case for it being a horror film. It's certainly psychologically disturbing, if that's enough. And then of course there's this:

[Lighthouse]

I think that Martyrs is a very remarkable film, and a remarkable viewing experience.

Maybe you could remark on why you feel that way.

One reason is that it tells its story up to the last disturbing consequence. Too many horror films (and thrillers even more) follow an interesting or unusual premise only up to a certain point, from which on they simply return to a usual happy end, and often by that destroy the film's potential. One of the most ridiculous (and laughable) examples is Hostel.

Martyrs has also some poetic moments and is well acted and directed, but I have to watch it again to be sure how good it is.
For me so far the best of the new wave of French slasher films ( that's if it is one).

But I see how Martyrs divides its audience.

[Lighthouse]

I have bought me the Val Lewton Box recently. Watched with a friend I Walked with a Zombie (J. Tourneur 1945). I always liked it, but didn't remembered it to be so great. My friend was also overwhelmed. Very atmospheric, still creepy in some scenes, in other scenes it looked surprisingly modern.
A masterpiece, probably the best Horror film I have ever seen. 10/10

I also watched Isle of the Dead (Mark Robson 1946). Similar atmospheric 8/10

I knew so far only 3 films of the nine (Cat People, Body Snatcher, Zombie), so I'm looking forward to the rest.

[zedz]

Thanks for the silent round-up, swo and YnEoS. I had certainly overlooked some of those, and will probably rule a few out of bounds personally, but the prospect of shoving There It Is on this list is pretty irresistable, and I don't see why horror comedies should be excluded. I will mull over He Who Gets Slapped. . .

[YnEoS]

It's tricky since a lot of Chaney's films seem to follow the same basic story structure, where Chaney is some social outcast in love with a girl, who is ultimately in love with some more attractive normal type of guy, and then his tragic pursuit to get her and eventual downfall (either just losing her, or getting killed). Not to over-simplify them, as many have other story elements, but this tragic love triangle is a key element of most of his films.

So an obvious horror film like Phantom of the Opera tells a very similar story to a completely non-horror film like Tell it to the Marines. Then between those extremes there's a whole lot of middle ground, like the Unknown which leans more towards the horror category, and He Who Gets Slapped, which leans more towards non-horror but has a lot of horror elements to it.

Personally my list is gonna go towards some of the more horror leaning border-line cases like The Unknown (competing for my number 1 position), and possibly The Black Bird and West of Zanzibar depending on how cluttered my list gets.

[masterofoneinchpunch]

...Haunted Spooks - Harold Lloyd
The Haunted House - Buster Keaton

I did a small write of both of them in October in a blathering post here but both are quite fun (though I prefer the Keaton of the two). Also the Lloyd's haunted house aspect really only comes toward the end of the short (most horrifying aspect of the film is what happened to Harold during the filming). What is your opinion on the racial aspects of that short? Is the sub-genre of "fake haunted house" actual horror (hmmm, The Ghost and Mr. Chicken)?

[Feego]

I actually just saw West of Zanzibar for the first time a couple of weeks ago and wondered whether or not it was truly horror. I ultimately came to the conclusion that it was not true horror so much as a wicked piece of irony. It's a fantastic movie, and it contains my favorite Lon Chaney performance (though there are still so many I have not seen), but I never found it as horrific as something like The Unknown.

[Feego]

And then of course there's this:

Shivers.

[puxzkkx]

I'd suggest Orphan, a really delirious throwback to exploitation horror that is cleverly reflexive about its own trashiness. It is really well-written, too, and fleshes out its 'victims' in a way that is unusually deep for contemporary horror. It really functions as more of a family drama that devolves into a horror comedy. Acting is magnificent especially by Vera Farmiga.

[tarpilot]

BLOOD DINER Jackie Kong, 1987
Motel Hell is still number one in my heart, but this is one of the more enjoyable entries in the surprisingly populous 80s-horror-comedies-about-cannibalism subgenre (one can dream!). Basically, two idiot brothers steal the brain of their dead serial killer uncle in order to resurrect some demonic god by cobbling together body parts of “immoral girls.” It’s a proud homage to H.G. Lewis, so you pretty much know what you’re getting in that respect, but the use of deliberately awful acting is occasionally inspired and the grotesque set-pieces, ranging from a nude aerobics session interrupted by a machine-gun-brandishing madman in a Reagan mask to a showdown with a Nazi pro wrestler that takes a delightfully disgusting turn, are never less than novel, which is a significant compliment, considering. Oh, there’s also a Nazi rockabilly band. Uh, maybe not so novel after all.

THE ABOMINATION Bret McCormick, 1986
Oh God, and I was naïve enough to think Circus of Fear would be the worst movie I’d see for this project. Unwatchable past the lo-fi monster puppet in the first five minutes, so you’d do just as well to take in a GWAR video.

THE INCUBUS John Hough, 1982
John Cassavetes in one of his late-career for-hire gigs stars as a small town doctor attempting to get to the bottom of a series of brutal rape-murders, which may or may not (hint: may) have something to with the violent dreams that plague his daughter’s boyfriend. Aggressively unpleasant in its exploration of dreams-as-malformed-desire, and unafraid of getting squirmingly explicit with a number of usually-downplayed tropes. Let’s begin with what is probably the film’s most notorious feature: the intense sexual desire of Cassavetes’ character for his own daughter. This is not a case of carefully-edited glances; this is a case of peeping on her as she steps out of the shower, complete with an obvious grimace of suppressed arousal. The attraction is not-so-subtly alluded to at subsequent points: when asked who the picture of his daughter is that he keeps on his mantle, Cassavetes’ character responds that “she’s the woman I live with”, and there’s a sharp blink-and-miss-it exchange of POVs between the daughter and The New Girlfriend, the significance of which is elevated by an unusual bit of scripting concerning the ambiguous backstory of the girl’s mother and Cassavetes’ romantic, er, tastes. The ongoing struggle of suppression is paralleled at length with the boyfriend’s horror at the prospect that is he who is committing the murders in his dreams until the retarded/amazing/baffling finale, which unites the film’s numerous psychosexual threads with gusto in a manner even more disturbing for how thematically coherent it manages to be. Also unnervingly of note is the straight-faced manner in which the creature’s various perversions are discussed: the amount of semen that explodes out of it during the rapes is repeatedly touched-upon (“So much that not even the hemorrhaging could get rid of it!”), with Cassavetes exercising an impressive level of conviction with every one of his ridiculous lines. Reportedly, he directed a good deal of the picture himself, a piece of information that only makes one long more for a commentary track from Hough.

THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE John Hough, 1973
Hough’s earlier and most well-regarded feature is a more straightforward haunted house yarn, but an effective and well-composed one even if the scares grow a bit monotonous. Roddy McDowall gets to make some terrific googly eyes behind his insanely thick glasses. Won’t be making my list, but it’d be a fun double feature with The Changeling.

[Finch]

Has Zulawski's Possession been mentioned yet?

Also worth your time: Ti West's House of the Devil (especially if you like your horror building up slowly, with a greater emphasis on establishing mood and feeling instead of "action"), and the original Wicker Man.

A Top Ten would include The Leopard Man (not just my favourite horror picture but also quite possibly my favourite American film), Whale's Invisible Man, The Innocents, Alien, Ulmer's The Black Cat (would love for the cut footage to emerge and for the film to be rereleased in its original form prior to its submission to the censors) and Audition.