I love The Hand, and Michael Caine was brilliant.
Recommend a scary movie that others might not have seen
- Thread starter Holly Gibney
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Joy Ride ........ also has some humor but a pretty tense thriller. Steve Zahn is great.
Tales From the Hood 1995 This a great horror anthology movie, one the best ever done. In it Three young street toughs find themselves in a Funeral Parlor run a seemingly demonic Funeral director who tells them very chilling and macabre stories behind the demise of several people he's prepped for burial. For horror fans this is must see film. 
Today’s pick is something a bit different - a comedy horror series called Psychoville, written by a group of British comedians known as The League of Gentlemen.
Where to start with this brilliant, brilliant show? Well, I would start by saying that most comedy horrors seem to me to be written as comedies, and then have the basic window dressing of horror added on as an extra. Think of Carry On Screaming, for instance, or Young Frankenstein - wonderful films and highly enjoyable, but they seem to be comedies first, with the horror confined to the costumes and setting, and without any intention of ever really scaring you at all. Psychoville, I am happy to say, approaches comedy horror from the dark side… It is, first and foremost, a deliciously dark and visceral horror that wants to scare and upset you, disturb and disgust you. The jokes, in this case, seem to be the add-ons, the window dressing, the trail of sweets laid out to lure you into this dark and desolate building and then slam the door behind you when you enter.
The next thing I want to mention is that the writing in this show is just so, so good! The League of Gentlemen are an institution here in the UK - a brilliantly inventive troupe of comedy writers and performers whose work is always heavily flavoured with gothic lunacy. The story (and there is a story! As I say, the writing here is second-to-none - the plot is as tightly woven and logical as a good novel, each new event thumping into place with a satisfying thump that makes you go “Ah, I see!”) concerns a grotesque group of misfits who are all connected with a psychiatric hospital that was closed down a few years previously amid dark stories of abuse and cruelty. As a group of characters, they are a gloriously horrific bunch - a blind, miserly millionaire eBay trader; a lovelorn dwarf with Carrie-like telekinetic powers; a mother and son duo obsessed with serial killers and whose, ahem, “love” for one another is uncomfortably intimate; an angry, bitter clown whose life is falling down around his ears and who terrifies the children at the few bookings he gets nowadays… I could go on! These are only about half of the main cast, and all of them are as worrying and as grotesque as these few! A special mention must go to Dawn French, playing a psychotically smiling midwife who cannot have a baby and who firmly believes that her little plastic doll is alive.
Part of the reason why I wanted to post this now is to recommend something for you to watch while the board is inactive for a few days. It really is a brilliantly written and wickedly funny show that horror fans are guaranteed to love. Pack your sickest sense of humour and enjoy that rarest of things - a horror-comedy that it is a horror first and a comedy second, and not the other way around.
Here is episode one on DailyMotion. You can watch the entire series there.
Where to start with this brilliant, brilliant show? Well, I would start by saying that most comedy horrors seem to me to be written as comedies, and then have the basic window dressing of horror added on as an extra. Think of Carry On Screaming, for instance, or Young Frankenstein - wonderful films and highly enjoyable, but they seem to be comedies first, with the horror confined to the costumes and setting, and without any intention of ever really scaring you at all. Psychoville, I am happy to say, approaches comedy horror from the dark side… It is, first and foremost, a deliciously dark and visceral horror that wants to scare and upset you, disturb and disgust you. The jokes, in this case, seem to be the add-ons, the window dressing, the trail of sweets laid out to lure you into this dark and desolate building and then slam the door behind you when you enter.
The next thing I want to mention is that the writing in this show is just so, so good! The League of Gentlemen are an institution here in the UK - a brilliantly inventive troupe of comedy writers and performers whose work is always heavily flavoured with gothic lunacy. The story (and there is a story! As I say, the writing here is second-to-none - the plot is as tightly woven and logical as a good novel, each new event thumping into place with a satisfying thump that makes you go “Ah, I see!”) concerns a grotesque group of misfits who are all connected with a psychiatric hospital that was closed down a few years previously amid dark stories of abuse and cruelty. As a group of characters, they are a gloriously horrific bunch - a blind, miserly millionaire eBay trader; a lovelorn dwarf with Carrie-like telekinetic powers; a mother and son duo obsessed with serial killers and whose, ahem, “love” for one another is uncomfortably intimate; an angry, bitter clown whose life is falling down around his ears and who terrifies the children at the few bookings he gets nowadays… I could go on! These are only about half of the main cast, and all of them are as worrying and as grotesque as these few! A special mention must go to Dawn French, playing a psychotically smiling midwife who cannot have a baby and who firmly believes that her little plastic doll is alive.
Part of the reason why I wanted to post this now is to recommend something for you to watch while the board is inactive for a few days. It really is a brilliantly written and wickedly funny show that horror fans are guaranteed to love. Pack your sickest sense of humour and enjoy that rarest of things - a horror-comedy that it is a horror first and a comedy second, and not the other way around.
Here is episode one on DailyMotion. You can watch the entire series there.
I was scrolling to see if anyone mentioned the second little gem you mentioned here! My oldest referred "In the Mouth of Madness" to me, selling it by saying it was like some psychological thriller that was a creepy mixture of Lovecraftian and Stephen King storytelling. Having watched it now, I'd say that's the best explanation of plot in so few words that I've ever heard. While some of the acting by the lead actress was cringeworthy, the story itself and the ideas it presented were more than enough to keep me up late finishing it. I'd definitely recommend it!
I was also scrolling to see if The Babadook was mentioned. Does that still count as obscure? Loved it and it stays with you for days later. The best way I heard it described: it's like a woman's version of the The Shining. Also, there's a similar flick that was floating around on Netflix called The Canal. That was a fun, creepy little film. Both are definitely worth watching.
....hell yes!....scared the crap outta me to!.....
From the film trilogy of Terror . This particular segment was based on a Richard Matheson short story. They did a new trilogy of Terror movie some years ago and they did a sequel to the Doll story.
For a made-for-television movie it sure packed a wallop!! That doll segment has stayed with me all these years.....From the film trilogy of Terror . This particular segment was based on a Richard Matheson short story. They did a new trilogy of Terror movie some years ago and they did a sequel to the Doll story.
Just rewatched "Something Wicked This Way comes" the Disney movie of 1983. Still the best version produced. It's all about the yearning of youth for adventure and excitement and the yearning of age for the same thing. The one wants age and the other youth. It's a horror no doubt. The wickedness in exploit of natural yearning. The Devil in the flesh confronting and twisting regrets and longing for another chance into a doomed existence of backward looking desire. Spiders and ice women, a dark carnival of secrets held from those closest, a chill wind on an autumns day when the earth is settling in for a sleep, perhaps forever.
Kings "Needful Things" is similar in some aspects. Both are among the best at getting at the nature of evil. How it plays on our weakness for the ideal self. It's a wheedling insistence whispering what we need at the cost of what we are. With King we find evil fought to a draw. It never quite goes away. Indeed it never does. It is always waiting in the shadows. But with Bradbury love conquers. Not just persistence or steadfast character but the very feeling of love and the bridge it builds across the ages. It fills the gap. It makes even death okay. It does so by passing on the most important thing. Happiness and longing not for ourselves but for others. Those we care about.
It is a wonderful movie about a wonderful book. My favorite of all time. A good one for Fathers Day.
Kings "Needful Things" is similar in some aspects. Both are among the best at getting at the nature of evil. How it plays on our weakness for the ideal self. It's a wheedling insistence whispering what we need at the cost of what we are. With King we find evil fought to a draw. It never quite goes away. Indeed it never does. It is always waiting in the shadows. But with Bradbury love conquers. Not just persistence or steadfast character but the very feeling of love and the bridge it builds across the ages. It fills the gap. It makes even death okay. It does so by passing on the most important thing. Happiness and longing not for ourselves but for others. Those we care about.
It is a wonderful movie about a wonderful book. My favorite of all time. A good one for Fathers Day.
Mr. Sardonicus scared me so much as a kid. I recorded it several years ago during the Halloween season, and I still cannot bring myself to watch it. I just remember certain parts that terrified me.
Mr. Sardonicus played a pivotal role in one of the third season arcs of awesome 80s crime drama, Wiseguy.
Lemora, A Child's Tale of the Supernatural
Lemora: A Child's Tale of the Supernatural (1973) - IMDb
Now this truly IS a cult film, unlike films that are called cult yet everyone knows. I only ever once saw this film mentioned on someone's favourite films list.
It's amazing this is an American film as it has a far more European feel to it. It's about a teenage girl (Cheryl Smith), who sings in the local church, whose father is a gangster on the run. She gets an invitation from a woman who is taking care of her father, whose physical condition is poor, saying he desperately wants to see her. What follows is a journey into the surreal as she goes on a quest to see her father.
A movie with a really, really unusual atmosphere. Nearly the whole movie is bathed in a stark blue light, reminiscent of Italian horror and giallo lighting, but more monochrome. It gives the film a real strange feel. The sound-effects are very effective, like truly creepy echoing children's laughter or unidentified animal-like sounds filling the night.
Cheryl Smith (also known as Cheryl Rainbeaux Smith) I had never heard about. She was seventeen when this film was shot and she's perfect for it. She has an enormous innocence about her presence which is just right for a fairy-tale-like film like this. Director Richard Blackburn (who's in the film as the reverend of her church) wanted to have her emote more, as she is really subdued in her performance, but I think the way she plays it adds to the dreamlike quality - it's as if she's in a trance. It's like in Suspiria, where Jessica Harper's emotions are really even; right up til the end she walks through the film in a dreamlike state, never agitated or raising her voice, or reacting strongly to all the strange things around her.
Smith's health apparently was bad during filming and she took a lot of pills, which also may have contributed to her trance-like state. She went on to do all sorts of exploitation movies, like Jonathan Demme's Caged Heat and Cinderella (1977), which is bizarrely a softcore sex/musical version of the fairy tale, with actual singing in between the sex scenes. She was actually a musician working with The Runaways at some point.
She died rather young of a heroin addiction unfortunately.
What the film reminded me of, in the beginning especially, is Charles Laughton's The Night of the Hunter. There is the religious theme, a child on a quest through the night, a crime theme, they take place in the 30's both. And as it turned out when I watched the interview with Blackburn that was one of its inspirations. Another was Fritz Lang's Moonfleet, which I've never seen.
Blackburn, who's fond of classic fantastic fiction, also was inspired by Arthur Machen and Lovecraft. It's too bad he didn't make more films, he only has two directing credits (the other the tv-series Tales from the Darkside) and six acting credits. The reason why the film didn't do well, I was already speculating while watching, turned out to be confirmed by Blackburn: it was probably too arty for the horror audience and vice versa. He liked the label 'art-sploitation' for the film.
I had to get it on dvd rightaway. The poor quality of Youtube doesn't do it justice. Fortunately there was a dvd released in 2004, which is still available, and is region-free thankfully.
Lemora: A Child's Tale of the Supernatural (1973) - IMDb
Now this truly IS a cult film, unlike films that are called cult yet everyone knows. I only ever once saw this film mentioned on someone's favourite films list.
It's amazing this is an American film as it has a far more European feel to it. It's about a teenage girl (Cheryl Smith), who sings in the local church, whose father is a gangster on the run. She gets an invitation from a woman who is taking care of her father, whose physical condition is poor, saying he desperately wants to see her. What follows is a journey into the surreal as she goes on a quest to see her father.
A movie with a really, really unusual atmosphere. Nearly the whole movie is bathed in a stark blue light, reminiscent of Italian horror and giallo lighting, but more monochrome. It gives the film a real strange feel. The sound-effects are very effective, like truly creepy echoing children's laughter or unidentified animal-like sounds filling the night.
Cheryl Smith (also known as Cheryl Rainbeaux Smith) I had never heard about. She was seventeen when this film was shot and she's perfect for it. She has an enormous innocence about her presence which is just right for a fairy-tale-like film like this. Director Richard Blackburn (who's in the film as the reverend of her church) wanted to have her emote more, as she is really subdued in her performance, but I think the way she plays it adds to the dreamlike quality - it's as if she's in a trance. It's like in Suspiria, where Jessica Harper's emotions are really even; right up til the end she walks through the film in a dreamlike state, never agitated or raising her voice, or reacting strongly to all the strange things around her.
Smith's health apparently was bad during filming and she took a lot of pills, which also may have contributed to her trance-like state. She went on to do all sorts of exploitation movies, like Jonathan Demme's Caged Heat and Cinderella (1977), which is bizarrely a softcore sex/musical version of the fairy tale, with actual singing in between the sex scenes. She was actually a musician working with The Runaways at some point.
She died rather young of a heroin addiction unfortunately.
What the film reminded me of, in the beginning especially, is Charles Laughton's The Night of the Hunter. There is the religious theme, a child on a quest through the night, a crime theme, they take place in the 30's both. And as it turned out when I watched the interview with Blackburn that was one of its inspirations. Another was Fritz Lang's Moonfleet, which I've never seen.
Blackburn, who's fond of classic fantastic fiction, also was inspired by Arthur Machen and Lovecraft. It's too bad he didn't make more films, he only has two directing credits (the other the tv-series Tales from the Darkside) and six acting credits. The reason why the film didn't do well, I was already speculating while watching, turned out to be confirmed by Blackburn: it was probably too arty for the horror audience and vice versa. He liked the label 'art-sploitation' for the film.
I had to get it on dvd rightaway. The poor quality of Youtube doesn't do it justice. Fortunately there was a dvd released in 2004, which is still available, and is region-free thankfully.
I've heard of this movie often, but never saw it. It wasn't released in too many countries, and not at all here in the Netherlands. I also have never seen it on tv, nor is it on dvd here. For a Disney movie it's pretty obscure.
In Germany it premiered on tv and in Japan on video, but it was made for the theatre, right?
Did it open big like most Disney movies in the US and UK, or more limited too? It doesn't have a lot of votes on IMDb.
The trailer looks great, I always love Jonathan Pryce (he is the master of the 'angry stare', especially in his later films and series). It's not on Youtube, so chances are small I'll ever see it.
SK wrote a rejected screenplay for it.
We actually watched this movie in class back in the mid-80s (I was in high school then, but I don't rememeber which class it was - likely English or Creative Writing).
I'm not sure if the Hong Kong film Men Behind the Sun could count as horror, as it's more of a period piece. It's about the really heinous experiments conducted by the Japanese on unwilling civilians during their occupation of China. To go into specific detail about the crap Unit 731 pulled would get me permanently banned from this site.