From Aliens to Zombies

Vampires, witches, and ghosts. Old hat. Let’s get some solid scary alien and zombie flicks on the TV tonight.

Aliens

The vegetable man cometh.

This Howard Hawks production is a great example of 1950s sci-fi sensibilities. The Thing from Another World (1951) comes from the golden age of sci-fi and perfectly blends elements of horror. An alien is thawed out in a remote polar research facility and proceeds to pick the personnel off. Classic American science versus military narrative (but science is the villain here). Crackling, witty dialogue and some spooky snow terror mayhem.

Don’t look now. It’s communism! Or maybe nationalism.

Embrace the paranoia of everyone you know being replaced by an alien pod copy. It’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)! An absolute classic that feels straight out of the Twilight Zone. The terror of conformity surges through our button-down protagonist’s veins.

There’s a Visine for that.

Evil kid movies feel like their cheating a bit. Kids are already pretty weird and creepy and Village of the Damned (1960) casts them as demonic alien entities invading a small town and causing trouble by controlling people’s minds. And only George Sanders can save the day!

Donald Sutherland holds Brooke Adams.

I enjoy this Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) more than the original. It dials up the grit and goo and the horror, while still remaining classy. Leonard Nimoy and Jeff Goldblum co-star in this masterful invasion flick.

H.R. Giger creature designs put to good use.

Ridley Scott’s best movie, for my money, will always be Alien (1979). Sigourney Weaver kicks ass on board the spaceship Nostromo as we follow the horrific life cycle of a xenomorph. Absolutely brilliant film.

Kurt Russell is perfection.

I do love the original, but John Carpenter’s remake of The Thing (1982) is something wholly unique. This time the alien is a changeling. It becomes the snowbound men it kills, ratcheting up the paranoia and terror. Great practical effects from Rob Bottin make this a truly memorable sci-fi horror flick.

Let’s simulate a probing. I’ll use my index finger.

I still haven’t seen Fire in the Sky, but I will recommend Communion (1989). Christopher Walken plays a man who has been having weird dreams that are hard to remember. Is he going insane or is he the victim of recurring alien abductions? The scenes with the aliens are the stuff of nightmares. They don’t make sense. The logic becomes muddled and the images are confounding. And that’s part of the point. We are perhaps not meant to understand.

Forget Star Wars. This is the John Boyega sci-fi flick to watch.

Part action movie and part crime drama, Attack the Block (2011) is an explosive bit of British sci-fi filmmaking. Inventive monsters and plenty of cockney hip-hop swagger.

What a cast.

Edgar Wright closes his Cornetto Trilogy with some biting satire and robotic aliens full of blue goo in The World’s End (2013). A midlife crisis pub crawl reminds us all that “you can’t go home again.”

Who am I?

Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin (2013) may be a bit slow and arty, but for those with patience, it is an elegantly tragic slow-burn horror. Scarlet Johansson is an alien on a mission to lure young, horny Scotsmen to their nightmarish deaths. It may not be for everyone, but I absolutely loved it.

This movie needed more Tommy Chong.

Richard Stanley enlists Nicolas Cage for his adaptation of Color Out of Space (2019). A meteorite lands on Earth and starts to change everything around it. Imagine a brainless, schlocky version of Annihilation with a touch of The Thing and you’re probably on the right track.

Zombies

I think Bela’s widow’s peak is giving Dracula’s a run for its money.

While White Zombie (1932) may not be a spectacularly great film, it does have a couple things I like: Bela Lugosi and a creepy sugar plantation operated by zombies. Believed to be the first zombie movie, its monsters are more of a conceptual horror. The idea that your body can be controlled by voodoo magic rather than flesh eating monsters is the real threat.

“They’re coming to get you, Barbara…”

George A. Romero invents a new kind of monster in Night of the Living Dead (1968), a prescient and frightening bit of American horror with some added social commentary. The dead rise and trap several strangers in a house.

There’s a sale on.

Romero dials up the satire and the gore for Dawn of the Dead (1978). Zombies have taken over and a small gang of survivors try to get supplies from a shopping mall that has been abandoned by all but the walking dead. Night may have invented the genre, but Dawn perfected it.

The 80s belonged to the punks.

Dan O’Bannon took zombies in a slightly different direction. Tonally, Return of the Living Dead (1985) is goofier, but no less bleak. This time, you can’t kill the zombies…presenting a bit of an obvious problem for our heroes. Maybe not as insightful as the Romero movies, but Return is still one of my favorite examples of the genre.

I love these little slug guys.

Space aliens jettison a pod of some unknown pest off their ship. Turns out they’re brain eating slugs that turn their hosts into the undead. And they’re loose on Earth! And on prom night!! Night of the Creeps (1986), directed by Fred Dekker, boasts some creepy crawlies and maybe Tom Atkins most fun performance.

Caption this.

Romero can make the list twice, so can Carpenter. They Live (1988) is classic 80s American anti-consumerist satire starring Rowdy Roddy Piper. When a drifter discovers a box of mysterious sunglasses that allow the wearer to see the world as it truly is (a corporate zombified hellscape of propaganda and conformity), it becomes his mission to tell the world. Or at least have a comically extended alley fight with Keith David.

Zombies just want some love.

Hon Kong horror-comedy, Bio Zombie (1998), puts a pair of two-bit hoodlums, Woody and Buzz (and their girlfriends, Jelly and Rolls), in an underground mall that is becoming infected with a zombie virus that might just end the world. Fun, funny, and as grim as any of the films on this list.

Cillian Murphy wanders the empty streets of London.

I generally don’t like my zombie movies super serious and literal, but 28 Days Later (2000), directed by Danny Boyle, is the exception. It actually treats its undead threat with a seriousness that usually doesn’t work, but the characters are so compelling that it does become a solid suspense thriller.

I realize Zombieland is not on the list. I saw it. I just don’t remember much about it.

Edgar Wright again. Shaun of the Dead (2004) was the first time a lot of North Americans saw Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. And we fell in love. This survivalist horror-comedy is soaked in gore, but for all the slick and quick wit, it always treats its threat with tragedy and terror.

Be careful what you say.

Pontypool (2008) is a brilliant Canadian horror movie set in a church basement radio studio. Stephen McHattie shines as the shock jock who keeps getting ominous calls and reports from the outside world until the scares are breaking in. This zombie virus is spread through a clever twist.

Stop-motion is an undead art.

Why not? Laika Studios’ ParaNorman (2012) gives kids a solid zombie flick they can call their own. Norman can see and talk to ghosts, but zombie pilgrims rising from the grave is a whole other story. Great animation, humor, and heart.

Last Few Movies XLIII: Oof

Not my best haul.

29. My roommates and I decided to watch the Mortal Kombat movies. Whether you love the games or have no idea what they are, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997) is hilariously juvenile garbage. The original feels like it was written by a 10 year old. This sequel feels like it was written by a 6 year old. Who knew the true meaning of a violent fight videogame was friendship?

28. Italian schlock master Luigi Cozzi gives us Contamination (1980). It’s a bit murky and slow, but the uniqueness here is that alien eggs are being smuggled into the US from the South America like cocaine. It’s an alien egg cartel. It’s an odd move, but kind of funny and fascinating. Also, people’s guts explode out of their bodies if the egg goo gets on them.

27. A man anthropomorphizes an oblivious cephalopod to assemble a narrative and justify his family abandonment in the lackluster documentary My Octopus Teacher (2020).

26. Da 5 Bloods (2020) is one of the Spike Lee movies that, for me, is tonally inconsistent and completely forgettable. Delroy Lindo is pretty good though.

25. I never saw the first movie, but somehow I don’t think that would have helped make much sense of Hello, Mary Lou: Prom Night II (1987). It’s got some classic prom slasher bits, but it’s arguably more unhinged and harder to follow.

24. Italian filmmakers imagine a distant future where comically ridiculous gangs have overrun New York City in The Bronx Warriors (1982). It’s dumb and dopey and kind of what you want from this sort of thing. Fred Williamson is the best part as the gang leader, Ogre.

23. Mortal Kombat (1995) is schlock for children, but it has a decent set up, some nice set design, and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa is absolutely owning every scene he is in as Shang Tsung. Recast Christopher Lambert and a few of the other characters, give the plot a bit more shape, and establish the tournament rules and the stakes a bit better, and this could have been pretty good.

22. Cemetery Man (1994) is maybe five movies at once? Rupert Everett is a cemetery groundskeeper who must battle the undead when they emerge from the grave. If this was the whole movie that would have been enough. But then he keeps falling in love with women who look alike. The zombies plot kind of goes away. We follow his oafish sidekick being in a relationshio with a dismembered teen zombie head and then somehow we were in a snow-globe the whole time? Also, this is visibly Italy and everyone’s name is very Italian and yet everyone involved in intensely British. Does any of it work? Hard to tell. Cemetery Man is something else.

21. Foxcatcher (2014) is everything I don’t want in a based-on-true-events movie. It has a distractingly famous actor cast against type in weird makeup doing a funny voice. It is slow and mostly uneventful. And it doesn’t shed any light on the actual events. But it is well shot and decently acted, so there is some craft here. Just wish it had been more.

20. Finally. A slasher flick about New Year’s. New Years Evil (1980) is a laughably bad thriller that misguidedly makes the killer the protagonist (even if the movie doesn’t seem to think so). A maniac decides to kill someone at midnight in every American time zone, leading up to his confrontation with a punky radio hostess in California. Had the hostess or the detective been given more character, it could have elevated the plot and the stakes.

19. You have to really like sleazy schlock to get behind Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity (1987), a tongue-in-cheek sci-fi retelling of The Most Dangerous Game but with scantily clad buxom bimbos.

18. I grew up loving Laurel and Hardy. They were a truly legendary comedy duo. Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly do amazing jobs at portraying them in Stan and Ollie (2018), even if the film may falter in showcasing why they were so great.

17. Facebook is bad. Our data is harvested for nefarious purposes. We are mentally and emotionally killing ourselves. It’s The Social Dilemma (2020), a documentary that confirms all of your deepest held suspicions just like the algorithms have ordained.

16. Gretel & Hansel (2020) looks amazing. Fantastic visuals and atmosphere. It also needed a few rewrites to bring the characters to life. Worth checking out for Alice Krige as the witch and the sumptuous cinematography.

15. I’m a stranger to the Jason movies. I’ve seen the original and Jason X. So watching Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985) was a confusing endeavor. Cartoonier than I was expecting, not scary or gory, and the twists were admittedly surprising, but don’t all seem to add up. But it’s Halloween and it’s a breezy, fun slasher flick with a high body count. Have at it.

14. Ken Russell tells the tale of the night Mary Shelley stayed at Lord Byron’s house and was inspired to write Frankenstein. Gothic (1986) may not go down easy or make much sense, but it’s a wild, sweaty, frenetic, haunted sex house with enough movement to keep you entertained.

13. I’m a sucker for samurai movies and putting Toshio Mifune in the wild west is just about perfect (even if the film foolishly makes Charles Bronson the main focus). Red Sun (1971) is a typical cowboy movie with buried treasure, quests for revenge, uneasy alliances, and lots of brothels. Ursula Andress co-stars.

12. Robert Z’Dar, Tom Atkins, and Bruce Campbell star in Maniac Cop (1988), a cheesy slasher flick that asks the adorably dated question: “What if a cop was bad?”

11. Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2019) is a documentary that traces the generational journey of wealth and power. It’s both a good history lesson and an prescient warning. Pair this with some Noam Chomsky interviews for a real uplifting time.

10. Sacha Baron Cohen grows his mustache back for another look at aspects of American culture in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (2020). While not as barbed and piercing as the original 2006 film, it makes up for a dearth of incriminating gotchas with the inclusion of Maria Bakalova as his daughter discovering herself. The narrative is stronger and the written jokes are solid, even if the raw interviews don’t hit as hard as they did in Da Ali G Show or Who Is America? This was a welcome dose of comedy at just the right time

9. Deaundra T. Brown may be the female Neil Breen. And if that sounds interesting to you then watch Diamond Cobra vs. White Fox (2015) immediately. We went down a rabbit hole and watched most of her music videos and discovered she has a glut of other movies she made.

8. Werewolfism is a metaphor for female puberty in the edgy teen body horror, Ginger Snaps (2000). It’s funny, spooky, and Emily Perkins and Katherine Isabelle are fantastic as the leads.

7. Life can be hard when you’re homeless. Fortunately, you can always race shopping carts down mountains in Vancouver. The documentary Carts of Darkness (2008) gives us a peek into the lives of several down-on-their-luck men and the one, crazy thing that gives them joy.

6. Spike Lee’s Blackkklansman (2018) is a superb crime drama based on a true story. Two cops (John David Washington and Adam Driver) go undercover to spy on the Klan. Heartfelt, harrowing, and prescient filmmaking.

5. George C. Scott moves into a haunted house after losing his wife and daughter in a freak car accident in The Changeling (1980). This is how you do a haunted house movie. The house itself has character, the mystery twists and turns, and the séance scene is wonderfully creepy.

4. David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet (2020) might be the 94 year old broadcaster’s last testimony. In this documentary, he reveals the depletion of the natural world he has witnessed just within his lifetime. This is an important film for our times. I just hope we can implement some of the solutions in time.

3. The Quiet Earth (1985) may just be the best last-man-on-earth apocalyptic movie I’ve seen. Brilliantly acted and appropriately weird. The score is great.

2. F. W. Murnau’s Faust (1926) is a visual feast to behold. Malevolent, humorous, and moralizing. Fans of silent film cannot skip this telling of the tale of the man who made a deal with the Devil.

1. I said I’m a sucker for samurai films. And, biases aside, Masaki Kobayashi’s Harakiri (1962) is a goddamn perfect movie. A noble house is beset by beggars threatening to commit seppuku at their gates in the hope that the samurai will give them some money. It’s a simple set up, but this drama’s plot is tight as a drum and raises the stakes quickly and employs such delicious twists and turns that I’d find it hard for a cinephile not to love.

Ghosts

It’s October. Time to get spooky.

THE 80s!

Scatman Crothers up at night worrying about the Overlook Hotel.

Steven King may hate what Stanley Kubrick did to his story, but The Shining (1980) holds up as one of the all time great horror movies. A writer (Jack Nicholson) takes his wife (Shelley Winters) and son to a remote mountain hotel where they are to be caretakers and he is to write his novel. It soon becomes a nightmare as they descend into haunted insanity.

Melvyn Douglas ascends a fiery staircase.

George C. Scott plays a man who has recently lost his wife and daughter and ends up moving into an old, giant house that is haunted as all hell in The Changeling (1980). It’s got some good creepy scenes and the mystery is fun to unravel.

No relation to The Mist.

John Carpenter’s The Fog (1980) is kind of a schlocky ghost pirate yarn with a fun seaside town location. It’s not my favorite Carpenter movie, but it’s still pretty fun.

OK. Now THAT’S a ghost.

Poltergeist (1982) puts its special effects department to work. A family slowly realizes that their home is chock full of angry ghosts. And they’ve taken their daughter into the phantom zone or whatever. Luckily, creepy, little Zelda Rubenstein is there to help.

Who you gonna call?

Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Ernie Hudson, Sigourney Weaver, Rick Moranis, and lots of weird Lovecraftian ghosts. Ghostbusters (1984), directed by Ivan Reitman, has all the right moves for a perfect ghost comedy. I don’t think there’s been a more sarcastic movie.

Now that’s a ghost.

Possibly the weirdest and most novel take on the haunted house genre is Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice (1988). When a couple (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis) dies in a car crash, they learn just how bureaucratic and confusing the afterlife really is. Enter Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton), a ghoul-for-hire to scare the living family out of their house. Visually wild and inventive. Also stars Catherine O’Hara, Winona Ryder, Jeffrey Jones, and more.

Funny Phantasms

Classic comedy and haunted house hijinks

Classic comedy duo, Abbott and Costello get stuck in a spooky old house in Hold That Ghost (1941). Classic haunted house elements alongside the goofy slapstick and wordplay of the comic actors. It’s one of my favorite movies featuring these guys. Maybe also check out The Time of Their Lives for a story where Costello and a lady (Jess Baker) get murdered and framed for treason during the Revolutionary War, come back as ghosts, and have to get Abbott and a modern day crew of folks to solve the mystery and clear their names so they can get to heaven.

A recently ghosted Michael J. Fox guns down the Soul Collector.

Michael J. Fox can see ghosts in Peter Jackson’s The Frighteners (1996), but uses his powers to con people. Until he has to battle a serial killer’s ghost and the Grim Reaper himself. Watch this one for the fun special effects and most especially for Jeffrey Combs absolutely owning every scene he’s in.

Ossie Davis plays a man who believes he is JFK with a birdseed brain.

Mummies are ghosts. Deal with it. Bruce Campbell stars as a bound geriatric Elvis impersonator (or perhaps someone who only thinks he’s Elvis) who protects a nursing home from an ancient butt-sucking mummy in Don Coscarelli’s Bubba Ho-Tep (2002). And if you need more than that to hook you, you’re on the wrong website.

Kathleen Turner’s voice was a nice surprise.

Something’s up with the creaky, dilapidated house across the street. Monster House (2006), directed by Gil Kenan, is a fun animated haunted house movie with humor and delicious Halloween atmosphere.

Vintage ghosts from Japan

A moody and heartbreaking romance.

Kenji Mizoguchi’s Ugetsu Monogatori (1953) is a tragic period drama of war, family, and seduction. Two peasants leave their wives during the war. One winds up in a strange relationship with a spirit. It’s a beautiful and complex morality tale.

This may be the best mother-in-law from hell story ever told.

I absolutely love Kaneto Shindo’s Onibaba (1964). Set in feudal Japan, a woman awaiting her husband to return from the war. Her mother-in-law awaits her son with her. Both strongly suspect he is dead. Together they kill lost samurai to sell their armor. When the woman falls in love with another man, the mother-in-law panics about losing her only companion and dons a haunted mask to keep her from escaping their life. It’s spooky, sexy horror-drama at its best.

An eerie snow spirit tucks a man in for the night.

Why settle for one ghost story when you could have a whole bunch? Kwaidan (1965) is a beautiful anthology of Japanese ghost stories and folklore. Some stunningly colorful sets. I need to watch this one again.

A parasol ghost? Why yes.

Ghouls, ghosts, spirits, and sprites all feature heavily in Yokai Monsters: 100 Monsters (1968). When nobles threaten to destroy some poor villagers’ homes, a host of angry monsters is unleashed. It’s more wacky than scary, but it has an abundance of different creatures to enjoy.

A ghost leads a samurai through a gorgeous bamboo forest.

Kaneto Shindo makes the list again with Kuroneko (1968), a rich folk tale full of wicked samurai and vengeful, lustful ghosts. Sumptuous cinematography and classic Japanese melodrama.

She may never play the piano again.

Nobuhiko Obayashi’s Hausu (1977) is legit one of my all time favorite movies. Visually, thematically, stylistically, whatever — the whole shebang is balls to the walls bonkers. A group of teenage girls spend the night in spooky Auntie’s house…which proceeds to bump them off in cartoonishly creative ways. Put on the popcorn, enjoy the music, and strap in for the wild ride this aggressively weird flick is.

Miscellaneous

Deborah Ker tries to maintain some decorum amidst all the spooky goings on.

Deborah Ker plays a governess in charge of two mischievous children in The Innocents (1961). It’s classic and atmospheric and reminds me that I need to see the 1963 version of The Haunting.

Christopher Walken doesn’t even need a head to be awesome.

Turning the Washington Irving tale of Ichabod Crane into a supernatural steampunk detective thriller was maybe a weird move, but what Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow (1999) lacks in a clean story, it more than makes up for with its rich Halloweeny art direction. Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci, Miranda Richardson, and a whole mess of classic faces.

An orphan boy makes friends with a dead child.

Few filmmakers seems to love monsters more than Guillermo del Toro. The Devil’s Backbone (2001) puts sympathies squarely on the ghost who haunts the orphanage. Like Pan’s Labyrinth, the story takes place during the Spanish Civil War.

A horror movie for the skeptic.

A paranormal debunker (Andy Nyman) investigates a series of alleged supernatural encounters in Ghost Stories (2017). Some humor, some tragedy, some twists, and just some good, clean ghost scares lurking in this modern horror movie. Martin Freeman co-stars.

Witch Movies for October

Just a few witch movies for the Halloween season.

Witches for Kids!

Jonathan Pryce is Mr. Dark, a mysterious figure who grants your fondest wish…but at a price.

I love a story about a traveling circus that happens to be evil incarnate. Based on a Ray Bradbury novel, this lesser known Halloween flick features Jonathan Pryce as a mysterious warlock ringleader and Jason Robards as an aging father. But Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983) is really all about the kids.

Angelica Huston about to slip into something more comfortable at the witch convention.

For me, Angelica Huston will always be either Morticia Addams or the Grand High Witch from Nicolas Roeg’s adaptation of Roald Dahl’s The Witches (1990). Watch this one again before you see the remake. Some great and creepy Jim Henson creature effects! Also Mr. Bean.

Kiki flies high above her new seaside home.

Hayao Miyazaki makes films that are sublime and fresh and wholly original. Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989) is a charmingly beautiful story about a 13 year old witch in training. Eschewing a few typical witchy tropes, there’s nothing spooky or wicked in this movie.

The fun these ladies are clearly having onscreen is contagious.

Fine. Hocus Pocus (1993) is a glorified Disney Channel movie, but Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy, and Sarah Jessica Parker are a lot of fun as the three witches.

A unique animation style brings this folktale to life.

One more, just because we need more animation. Michel Ocelot’s Kirkou and the Sorceress (1998) is a unique West African adventure about a tiny boy battling a powerful witch.

Witches From Europe

Never underestimate silent films.

The mother of all witch movies has got to be Swedish-Danish silent pseudo-documentary horror flick, Haxan (1922). A bit of history, some gnarly re-enactments, and wild visions of hell. Lick the devil’s butthole and boil up some babies. This is a movie to put on in the background at your Halloween party or turn the lights out and watch attentively.

Joan is shorn in preparation for her execution.

You may think this is a stretch, but she was tried as a heretic and a witch so Carl Theordor Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) counts. And it is a mesmerizingly beautiful and tragic film, compassionately depicting the torturous trial and spiritual torment of Joan of Arc (played compellingly by Maria Falconetti). Dreyer would again extend some sympathies to persecuted witches in The Day of Wrath (1943).

Never cross a witch.

A Russian religious scholar tangles with a witch on a fateful cold night and is demanded to hold vigil over her dead body for three nights in Viy (1967), based on a story by Nikolai Gogol. Each night her evil powers grow stronger and she conjures more horrors to plague the scholar. Flying coffins and gargoyles galore!

A villager awaits the devil at a wooded crossroads.

The beautifully shot Estonian folk horror November (2017), directed by Rainer Sarnet, is a sumptuously realized tale with tragedy, humor, and lore to spare. A witch is caught in an unrequited love triangle with a farm boy and a foreign noblewoman.

Miscellaneous

Margaret Hamilton absolutely stealing the show.

Perhaps the most iconic and legendary witch of all time can be found in the Technicolor musical based on the L. Frank Baum novel, The Wizard of Oz (1939). Magic and whimsy aside, the villain and her legion of flying monkeys were spectacularly menacing.

Mia Farrow beholds the unspeakable.

Mia Farrow stars as a woman who dreams she has been impregnated by the Devil in Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby (1968). As she spirals into paranoia and begins to question her own sanity, the coven of witches next door grows ever closer to their diabolical ends. Also features Ruth Gordon, John Cassavetes, and more.

I know there’s not much love for the oddball Michael Meyers-less Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982), but I kind of love this movie. It’s got haunted masks, evil witchy schemes, and Tom Atkins. Slasher films are a bit boring to me so this was a welcome change of pace for the series.

Robert Eggers’ The Witch (2015) is an eerie slow-burn folk horror that does a pretty good job of recreating the feel of Puritanical life in the 17th century New World frontier. Rich themes of family strain, the forces of evil, and cosmic nihilism. Beautifully shot and deeply unsettling, if you have a taste for witch flicks, this one one should definitely make your list.

Double Feature Remake

Jessica Harper darts around Argento’s funhouse of horror.

Arguably Dario Argento’s Suspiria (1977) is the insane giallo Italian filmmaker’s finest work. It’s wild, weird, and colorful. This phantasmagoric tale of a strange European ballet school operates on pure dream logic and is punctuated by some ridiculous, Rube Goldbergian, splattery kills. And it’s all set to an unyielding, rhythmic musical score by Goblin. Style over substance never looked or sounded so great.

Tilda Swinton instructs Dakota Johnson on how to use her body.

I love the original, but Luca Guadagnino does remakes right with Suspiria (2018). This witchy yarn uses the architecture of the 1977 film to craft a horror that is tonally, stylistically, and thematically different (but in all the best ways). Witch politics and bizarre dance rituals abound. More mature and atmospheric than schlocky and psychedelic, this remake explores its characters and their world more deeply to paint a truly haunting portrait of power shifts and female relationships. Goblin’s bombastic, groovy synth pulse is replaced with melancholic Thom Yorke compositions.

Vampire Movies to Die For

Whether you like your vampires evil, sexy, or ponderous (or bit of everything), here’s a few freaky films featuring blood-sucking monsters I’d like to recommend this October.

Classic Draculas!

Often imitated Hungarian actor, Bela Lugosi, in his most iconic role.

You can’t go wrong with the original 1931 Universal flick directed by Tod Browning and starring the legendary Bela Lugosi. While it has a bit of stiltedness at times (mainly due to it being an early talkie film), the foggy, gothic atmosphere makes it more than worth a watch. Plus some fun performances from Lugosi, Edward Van Sloan (as Van Helsing), and wild-eyed Dwight Frye. The Mexican version shot on the same sets but filmed at night is also worth checking out.

Christopher Lee chewing some scenery.

England’s Hammer Studios produced several horror re-imaginings of classic Universal monsters and their 1958 version of Dracula starring Christopher Lee as the Count and Peter Cushing as Van Helsing is a good place to start. There are several sequels too. Lee and Cushing did several movies together and are always fun to watch.

William Marshall rises for an evening of mayhem.

Weirdly, the blaxploitation retelling borrows the plot of The Mummy to tell its tale. Blacula (1972) is fun and funky and, honestly, no one ever brought more gravitas and regality to the role of the Count than William Marshall.

Gary Oldman licks Keanu Reeves’ blood off a straight razor.

Francis Ford Coppola had a bold vision with 1992’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Utilizing all in-camera special effects, this adaptation returns to the dreamy roots of the 1931 original but with added sex and gore and a bit more sympathy for the eponymous ghoul. A lot of really bad accents and some hammy acting can’t stop this one. Winona Ryder, Anthony Hopkins, and more co-star.

The Gnarled Rodent Count

Max Schreck as the embodiment of the Plague.

F.W. Murnau’s German iteration tried to circumvent copyright issues by calling their vampire Count Orlock, but changed name or not, Nosferatu (1922) was a blatant bit of plagiarism against the Stoker estate. It’s still a solid silent spooky flick though.

Klaus Kinski prepares to snack on Isabella Adjani.

Werner Herzog’s slow and moody take on Nosferatu (1979) is one of my favorite remakes. For my money, the best Draculas ensnare you in a weird, creaking, nightmare and boy does this one do that. Like Coppola instilling more pathos into the classic Dracula, Herzog endows his Nosferatu with an added layer of inner torment and pain. How Herzogian.

Willem Dafoe is Nosferatu! Repeat! Willem Dafoe is Nosferatu!

But what if the guy who played Nosferatu in the silent German movie was so convincing because he in fact was a literal vampire and director Murnau was actually inadvertently making a supernatural snuff film? So posits E. Elias Merhige’s Shadow of the Vampire (2000). It’s a fun premise and has a macabre sense of humor and did I mention Willem Dafoe plays Nosferatu? Also stars John Malkovich, Eddie Izzard, Catherine McCormack, and Udo Kier.

Classic 80s Blood-suckers

Chris Sarandon is a sexy pansexual vampire who will 100% steal your girl.

What do you do if you suspect your new next door neighbor is a vampire? You reach out to local TV horror host (played by Roddy McDowall) to help you slay him, that’s what. Fright Night (1985) doesn’t take itself too seriously, but takes itself just seriously enough to merit a re-watch.

80s movies had the best hideouts.

Plenty of vampire flicks have used vampires as a metaphor for addiction, lust, and wealth. Joel Schumacher’s The Lost Boys (1987) makes them punks. And who could resist the seductive allure of the punk scene in the 80s? Stars Kiefer Sutherland, Jamie Gertz, Corey Feldman, and Corey Haim. Cry little sister.

Twists on the Formula

Czech cinema is something else.

More of a surreal journey through female puberty, but there is a creepy vampire in it. Jaromil Jireš’s Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970) is probably the weirdest entry on this list, but it’s worth a look.

An ancient relic holds a dark secret.

Guillermo del Toro knows how to build a mythology and Cronos (1993) does a marvelous job of exploring the price of immortality. Federico Luppi gives such sympathetic performance as the antique dealer who inadvertently unleashes an ancient curse.

If you can get through Quentin Tarantino being on screen for the first bit, you get to watch Harvey Keitel, Fred Williamson, George Clooney, and Tom Savini battle evil.

Robert Rodriguez knows schlock and From Dusk Till Dawn (1996) delivers. It’s unabashedly sleazy and crazy. Some bad acting and questionable casting can’t suck too much fun out of this wild horror thriller. Memorable cameos: Selma Hayek, Danny Trejo, and Cheech Marin.

Nothing like a cold, dark Scandinavian winter to give you chills.

If Twilight‘s summer-winter romance is awkward and problematic then I don’t know what to make out of Tomas Alfredson’s Let the Right One In (2008). But it’s a mature and brilliant riff on the vampire genre.

Too subversive for Iran, it was shot in California.

Ana Lily Amirpour’s A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014) is an atmospheric black-and-white modern horror. Like many vampire flicks, it too deals with longing and isolation, but it also has a vampire femme fatale in a chador on a skateboard.

Et Cetera

Del Toro often cited this film as an inspiration.

While not as recognized as Dracula, Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Vampyr (1932) is a lyrical and poetic vision of obsession, death, and vampires. Visually stunning, but what can you expect from the director of The Passion of Joan of Arc?

Forget Mel Brooks’ Dead and Loving It.

Roman Polanski wanted to do an homage to Hammer films and while Fearless Vampire Hunters (1967) isn’t exactly trying to be scary, it’s got some great snowy sets and a fun theme song.

She doesn’t seem to mind being taken out by mid-90s Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt.

Neil Jordan adapts Anne Rice’s novel Interview with a Vampire (1994). It’s long. It’s brooding. It’s sexy. Great costumes. Also stars Kirten Dunst, Antonio Banderas, Stephen Rea, and more

Too bored to prey upon the living.

I like Jim Jarmusch and Only Lovers Left Alive (2013) shows his sardonic style infuses quite well with the vampire genre. Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston are immortal lovers watching the world change.

HISS!!!

Taika Waititi and Jermaine Clement know how innately silly the New Zealand accent is coming out of a vampire’s mouth and What We Do in the Shadows (2014) delivers plenty of laughs while playing with old and new vampire tropes within a mockumentary format.