Editorials
Through the Cracks: 5 Underseen Halloween Horror Films!
As hardcore horror fans, sometimes it feels like you’ve seen it all. There are no surprises left to discover, no classic slasher film waiting around the corner to thrill you and slap a childlike grin on your face. You try to feed the fix by searching through lists of “The Scariest Films You’ve Never Seen” only to come across titles like “May”, “The Descent”, and “Suspiria”. These are, of course, films that us diehards know and love all too well. That’s where I come in, dear reader. We’ll be taking a deep dive into the bowels of obscure horror from decades past and uncovering titles that might have fallen “Through the Cracks”.
When it comes to horror fans and Halloween, two things are a given. One, we will most certainly increase our horror movie viewing habits in the month of October. Two, in that timeframe we will watch at least one of the following, Trick r’ Treat or John Carpenter’s original Halloween (or one of the myriad of sequels). Outside of those two stone cold classics, the subgenre of fright films celebrating All Hallow’s Eve is surprisingly light. Given my passion for dusting off obscure titles from the past that may have gone unseen or forgotten, I decided this a great opportunity to highlight some Halloween titles you might have missed.
Trick or Treat (1986)
No, this carries no relation to the previously mentioned anthology classic from writer/director Michael Dougherty. Trick or Treat is a rock n’ roll slasher that attempts to launch a new Freddy Krueger -esque franchise villain in the form of Sammi Curr. Curr is the wisecracking lead singer of a metal band who dies and is resurrected by what else? A record being played backwards, of course. With cameos by rock legends Ozzy Osbourne and Gene Simmon, Trick or Treat is well worth a blu ray re-release here in the states.
Satan’s Little Helper (2004)
Genre vet, Jeff Lieberman (Squirm, Just Before Dawn), directs this subversive Halloween tale. The story revolves around a kid named Dougie, apparently not the brightest bulb, who mistakes a sadistic serial killer in a Satan mask as the real life personification of his favorite video game character. He basically tags along as ya know…Satan’s Little Helper, aiding and abetting this madman as he slices and dices his way through their small town on Halloween night. Dougie thinks it’s all a game until it’s much too late. This is a fun one off from a director who hasn’t been that active in the genre since the 80s. Not enough people have seen this gem, and they need to get on it.
Hellbent (2004)
When it comes to gay-centric horror films we haven’t got a lot to be proud of. Most titles that fall under the sub-genre are just piss poor excuses to have some muscle bound dude take his shirt off while his eyes glow or something. Seriously, DeCoteau, you can do better. That said, it’s not like a homosexual horror film has to carry with it the weight of an entire civil rights movement on its back. It does, however, need to be entertaining. In 2004, a film entitled Hellbent started making its way across the festival circuit. It was a slasher film about a hulking beast of a man in a devil costume slicing up a group of friends out celebrating on Halloween night. Sounds pretty generic, right? Exactly! That’s why it works. Yes, the characters are mostly gay men in West Hollywood, but the focus of the film isn’t their sexuality (like most LGBTQ cinema in general). At the end of the day, this is a well made, fairly suspenseful slice n’ dice.
Lady in White (1988)
Lady in White exudes the exact type of Amblin riffing, nostalgia fueled entertainment that has driven It and Stranger Things to the top of pop culture notoriety. Nostalgia before nostalgia was cool, I suppose. Lady in White is almost overwhelmingly genuine, crossing the line into schmaltz at times. That’s part of the charm, though, and you’ll quickly find yourself remembering that feeling of being a kid when everything supernatural seemed natural and ghosts were always chilling outside your window…or under your bed.
Cemetery of Terror (1985)
An insano Mexican horror film from the director of the equally bonkers Don’t Panic, Cemetery of Terror is a boatload of fun. You’ve got a creepy old graveyard, a crap ton of zombies, the corpse of a recently deceased serial killer, and a group of randy kids looking to have fun with the occult on Halloween night. What could go wrong? A lot, naturally. For those who love their seasonal spooks with a full plate of cheese, Cemetery of Terror is a true undiscovered gem.
That’s just a sampling of Halloween horror b-sides. There’s several more, the quality of which I can’t speak on, that I’m hoping to dig into by October 31st. Any lesser known Halloween flicks you wish more people knew about?
I first heard about The Mandela Catalogue through a couple of nephews who were obsessed with the ARG’s sinister mythology. It was only after watching Wendigoon’s in-depth analysis of the series that I realized just how deep this rabbit hole goes.
In fact, I’d already been exposed to the nightmarish visuals of Alex Kister’s YouTube creation for years at that point without even realizing that it was the origin of several viral “cursed images” and spooky memes that had leaked into the wider internet – with this viral element actually being a part of the Catalogue’s overarching narrative.
Flash-forward to 2026 and the unprecedented success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms has led to Hollywood betting on horrific internet properties with existing fanbases, which means that Kister’s unique hybrid of both religious and analog horror is finally headed to the big screen with a script written by Kister himself alongside Tyler Clifton.
While this news shouldn’t be too surprising if you’ve been keeping up with the ongoing success of The Mandela Catalogue (both myself and Wendigoon having previously predicted that the series would inevitably make the jump to theaters one day), plenty of horror fans are likely confused as to why so many folks are excited for what appears to be a Hollywood adaptation of a series of creepy .jpeg images under a VHS filter.
With that in mind, today I’d like to invite fellow readers to accompany me as I explore the origins of Alex Kister’s viral hit and attempt to explain exactly why we should all be excited about the Mandela Catalogue adaptation!
From High School Writing Project to Internet Horror Phenomenon
The first seeds of The Mandela Catalogue were sown when Kister was still in high school and developed a writing project subverting religious tropes in a world where biblical history had been altered by demonic forces. A little while later, Kister came across an analog horror contest on Reddit and decided to adapt his ideas into a standalone video where he would edit a religious kids’ cartoon –The Beginner’s Bible: The Nativity, to be specific- into something far creepier. This is how the iconic Overthrone video was born, with this viral short film taking on a life of its own as fans demanded more eerie content from Kister.
Though the video was originally meant to be a one-and-done sort of affair, with Kister actually regretting some of its primitive visuals and considering the editing amateurish and “YouTube-Poop-like” when compared to his current standards, fan reaction and free time during the COVID-19 pandemic encouraged the (then) seventeen-year-old filmmaker to continue producing content set in this same world. The Mandela Catalogue name was inspired by the Mandela Effect conspiracy theory, as the series would slowly begin to explore the subtle horror of alternate histories.
Inspired by existential dread brought on by extended periods of quarantine as well as a personal crisis of faith, Kister continued to expand his alternate timeline where the rise of Christianity had been prevented by what was presumably the Devil disguised as the Archangel Gabriel. This alternate course of fictional events led to the existence of certain paranormal anomalies that had come to be accepted as “normal” by the 1990s, which is why most of the series’ supernatural horror is presented in such a matter-of-fact manner.
Most of this background information and religious lore is delivered by increasingly cryptic broadcasts and in-universe PSAs, as well as the occasional found footage video, that often have to be decoded by clever viewers. Of course, it’s the consistently disturbing imagery that made the series so popular – much of which was originally created by Kister on a smartphone!
The Alternates: Horror’s Most Unsettling Modern Monsters
The show’s early episodes mostly take place within the fictional Mandela County in Wisconsin and depict life in a world where demonic entities are capable of using media to enter our reality. This process usually involves scaring victims into killing themselves and then repurposing their bodies as horrific doppelgangers referred to as “Alternates”. This terrifying phenomenon has become so common that local police already have specialized procedures in place to deal with the issue, though this usually consists of simply ignoring calls for help so as to avoid spreading so-called “Metaphysical Awareness Disorder” any further.
Over time, Kister would expand this mythology and incorporate different kinds of Alternates into the mix, though the story never stopped deconstructing religious concepts. The series’ second volume exponentially increased both video quality and the overall narrative scope as we began to follow the lives of characters who had already grown up in this dystopian hellscape where the government is forced to prohibit religion, television, and even mirrors in the hopes of mitigating the damage done by the ongoing invasion of otherworldly entities.
The really interesting part comes into play when you realize exactly how the Alternates make use of scary media in order to spread their demonic influence, with the analog horror of it all being a diegetic part of the story and something of a memetic trap orchestrated by the false Gabriel.
I particularly appreciate how some characters begin to suspect that there’s something wrong with their version of reality and that things weren’t meant to play out this way, especially when Mark utters the haunting line “who have I been praying to all this time?” That’s why I think The Mandela Catalogue is an effective piece of religious horror even if you don’t subscribe to the Christian worldview, as the mere idea of a world where evil has already won is a universally terrifying concept in and of itself. Not only that, but the series’ uncanny analog imagery alone is already worth the price of admission, as you’ve likely already noticed by looking at the pictures accompanying this article.
Why The Feature Adaptation Could Be Horror’s Next Big Success
It’s actually been a whole year since Kister first announced that he had been working on a feature-length screenplay for a Mandela Catalogue movie since 2022, with his proposed story following an ensemble of high-school graduates who uncover a supernatural conspiracy after the mysterious disappearance of a fellow student. This premise sounds similar to narrative elements present in the series’ second volume, but I’m pretty sure that Kister is going to go the Kane Parsons route and make the movie more of a spin-off than a re-imagining of its source material.
While notable Hollywood producers like Aaron B. Koontz, Scott Stuber, and Steven Spielberg himself are backing the upcoming project, I feel like there’s no one better to adapt this deeply personal exploration of faith and the dark side of communication than the person who first came up with it. That’s why I can’t wait to see Kister’s work on the big screen, as I have a feeling that this young filmmaker is the next one on the list about to make cinematic history – especially since this is clearly a passion project that has been in the works for years at this point!
That being said, there’s always a chance that the film could end up unleashing a fresh wave of Alternate incursions, but I guess that’s just a risk we’ll have to take.
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