Horror Movies

Lately - in a bid to get a bit of alone time, I have taken to watching movies in bed with the headphones on once N has fallen asleep. For some reason almost all of them have been horror movies. It is all I seem to want to watch. Here is a list of them in more or less the order I have watched them.

Hostel – gory and bleak with the best Achilles tendon slicing since Pet Semetary, but I found the ending disappointing, too upbeat.

House of 1000 Corpses – everybody warned me it was bad, but I wouldn’t listen.

Devil’s Rejects – marginally better than Hof1000C, but only by a bit. I enjoyed seeing PJ Soles in her cameo though.

Dawn of The Dead – Sarah Polley version – The teenager’s mom got married on the set of this film. There was garbage and body parts and overturned cars and busses all around the building we were in, the kids loved it.

Night of The Living Dead – 1990s version. I was copying it for my nephew and I wanted to make sure it wasn’t too much for him. It has a nice bleak ending.

Silent Hill – This got glowing reviews from the nephew mentioned above. I couldn’t finish it. I just kept trying to guess which parts were straight from the video game and which parts they added in. Not recommended by me.

Bloodsucking Freaks – un-watchable, even with the camp factor of a homicidal little person it is just too bad to watch. I tried twice but gave up.

Haute Tension – Know here as Switchblade Romance. I loved this one. Scary, tricky (though they cheat a bit), and truly gory. The ending is just soaked in blood. Nasty homophobic subtext to the movie, but I guess I shouldn’t expect stellar social values in a film where women and children are casually murdered, a man is decapitated with a dresser and a concrete saw is put to shocking use.

The Happiness of the Katakuris – not really a horror movie per se, more like some surrealist acid trip, but it has murder, and zombies, clay-mation, musical numbers and weird angel monsters. Plus it is by Takashi Miike, so it counts. Watch this one, it is quite a trip.

The Cavern – a bad bad cave movie from Australia. Camera work was very Blair Witchy, and made me feel like puking.

The Descent – a not too bad cave movie. The story is very similar to The Cavern, but the lighting, design, acting, camera work and special effects are light years ahead.

Twisted Sisters – another un-watchable one. This time a German and English co-production. Crazy sister, nice sister, fireworks going off up some poor guys butt. Give it a pass.

Nightmare on Elm Street – always a goodie. I bought it a couple of years back, but the teenager won’t watch it with me, so I gave up on waiting and watched it myself. Johnny Depp is so young.

I have a bunch more still to go including two more by Miike, both the Saws and the Exorcism of Emily Rose. I will let you know if I find any that are good and scary.