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?
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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