Movies
Top 10 Obscure Horror Gems For Halloween!
While pretty much every single website has their own Halloween top 10 list, we decided to try and go in a completely different direction. Horror Movie a Day and Bloody-Disgusting.com would like to present you with the TOP 10 OBSCURE HORROR GEMS FOR HALLOWEEN, a list of movies you might have never heard of until today, but should definitely see. Spice up this holiday weekend with something new!
Dont forget to also check out:
The Top 10 Made-for-TV Horror Movies of All-Time
The Top 10 Horror Comic Adaptation
The Top 10 Worst Horror Director Collapses!
The Top 10 ‘True-Story’ Horror Movies of All-time!
The Top 10 Hottest Vampire Babes of All-Time
The Top 10 Most Unusual Zombie Occupations
The 10 Lamest Days of Horror the World Has Ever Known
The 10 Stupidest Motives In Slasher Movie History!
The Top 10 Most Batsh*t Crazy Horror Movie Doctors
The Top 10 Worst Things That Could’ve Been in Brundle’s Machine… Besides a Fly
The Top 10 Best Horror Remakes of All-Time
Top 10 “Doh” Moments in Horror History
15 Reasons FOR Remaking A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET
The Top 10 Reasons Why Bela Lugosi Still Rules
Top 10 Non-Zombies in a Zombie Film
One great thing about doing Horror Movie A Day (where I watch a horror movie every day, specifically one I have never seen before) is that through the process of forcing myself to watch all these things, I occasionally find a gem that makes the whole thing worthwhile. As I stick to only movies I hadn’t seen yet, I have to dig deep into the bowels of Netflix to find enough to make sure I always have something to watch every day. This means I go into the horror selections page and just queue up whatever I haven’t seen, without bothering to look at what they are about or who is in them or anything like that.
So these are NOT the best movies I’ve ever seen, or even the best ones I’ve seen since starting the site, but rather the 10 movies I NEVER WOULD HAVE seen had I not been doing this; minor, relatively obscure gems that deserve a little more love.
I’m not the biggest fan of J-Horror, because a lot of the ones I end up seeing all feel the same (vengeful ghost, wrongful death… yadda yadda). But this one definitely stuck out; a serial killer movie with realistic nightmare sequences and some fantastic visuals. A sequel is already on the way – get on board now.
This riff on Stepfather is a lot better than I expected with that title, and while certainly not perfect, it contains the single greatest “let’s prove he’s a werewolf” scene in genre history. I don’t want to spoil it, but keep in mind that blood isn’t the only bodily fluid that can be tested….
I tend to avoid anything that belongs to the “Last House _____” subgenre, but I’m glad I gave this one a go. Like Doomsday, there’s not much originality here, but it’s a well crafted homage that doesn’t try to lie about its obvious influences (such as Chaos did). Plus, it has the only gross out gag in horror movie history that actually made me, well, gag. Kudos to Gabriele Albanesi for finally making this seasoned veteran sick!
It’s about 20 minutes overlong, and the protagonist eventually comes off less as innocent and naïve, and more just mentally disabled, but for the first hour or so, this one is delightfully mean-spirited fun. Fans of Silent Night Deadly Night should appreciate the sick sense of humor on display, and since it takes place on Halloween, it’s the next best thing to Trick R Treat for now.
Lionsgate tried to pass this one off as a zombie movie, but it’s actually more in line with Mario Bava’s Shock, with an ending that Oedipus himself would consider kind of gross. Plus, a naked chick chops up her boyfriend with an axe. In the snow!
Once considered lost, Criterion has just released a fully restored version of this wonderfully bizarre German film on a deluxe set that includes quite a few extras, considering how old/dead everyone involved with it is. Fans of Eraserhead will definitely see where Lynch got some of his ideas from, and with Let The Right One In (hopefully) reviving the “serious” vampire subgenre, now’s the perfect time to see where it all began.
Featuring Andy “Gollum” Serkis in a non makeup role, this is one of those movies that BECOMES a horror movie halfway through. And it’s a lot of fun before then as well. If you dug Severance, you should get a kick out of this one. Director Paul Andrew Williams is definitely one to watch.
Somehow this Gary Sherman chiller was always completely off my radar, but when I admitted to having never seen it, some friends were amazed. And rightfully so; this is definitely one you don’t want to miss. You get Robert Englund in a pre-Freddy role, some terrific Stan Winston effects (a rare non-monster film for him), a creepy plot, and even gratuitous nudity from Prince of Darkness’ Lisa Blount. All in all, a winner that should be name dropped more often.
Another Gary Sherman movie! If you’ve seen Creep, with Franke Potente, then some of this movie’s strength will be diffused, since that film was a complete rip-, er, “homage” of this one. But one thing that film lacked was Donald Pleasence, in a role that’s even more delightful than Dr. Loomis (just trade crazy for drunk). As the cop who is supposed to investigate the strange disappearances connected to the subway, but keeps drinking (tea or booze, depending on his mood), he elevates what would be a rather straightforward “monster in the tunnels” movie into a true classic.
If you like killer kid movies, then this one belongs in your collection by any means necessary. Cathy is a little girl possessed by the spirit of her aunt, and she is a foul mouthed horrible little girl throughout most of the film. It’s poorly made (and the DVD is hardly demo quality) but the power of Cathy’s hateful attitude toward pretty much everyone in the movie more than makes up for it.
Instead of watching the original for the millionth time, or watching any of the three versions of the remake and trying to decide which is the least disappointing, why not give this unjustly overlooked movie another chance? Ignore the title, just watch it as you would any other standalone movie, and enjoy one of the strangest and joyously mean-spirited movies of the 80s. Stonehenge!
The trailer for Ti West’s upcoming adaptation of A Christmas Carol raised a lot of eyebrows when it dropped earlier this week. While plenty of folks initially dismissed Ebenezer as a derivative project meant to cash in on the recent wave of unnecessary prequels that expand the backstory of beloved characters (such as 2023’s Wonka), Charles Dickens’ original novel already made a point of exploring Ebenezer Scrooge’s origins in detail – meaning that this new film is likely just a particularly faithful adaptation of the source material under a different name.
Couple that with the fact that the movie is being helmed by a genuine horror auteur and I think it’s safe to say that the latest iteration of the first modern ghost story is in good hands.
That being said, one detail that immediately jumped out at me during the brief teaser (other than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod to Johnny Depp’s iconic bedroom death scene from the original A Nightmare on Elm Street) is the fact that many of Ebenezer’s ghosts appear to have been directly lifted from the iconic John Leech illustrations that accompanied the first edition of Dickens’ novel.
Here are a couple of stills from the trailer compared to the original artwork:
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
The Phantoms in ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘Ebenezer’
Marley’s Ghost in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
Mainly working with old-school wood and steel engravings that would later be transferred to print, Leech was instrumental in crafting the iconic look of history’s most influential phantoms – especially since Dickens is said to have been deeply involved with the creation of these so-called “comic illustrations.”
And since the novel is commonly said to have popularized spiritualism in Victorian England, much of the ghostly iconography that we still see in genre media to this very day (including some of Ti West’s previous films) can be traced back to the author’s partnership with Leech.
Ebenezer won’t be the first A Christmas Carol adaptation to borrow heavily from these designs, but I can appreciate how Ti West is incorporating an important part of horror history into his latest film.
Ebenezer will be available in theaters starting November 13.
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