Five Frighteningly Overlooked Horror Films
feature, film October 6th, 2007by JB Roe
When it comes to this time of the year, and horror movies in general, there’s a certain accepted gamut of films that usually get regular viewings by those looking for a quick scare. But, for the avid film lover looking for more than the usual fare, there are literally hundreds of curious horror gems that are neglected by casual movie viewers. Sadly, The Satellite editors weren’t too keen on a 74-page article, so I’ve narrow down my list to a top five frighteningly overlooked horror films that are guaranteed to give you generous doses of Halloween terror and dread. Find them for rent at Video Rodeo.
Black Christmas
(Bob Clark, 1974)
Unlike the recent 2006 remake, the original Black Christmas was an extremely inventive and a sincerely unnerving film that established the now familiar conventions of modern American slashers like Halloween, Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street. The story takes place at a sorority house during winter break where a demented psychopath begins tormenting the girls with macabre phone calls while picking them off one by one in grotesque fashion. Clark’s pacing and atmosphere keeps things interesting, maintaining a claustrophobic mood throughout the film. The depiction of the killer - or lack thereof - is especially worth mentioning as being unconventional for its time. He is barely shown on camera and his motives is never actually revealed, thus giving his brand of crazy an unsettling ambiguity that convinces the viewer this guy is seriously messed up. If anything, at least rent it for the glass unicorn horn-stabbing scene, which is obviously better than using a silly old run-of-the-mill icicle.
The New York Ripper
(Lucio Fulci, 1982)
Years before American filmmakers made serial killers a modern horror icon, Italian directors like Lucio Fulci (of Zombie 2 fame) and many of his contemporaries had already mastered the genre with their giallo films. His films are notorious for containing graphic death scenes and copious amounts of sex, nudity and general eroticism, which thrilled and horrified audiences in Europe and abroad. While giallo suspense thrillers would peak during the ‘70s, some directors both new and old would continue producing worthwhile movies well into the ‘80s that were still extremely effective in shocking a new generation of fans. Such is the case with The New York Ripper. Hailed as Fulci’s last great film, it is easily one of his most pessimistic works. Taking place in, well, New York City, an unknown murderer is slicing up attractive young women. Fulci doesn’t hold back with the bloodshed either, showing you every gruesome detail of the butcher’s handiwork. In spite of the graphic gore, the over-the-top sleaziness and the all-female body count that has led to many criticizing the director for being deeply misogynistic, it’s something else entirely that makes this film memorable; the fact that the killer quacks like a duck. As comical as it may sound, the quacking is just absurd enough to be disturbing, especially when done with a maniacal glee while killing. An attribute like this could’ve easily been mishandled if done by another director, but it manages to work effectively in the hands of an experienced maestro like Fulci. To top it off, Francesco De Masi’s kitschy score – a departure from long-time collaborator Fabio Frizzi– is all kinds of cool.
1. Black Christmas (Bob Clark, 1974)
Unlike the recent 2006 remake, the original Black Christmas was an extremely inventive and a sincerely unnerving film that established the now familiar conventions of modern American slashers like Halloween, Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street. The story takes place at a sorority house during winter break where a demented psychopath begins tormenting the girls with macabre phone calls while picking them off one by one in grotesque fashion. Clark’s pacing and atmosphere keeps things interesting, maintaining a claustrophobic mood throughout the film. The depiction of the killer - or lack thereof - is especially worth mentioning as being unconventional for its time. He is barely shown on camera and his motives is never actually revealed, thus giving his brand of crazy an unsettling ambiguity that convinces the viewer this guy is seriously messed up. If anything, at least rent it for the glass unicorn horn-stabbing scene, which is obviously better than using a silly old run-of-the-mill icicle.
2. The New York Ripper (Lucio Fulci, 1982)
Years before American filmmakers made serial killers a modern horror icon, Italian directors like Lucio Fulci (of Zombie 2 fame) and many of his contemporaries had already mastered the genre with their giallo films. His films are notorious for containing graphic death scenes and copious amounts of sex, nudity and general eroticism, which thrilled and horrified audiences in Europe and abroad. While giallo suspense thrillers would peak during the ‘70s, some directors both new and old would continue producing worthwhile movies well into the ‘80s that were still extremely effective in shocking a new generation of fans. Such is the case with The New York Ripper.
Hailed as Fulci’s last great film, it is easily one of his most pessimistic works. Taking place in, well, New York City, an unknown murderer is slicing up attractive young women. Fulci doesn’t hold back with the bloodshed either, showing you every gruesome detail of the butcher’s handiwork. In spite of the graphic gore, the over-the-top sleaziness and the all-female body count that has led to many criticizing the director for being deeply misogynistic, it’s something else entirely that makes this film memorable; the fact that the killer quacks like a duck. As comical as it may sound, the quacking is just absurd enough to be disturbing, especially when done with a maniacal glee while killing. An attribute like this could’ve easily been mishandled if done by another director, but it manages to work effectively in the hands of an experienced maestro like Fulci. To top it off, Francesco De Masi’s kitschy score – a departure from long-time collaborator Fabio Frizzi– is all kinds of cool.
Shivers
(David Cronenberg, 1975)
Before his more recent films, David Cronenberg was notorious for his socially relevant films dealing with the themes of science and technology and their repercussions. His unsettling perspective on such topics, specifically their effects the human body (a.k.a. “body horror”), have been a prominent focus of his filmmaking career since his first full-length box office movie and the most underrated of his work, Shivers. Originally titled Orgy of the Blood Parasites, among other equally colorful names, the story takes place in a massive self-contained apartment complex called Starline Towers that’s located on a small island near the coast of Montreal. The film begins abruptly and without explanation with an older looking man locking a young girl in his room, strangling her to death, cutting her open with a scalpel, throwing what looks like acid into the corpse, and then finally slitting his own throat with the blade. As the story unfolds, the local doctor of the complex learns that the man was in fact a professor doing research on slug-like parasites being used in organ transplants, or so he and the professor’s colleagues think. Instead, a sinister plot is discovered. A definite must-see for Cronenberg’s playful use of metaphors and the film’s many shocking moments, one of which involving one of the slugs finding its way into a bathtub that was directly lifted in Slither. Besides, how many opportunities does one get to watch a true artist of the medium nearly master their craft in a commercial debut?
The Untold Story
(Danny Lee & Herman Yau, 1993)
Everyone loves Chinese food for the most part; especially those tasty steamed dumplings known as dim sum. So, with that in mind, what if the owner of your favorite restaurant happened to be a murderous psychopath and that pork bun you just ate wasn’t exactly pork. This is the scenario in Danny Lee and Herman Yau’s gruesome film, The Untold Story. The movie is based on the true story of Huang Zhileng (real name Chen Zhiliang) who reportedly murdered a restaurant owner and his entire family in cold blood after a dispute over debts. Huang then took over the victim’s business where he sold pork buns made from the victims, thus giving the police no bodies to properly identify. The Macau police get involved after some body parts wash up on the beach. There are some pretty humorous bits at the officers’ expense — such as the chief inspector always showing up with a different prostitute or the dimwitted investigators barely doing their jobs properly. The slapstick humor is oddly balanced, though, with Anthony Wong’s portrayal of Wong Chi Hang and his matter-of-fact cruelty. Love him or hate him, you won’t be able to ignore his presence on screen thanks to Wong’s performance that won him a Best Actor Award at the Hong Kong Film Awards. For those that are on the squeamish side, Chinese take-out will never look the same again.
A Tale of Two Sisters
(Kim Ji-Woon, 2003)
No Halloween would be complete without a good old fashioned ghost story. As you probably know, Asian ghost-themed horror has grown in popularity thanks to American remakes of their original predecessors like The Ring and The Grudge. Another Asian horror film, A Tale of Two Sisters from Korea, is soon to be remade by Dreamworks, who picked up the rights a year after the original’s release. The remake is slated for a 2008 release; but, really, why even bother with the remake when you can watch the original? Skeptics who have grown tired of these typical Asian ghost stories who aren’t fazed by this brand of horror have nothing to worry about; this one is certifiably creepy as all hell.
The story, based on an ancient Korean folktale, begins pleasantly enough in a psychiatric hospital with a young girl with black hair hanging ominously over her face while a doctor attempts to coax her into answering his questions. Suddenly, what the viewer can only assume is a flashback begins and we are introduced to a family with two young sisters, Su-Mi and Su-Yeon, who have just arrived to their country home where they meet their new stepmother. The two girls aren’t too pleased with the new addition to the family and attempt to confront their father about their resentment they have towards her. After a string of incredibly chilling events and Su-Yeon’s confessing that the stepmother has been abusing her, Sun-Mi takes action to rid the home of the unmistakable evil that haunts them. Watch A Tale of Two Sisters again and again and you still may not grasp what’s going on due to magnificent plot twists. The film is shot wonderfully and the cinematography is as beautiful as it is foreboding. Masterfully done and with a precise hand, A Tale of Two Sisters may be one of the best horror films to come out of Korea with enough serious scares and a suspenseful story to leave viewers a little apprehensive about turning the lights out at night.
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Five Frighteningly Overlooked Horror Films
feature, film October 6th, 2007by JB Roe
When it comes to this time of the year, and horror movies in general, there’s a certain accepted gamut of films that usually get regular viewings by those looking for a quick scare. But, for the avid film lover looking for more than the usual fare, there are literally hundreds of curious horror gems that are neglected by casual movie viewers. Sadly, The Satellite editors weren’t too keen on a 74-page article, so I’ve narrow down my list to a top five frighteningly overlooked horror films that are guaranteed to give you generous doses of Halloween terror and dread. Find them for rent at Video Rodeo.
Black Christmas
(Bob Clark, 1974)
Unlike the recent 2006 remake, the original Black Christmas was an extremely inventive and a sincerely unnerving film that established the now familiar conventions of modern American slashers like Halloween, Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street. The story takes place at a sorority house during winter break where a demented psychopath begins tormenting the girls with macabre phone calls while picking them off one by one in grotesque fashion. Clark’s pacing and atmosphere keeps things interesting, maintaining a claustrophobic mood throughout the film. The depiction of the killer - or lack thereof - is especially worth mentioning as being unconventional for its time. He is barely shown on camera and his motives is never actually revealed, thus giving his brand of crazy an unsettling ambiguity that convinces the viewer this guy is seriously messed up. If anything, at least rent it for the glass unicorn horn-stabbing scene, which is obviously better than using a silly old run-of-the-mill icicle.
The New York Ripper
(Lucio Fulci, 1982)
Years before American filmmakers made serial killers a modern horror icon, Italian directors like Lucio Fulci (of Zombie 2 fame) and many of his contemporaries had already mastered the genre with their giallo films. His films are notorious for containing graphic death scenes and copious amounts of sex, nudity and general eroticism, which thrilled and horrified audiences in Europe and abroad. While giallo suspense thrillers would peak during the ‘70s, some directors both new and old would continue producing worthwhile movies well into the ‘80s that were still extremely effective in shocking a new generation of fans. Such is the case with The New York Ripper. Hailed as Fulci’s last great film, it is easily one of his most pessimistic works. Taking place in, well, New York City, an unknown murderer is slicing up attractive young women. Fulci doesn’t hold back with the bloodshed either, showing you every gruesome detail of the butcher’s handiwork. In spite of the graphic gore, the over-the-top sleaziness and the all-female body count that has led to many criticizing the director for being deeply misogynistic, it’s something else entirely that makes this film memorable; the fact that the killer quacks like a duck. As comical as it may sound, the quacking is just absurd enough to be disturbing, especially when done with a maniacal glee while killing. An attribute like this could’ve easily been mishandled if done by another director, but it manages to work effectively in the hands of an experienced maestro like Fulci. To top it off, Francesco De Masi’s kitschy score – a departure from long-time collaborator Fabio Frizzi– is all kinds of cool.
1. Black Christmas (Bob Clark, 1974)
Unlike the recent 2006 remake, the original Black Christmas was an extremely inventive and a sincerely unnerving film that established the now familiar conventions of modern American slashers like Halloween, Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street. The story takes place at a sorority house during winter break where a demented psychopath begins tormenting the girls with macabre phone calls while picking them off one by one in grotesque fashion. Clark’s pacing and atmosphere keeps things interesting, maintaining a claustrophobic mood throughout the film. The depiction of the killer - or lack thereof - is especially worth mentioning as being unconventional for its time. He is barely shown on camera and his motives is never actually revealed, thus giving his brand of crazy an unsettling ambiguity that convinces the viewer this guy is seriously messed up. If anything, at least rent it for the glass unicorn horn-stabbing scene, which is obviously better than using a silly old run-of-the-mill icicle.
2. The New York Ripper (Lucio Fulci, 1982)
Years before American filmmakers made serial killers a modern horror icon, Italian directors like Lucio Fulci (of Zombie 2 fame) and many of his contemporaries had already mastered the genre with their giallo films. His films are notorious for containing graphic death scenes and copious amounts of sex, nudity and general eroticism, which thrilled and horrified audiences in Europe and abroad. While giallo suspense thrillers would peak during the ‘70s, some directors both new and old would continue producing worthwhile movies well into the ‘80s that were still extremely effective in shocking a new generation of fans. Such is the case with The New York Ripper.
Hailed as Fulci’s last great film, it is easily one of his most pessimistic works. Taking place in, well, New York City, an unknown murderer is slicing up attractive young women. Fulci doesn’t hold back with the bloodshed either, showing you every gruesome detail of the butcher’s handiwork. In spite of the graphic gore, the over-the-top sleaziness and the all-female body count that has led to many criticizing the director for being deeply misogynistic, it’s something else entirely that makes this film memorable; the fact that the killer quacks like a duck. As comical as it may sound, the quacking is just absurd enough to be disturbing, especially when done with a maniacal glee while killing. An attribute like this could’ve easily been mishandled if done by another director, but it manages to work effectively in the hands of an experienced maestro like Fulci. To top it off, Francesco De Masi’s kitschy score – a departure from long-time collaborator Fabio Frizzi– is all kinds of cool.
Shivers
(David Cronenberg, 1975)
Before his more recent films, David Cronenberg was notorious for his socially relevant films dealing with the themes of science and technology and their repercussions. His unsettling perspective on such topics, specifically their effects the human body (a.k.a. “body horror”), have been a prominent focus of his filmmaking career since his first full-length box office movie and the most underrated of his work, Shivers. Originally titled Orgy of the Blood Parasites, among other equally colorful names, the story takes place in a massive self-contained apartment complex called Starline Towers that’s located on a small island near the coast of Montreal. The film begins abruptly and without explanation with an older looking man locking a young girl in his room, strangling her to death, cutting her open with a scalpel, throwing what looks like acid into the corpse, and then finally slitting his own throat with the blade. As the story unfolds, the local doctor of the complex learns that the man was in fact a professor doing research on slug-like parasites being used in organ transplants, or so he and the professor’s colleagues think. Instead, a sinister plot is discovered. A definite must-see for Cronenberg’s playful use of metaphors and the film’s many shocking moments, one of which involving one of the slugs finding its way into a bathtub that was directly lifted in Slither. Besides, how many opportunities does one get to watch a true artist of the medium nearly master their craft in a commercial debut?
The Untold Story
(Danny Lee & Herman Yau, 1993)
Everyone loves Chinese food for the most part; especially those tasty steamed dumplings known as dim sum. So, with that in mind, what if the owner of your favorite restaurant happened to be a murderous psychopath and that pork bun you just ate wasn’t exactly pork. This is the scenario in Danny Lee and Herman Yau’s gruesome film, The Untold Story. The movie is based on the true story of Huang Zhileng (real name Chen Zhiliang) who reportedly murdered a restaurant owner and his entire family in cold blood after a dispute over debts. Huang then took over the victim’s business where he sold pork buns made from the victims, thus giving the police no bodies to properly identify. The Macau police get involved after some body parts wash up on the beach. There are some pretty humorous bits at the officers’ expense — such as the chief inspector always showing up with a different prostitute or the dimwitted investigators barely doing their jobs properly. The slapstick humor is oddly balanced, though, with Anthony Wong’s portrayal of Wong Chi Hang and his matter-of-fact cruelty. Love him or hate him, you won’t be able to ignore his presence on screen thanks to Wong’s performance that won him a Best Actor Award at the Hong Kong Film Awards. For those that are on the squeamish side, Chinese take-out will never look the same again.
A Tale of Two Sisters
(Kim Ji-Woon, 2003)
No Halloween would be complete without a good old fashioned ghost story. As you probably know, Asian ghost-themed horror has grown in popularity thanks to American remakes of their original predecessors like The Ring and The Grudge. Another Asian horror film, A Tale of Two Sisters from Korea, is soon to be remade by Dreamworks, who picked up the rights a year after the original’s release. The remake is slated for a 2008 release; but, really, why even bother with the remake when you can watch the original? Skeptics who have grown tired of these typical Asian ghost stories who aren’t fazed by this brand of horror have nothing to worry about; this one is certifiably creepy as all hell.
The story, based on an ancient Korean folktale, begins pleasantly enough in a psychiatric hospital with a young girl with black hair hanging ominously over her face while a doctor attempts to coax her into answering his questions. Suddenly, what the viewer can only assume is a flashback begins and we are introduced to a family with two young sisters, Su-Mi and Su-Yeon, who have just arrived to their country home where they meet their new stepmother. The two girls aren’t too pleased with the new addition to the family and attempt to confront their father about their resentment they have towards her. After a string of incredibly chilling events and Su-Yeon’s confessing that the stepmother has been abusing her, Sun-Mi takes action to rid the home of the unmistakable evil that haunts them. Watch A Tale of Two Sisters again and again and you still may not grasp what’s going on due to magnificent plot twists. The film is shot wonderfully and the cinematography is as beautiful as it is foreboding. Masterfully done and with a precise hand, A Tale of Two Sisters may be one of the best horror films to come out of Korea with enough serious scares and a suspenseful story to leave viewers a little apprehensive about turning the lights out at night.
