Calibre (Netflix Original)
Ok, this is one of those films that treads the line between horror, and very dark thriller. There's no supernatural aspect, all the characters are ordinary people, no backwards cults or anything like that. However, I put this firmly into the category of Folk Horror, for both the central story being a clash of urban and rural, and for the fact it's clear from early on that this tale is not going to have a happy ending. Not going to lie, this is quite a grim tale, but one that never feels excessively so, it doesn't go into the sheer misery porn areas that some of these sort of stories do. It's simply the story of two guys who end up digging themselves deeper and deeper into one very deep hole, and being forced to confront the part of their relationship that lead them there.
Cam (Netflix Original)
Here's one I got to see on the big screen at last year's London Film Festival. Fans of Black Mirror, this Netflix offering should be right up your alley. A powerful mindf*** of a concept that tackles issues of online identity in the streaming social media age. Now the horror genre has often been accused as being fairly conservative about matters of sexuality; look at the cliches of slashers for starters. However, we have here an excellent sex-positive horror experience; our lead is a camgirl, and not only is she not demonised by the story for that, the crime against her is that she's not allowed to do her job anymore. Furthermore, this has a fairly balanced look at the place of sex workers in modern society, which comes from the screenwriter Isa Mazzei having worked in that field before. Before you ask, it's not that explicit, it deftly avoids falling into the trap of being exploitation; the core of the story is the Philip K. Dick-esque conceit of the digital doppelganger. Want something very different, have a stream of this!
Castlevania: Seasons 1 & 2 (Netflix, Season 1 is also available on Blu Ray)
This series kicks all manner of arse! With a script by Warren Ellis, this a superb use of the lore of the video game series (which no, you really don't need to have played before to enjoy this... although you should play some of them!), and gothic tropes in general. The version of Dracula presented here, voiced by Graham McTavish, is a fascinating new take that I genuinely don't think we've seen quite the like of before; a mixture of bloodthirsty, world-weary, and more human than he'd like to admit. His Hobbit co-star Richard Armitage is also fun as a version of Trevor Belmont who basically sounds like if one of the cast of Withnail & I became a vampire hunter. There are a lot more fun characters, and marvelous dialogue, but of course it's the art and action that are the stars, full points to Powerhouse Animation (who are also working on that new He-Man series). There's an action scene towards the climax that features one of the classic pieces of music from the games, Bloody Tears, that was one of the most thrilling bits of vampire hunting I've ever seen. There is a third season in the works, definitely looking forward to that, but these two alone form a good complete story arc, definitely check this out if you haven't already. Also, between this and Bloodstained, this demonstrates how to get good Castlevania stuff these days; have someone other than Konami make it! #FucKonami
The Dark Half
I often like to have on here some older titles that are getting a re-release, so here's one Eureka Entertainment are bringing to UK Blu Ray in this month. You've probably noticed that we're in something of a glut of Stephen King adaptations at the moment, with It Chapter Two having hit... well, maybe not really "hit" the box office recently, and Doctor Sleep due on Halloween itself. This is one of my favourite underrated King adaptations; the book is a big unwieldy thing (I know, what a shock for Stephen King!), but this version trims things down, gets to the meat of the matter very well. What's more, it's directed by George A. Romero, who of course worked with King before on Creepshow 1 & 2, so he had a real knack for fusing their styles. Unfortunately, this project was not a happy one for Romero; never one to get on well with big studios, the film was caught up in the collapse of Orion Pictures, so it barely got a proper release, and he went into a retirement for seven years as a result. Now though I think we're in a better position to re-evaluate it as a little gem of both the King and Romero cinematic catalogues, and I hope you give it a try too.
Ghost Stories
I've raved about the stage play this is based upon before, which incidentally is coming back to the West End this October, for a few months before going on a nationwide tour. This film version is really damn good too, a great translation from stage to screen. I got to see this with a live commentary from the creators Andy Nyman and Jeremy Dyson at last year's Frightfest; the two have a clear love and understanding of the genre that translates to this film ideally. I'm not going to say too much, as Ghost Stories is one of those things it's best to go into as blind as possible. All I'll say is see this film, maybe go see the play, perhaps even pick up the script of the play at some point, experience these tales!
Memory: The Origins of Alien
To mix things up, here's something more horror adjacent, a documentary about one of the classics of the genre. Director Alexandre O. Philippe has found an interesting little niche for himself in looking at genre classics in a new light. He previously gave us Earthlings: Ugly Bags of Mostly Water, about Klingon language speakers, and The People vs. George Lucas, examination the difference of how fans view Star Wars to the way it's creator did when he made the prequels. In terms of horror, he made something I watched for 2017's challenge, 78/52, breaking down the impact Psycho's shower scene had on the genre, and indeed cinema in general. In a couple of days I'll be seeing his latest one, Leap of Faith, which uses an extended interview with William Friedkin to examine The Exorcist. Just realised by Dogwoof Entertainment on disc and on demand though is Memory, which has a look at the development of Alien, with a specific look at the fears and anxieties of the time it tapped into, and the earlier works and lore that directly inspired it. If you're interested in seeing the origins of an iconic piece of work, in its fortieth anniversary year, do have a look at this one.
Overlord
Where were all of you when this came out last year? This should have been a box office smash! It's The Guns of Navarone mashed up with Re-Animator, and it lives up to that description, how is that not awesome? Sorry for getting angry, but I seriously wonder why this barely scraped back at the worldwide box-office its production budget when it had a rock-solid marketing campaign (which it definitely didn't get back that budget for!)? Well now the first Halloween after its release is coming up, it's time to change that! Everyone, go out and buy a copy of this (yes, buy, not stream!), it's a solid chunk of B-Movie fun featuring great body horror sequences, Nazis getting blown up, and Wyatt Russell showing how much he's inherited from his dad Kurt (which will come in handy for his role in The Falcon & The Winter Soldier). Seriously, I was thinking for ages "this guy sounds so much like Snake Plissken" before I realised. Oh, and speaking of the opening, watch it on a big TV with a good sound system for the full effect; the first ten minutes were one hell of an experience when I saw it on a preview last year.
Possum
Who here remembers Garth Marenghi's Darkplace? Well, the mind behind Garth, Matthew Holness, has made a new, series horror film, Possum, based on a short story he wrote for an anthology called The New Uncanny. This is the sort of thing that usually gets lumped in as general "psychological horror", and that's not that bad a description, but An Uncanny Tale is a far better description. This draws a lot on the style of seventies British productions, such as the BBC's Ghost Stories for Christmas, or Alan Clarke's Penda's Fen, even down to being shot on celluloid with a soundtrack by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Do not go into this expecting anything like Darkplace though; this is dark, gets-under-your-skin stuff through and through. And I wouldn't have it any other way!
Shin Godzilla
OK, not quite horror, but I like to feature anything involving monsters in my Halloween viewing. Besides, the version of the big G in this film is one of the most monstrous and disturbing creations in any kaiju film, he's been full on Cronenberged! Now earlier this year there was a fresh interest in Neon Genesis Evangelion, after it turned up on Netflix; well if you are an Eva fan, you should check this film out, as it's co-directed by Hideaki Anno, and he does bring a major dose of Eva to this project (even down to some of the music). This is radically different take on Godzilla, with this actually being the first Japanese Godzilla movie not to be a direct sequel to the 1954 original, this is a straight back to square one reboot. Now your mileage may vary on this depending on how much you can tolerate lots of scenes of civil servants having meetings; but I really dug it for being a great satire on how the structure of a modern government can often be a major hindrance when trying to deal with a crisis no-one saw coming, as Japan saw for real with Fukushima. Also, the scenes of Godzilla are among some of the best ever filmed, with the moment he unleashes one of his signature weapons a moment of terror and awe. Plus, the very final shot is genuinely haunting. Apparently Anno is going to be doing a Shin Ultraman next; now that I've got to see!
Terrified (Shudder Exclusive)
If you do take my advice and give Shudder a go, do make sure you try this one a try. An Argentinian production (its original title is Aterrados), this one goes for pure dread and scares, nothing else, and it succeeds wonderfully in that regard. If you give it a cursory glance, you'll probably think it's a standard haunting movie, but it soon turns out there's a lot more to it than that. The forces at work in this story are a lot more weird, we never find out everything about them (good, nothing kills dread like knowing too much), but we do get a fair idea of what sort of beings they are, and how they interact with the world. It's a novel concept that leads to some great scare sequences. This is one to watch if you really want to scare yourself silly; stream it to the biggest screen with best sound system you can, with the lights off, it's an experience that will stay with you.
The White Reindeer
One more older film with a re-release, this time a Finnish film from all the way back in 1952. Based on folklore from the Sami peoples of the northernmost regions of the country, this is very much taking cues from 40s horror films, but putting a different spin on them. There are shades of The Wolf Man, and Val Lewton's Cat People, but they were both studio bound, this is all filmed up in the mountains, gorgeous to look at. Having an almost documentary feel to a lot of the filming does make the supernatural scenes pop that much more, gives them much more of a dreamlike power. It recently got a full 4K restoration, which I picked up a Blu Ray of whilst in Helsinki for the 2017 Worldcon (it has good English subtitles thankfully!). You don't have to go quite so far to see it; Eureka Video released it on UK Blu Ray earlier this year, and I do urge you to pick it up and give it a watch, it deserves its place amongst the gems of old-school black & white classic chillers. Also, with it's Lapland setting, and storyline featuring reindeer, it's a good one to see on the run-up to Christmas too!
You Might be the Killer (Shudder Exclusive)
This is a satirical deconstruction of American horror movie tropes starring some Joss Whedon alumni including Fran Kranz... no, I haven't copied and pasted from a The Cabin in the Woods, article by mistake! Whilst there is quite a bit of similarity between the two films, YMBTK goes it's own way, notably focusing very much on slasher franchises. In fact, this film has it's basis on a Twitter conversation between authors Sam Sykes and Chuck Wendig (before you click on that, it's a very funny read, but it does give a few of the film's surprises away), and it takes the core of that weird discussion and makes a very fun film out of it. Fully tongue in cheek, with some great meta-textual games (like how when flashbacks happen, a caption announces how many of the camp counsellors are dead at that point, to keep track of when it is), quite a good creepy bit of lore, with a cast who all clearly get the joke. This is a tonne of fun that can easily join the ranks of Cabin, Tucker & Dale vs. Evil, and The Final Girls in terms of love letters to bad horror movies. It may be a bit shallower than those, but it's still a very charming bit of slasher silliness.
So, that should be plenty to get you going in your own Halloween viewing. If you can, please donate to the fundraiser, every penny helps. Tomorrow, October begins, and on here I'll be doing more Halloween blogs, talking about how my challenge is going, and giving some special Canary Duty reports from my time at the London Film Festival!
So, that should be plenty to get you going in your own Halloween viewing. If you can, please donate to the fundraiser, every penny helps. Tomorrow, October begins, and on here I'll be doing more Halloween blogs, talking about how my challenge is going, and giving some special Canary Duty reports from my time at the London Film Festival!
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