Weird Pulp Horror
Eraserhead (1977)
"David Lynch's masterpiece isn't really a film so much as a nightmare. The symbolic madness and frantic twists make this brief experience and unforgettable one, and it is not easy to shake off. Beautifully shot in good ol' fashioned black and white, the shadowy realm of the unknown continues to carry audiences away nearly thirty years after its release. And still no one knows what the hell any of it really means..." -
Alkytrio666
Freaks (1932)
"I have a special connection with
Freaks. When my wife and I were dating, this was one of the first movies we watched together. That year for Christmas I bought her a copy on VHS and she loved it! I knew I had a keeper...
Sitting firmly in the "Ironic Punishment" sub-sub-genre of horror (think "
Tales from the Crypt"),
Freaks is best known for three things: the casting of "real" "freaks" (double quotation marks intentional), its director, Tod Browning, and the fact that it was banned for an awfully long time in multiple countries (30 years in the UK!).
For those that have seen this infamous morality tale, you know that, in typical classical movie fashion, there are "the good guys" and "the bad guys." Only the bad guys are the ones wearing white in this one (cue Minor Threat song). The "freaks" are routinely shown to be the only ones in their circus troupe with any sense of decency or moral fortitude, while the swells, the pretty lady seductress and her dastardly strongman lover, are two of the most low-down and outright evil cinematic villains to hit the big screen.
Tod Browning, post-
Dracula, was given a big budget for this one but it, supposedly, nearly ruined his career when the film was banned and audiences and critics alike scorned his use of "real freaks" as being exploitative.
For us today, watching
Freaks is, indeed, fairly disturbing to watch. The vast majority of abnormalities shown in the film have been completely banished by the magic of modern medicine, so for us, this is a rare glimpse indeed of the carnival sideshows that once permeated American culture, but which so few of us today have ever actually seen in person.
Freaks is more than worth your time to watch, and to seek out, if need be. It's a film that truly stands the test of time, much like Browning's better known hit
Dracula, and points out, like many films after it, that we humans are oftentimes the absolute worst sort of monsters to each other." -
Knife Fight
Spider Baby aka
Spider Baby or, The Maddest Story Ever Told (1968)
"Where do you start describing this movie? Perhaps with the theme song - sung by Lon Chaney Jr. himself!
The plot involves an inbred family with a degenerative disease that turns them into killers. One female member likes to "sting" people with her sharp knives. One is a drooling grotesquerie played with ghoulish intensity by a young Sid Haig. Watching over the entire clan is Lon Chaney Jr. in one of his last roles, and it is, IMO, one of his best. You've got to feel for poor Lon when he tells the murderous girl, with all the sincerity he can muster, "You've just GOT to stop killing people!"
This is a low-budget black comedy but there are moments that are chilling as well. The dinner scene, where visiting big city relatives are served what look like tumbleweeds as well as other more unsavory items is completely mad.
If you have not seen this movie, you must! It's just unbelievable. Make sure you find a good copy though, as some transfers are quite dark and make some of the action hard to see." -
Neverending
Tetsuo aka
Tetsuo, The Iron Man (1989)
The Brood (1979)
"This psychological gem is the most underrated horror film of all time, and Cronenberg's most bizarre. Instead of a typical monster-gone-wild, Cronenberg gives us a metaphoric shock-fest on the horrors of family affairs and the mental, and in this case very physical damage that can come of it. It's a climax of startling bends and shady accusations, but the ending is like nothing before put on screen." -
Alkytrio666
Honorable Mentions:
Cemetery Man aka
Dellamorte Dellamore (1994)
The Holy Mountain (1973)
"
The Holy Mountain finds itself in an interesting no-man's land genre-wise. There are those who will tell you that films that disturb with theological or sociological content are not horror, but these people miss out on the fact that horror has its roots in morality plays, the journey of Dante through Hell, Faust's contract with the devil and Victor Frankenstein' s transgression against nature. The Holy Mountain is no less horror than
Frankenstein,
Faust or
Dante's Inferno, and also no less horror than
The Wicker Man. Surreal imagery, ethically disturbing notions and existential frights are more than apt substitutions for cannibal rednecks or slobbering werewolves.
In the end, which one has kept more people up at night? This journey beneath the veil might just look like Aquarian mysticism, but Jodorowsky is no Kenneth Anger.
Holy Mountain is coherent, capable, full of nervous laughter, terrifying ideas and images the viewer does not soon forget.
True literary horror, if not popcorn horror, at it's terrifying finest." -
Doc Faustus