INtelligent horror movie recommendations for Halloween

Planning a horror movie night in the home cinema tonight for Halloween and am interested in hearing about films others would recommend. I do love British movies as I find them often more realistic and less sensational however am open to all suggestions. Particular favourites of mine include the Omen series, The Haunted House of Horror (1969), Dog Soldiers, the Descent as well as some of the Hammer, Tigon and Amicus output that features a contemporary setting. I have of course seen Witchfinder General and To the Devil a Daughter.

Currently favouring: Calibre, The Little Stranger or in a completely different ouvre The Craft a humorous 90’s teen movie about a coven of witches which looks fun rather than particularly scary.

In terms of recommendations for a good movie many of you may not have seen I can certainly recommend “You should have left” which is set in Wales and stars Kevin Bacon. It’s unsettling and scary but intelligently crafted and beautifully shot.

The Haunted House of Horror from 1969 is also a very well made movie, not particularly scary but notable for a great performance from George Sewell and the absolutely glorious depiction of swinging London complete with fabulous 60’s babes in stunning clothes. Great fun and beautifully executed too.

Looking forward to hearing about gems from you all,

Happy Halloween!

JonathanG

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A documentary about Climate Change could fit your requirements. The plot is that despite the heroes and heroines repeatedly warning people of the risks they ignored them and then…

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Let the Right One In & The Babadook are both good to watch.

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Get Out

Beyond The Black Rainbow

The Neon Demon

Midnight Mass (Mini series in Netflix - Superb)

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Blumhouse are the Stateside equivalent of Hammer and I wouldn’t discredit them.

I think they are doing a fangtastic job.

Old Hammers ?

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Twins of Evil.

The Vampire lovers.

Lots of INtelligent horror here.

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How can you not watch:


:wink:

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Its available free on YouTube

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Contradiction in terms.

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I’m not a f fan of Halloween, I see it as another great way to sell more disposable plastics.

That said, nothing wrong with a good horror movie. My candidate is not strictly horror, but comes close:

The Menu.

Good acting, nice storyline and plottwist.

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Black phone was good.
Hereditary flippin’ scary.
Apartment 7A is on my watch list.

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not my genre (most avoided genre, perhaps);
but I’d second
“Get Out”

“Barbarian” was something I’d maybe recommend, and if you dig Justin Long, he does one with his wife, “House of Darkness” basically only two actors, and is fun. Probably more so if you actually think Justin Long is a decent actor (I do)
House of Darkness might not have ‘edge of seat’ scares and is likely to let drunk people fall asleep in a ‘scary movie fest’. Where as “Get Out” is likely to keep people edgy… (as will “Barbarian”)

Michael J Fox; ‘the Frighteners’ (not sure if that holds up nowadays as ‘scary’ but it was Peter Jackson mayhaps, and the ring wraith CG, ‘pre LoTR’ is cool to see)

and something with Kevin Bacon, always, but I’d probably go as far back as “Flatliners”…

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The Hills Have Eyes
By Alexandre Aja. One of my favourite horror movie. There are different versions, but this one, from 2005, is the best.

The first Walking dead. 1968.

Leather face. 1974.

The Descent.

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Jessabelle. 2014.
A proto Blumhouse production.
I think they have really nailed it here.
Has the silly tropes yet still gets the skin crawling.

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If we’re including series, I enjoyed 30 Coins.

oh man; ‘everyone says’ The Descent.

I hate that movie.

Doesn’t help that I have felt claustrophobia, perhaps…

I went to the cinemas to see ‘Clerks II’ ( a comedy and a genre I actually watch)
Clerks 2 is a Kevin Smith movie and I wanted to show support for the sorts of movies and scripts he was doing, so was determined to see Clerks 2 in an actual cinema. (day one disc purchase too)

I typically watch a movie in the cinemas once every few years… (Indiana and the Crystal Skull , and the Pirates movies franchise seemed to be my reasons over the last two decades…) so seeing Clerks 2 in the cinema nearly flew by before I made it in to see.

On some random day I was following my heart strings… I had stopped to get a snack in an unfamiliar city, and ‘shopping area’, and when walking around the mall, had found myself in one of those ‘hippy/new age’ stores, and buying a small rainbow coloured pocket bag and some crystals etc…

an ‘amazing and chilled day’.
on way out of mall, saw a cinema.
Saw a sign ‘Clerks 2’
remembered how much I wanted to support it and decided to ‘buy a ticket’.

was the last day of screening. was lunchtime on a weekday.
cinema was EMPTY.

I had had this experience before’, watching “Falling Down” (a Michael Douglas flick); a completely empty cinema session… kinda cool, but ‘no one to throw jaffas’ at -(jokes!)

Now if the classification for a movie is R18+, the previews for ‘other movies’ can be R18+
Clerks is an R18+ comedy. Not many R18+ films with cinema release that decide to go without ticket sales in order to keep a couple of ‘adult jokes’… R18+ comedies are, for logical reasons, not the lionshare of R18+ releases…
Horror IS.

So in an offshoot from an unloved and ‘empty’ mall, was a cinema complex that was empty, ‘empty car park’ and ‘no one around’,… I found the one dude with a mop bucket to ‘sell me a ticket’, and then proceeded to walk past several ‘main screens’, to the BACK OF THE CINEMA complex…
it had been more than a kilometre of walking around and having NOT SEEN ANYONE, was a surreal day, and the empty cinema session felt really ‘desert island’ lonely…

I sat a fair way towards the back, in the middle, but a few seat off centre,… further from the entrance.
Right as the previews start, and the lights dim, another person enters the session.

It is darker now, and the only way to make them out is from the light of the screen… they are a largish man, and they see me, and for some reason choose a row two in front of mine, and one spot to the right of me.
In this huge room with many hundreds of seats they are three seats away,… (‘two’ as the crow flies)

first preview is over… I wasn’t paying attention.
something with a lake, perhaps…

second preview starts.
a comedy. (yay)
couple of jokes have me laughing…
out loud, sure,… but ‘low key’ - I wouldn’t imagine I was audible over the cinema surround sound blaring…

The guy turns around and says a joke, a quip based on a scene in the preview.
the remark is funny, and I laugh both timely and naturally… (at this point, I was having a GREAT DAy) the person, acknowledges me and turns back to the screen.

preview continues, plenty of humour…
right at the end there is another chance for an ‘audience quip’- I thought of something appropriately funny (it wasn’t forced- if my partner had been there I’d have shared it impromptu, for sure), and during the last quiet moment before trailer preview change…

The guy right in front of me turns around. Super serious look on his face. (a type of humour here in Australia).
Quiet.

Followed by …
absolute quiet. (a few more seconds)

and then a preview for ‘the Descent’ comes up.

(I hate that movie)

now - my humour, since sixteen, has been to not use ‘put downs’, non derogatory is the term, I believe.
Whilst the joke I shared was funny, the serious silence that I was met with (again ‘a type of humour’ itself) was borderline intimidating.
To then have to sit through a few horror trailers with an unknown entity that is willing to break social conventions… (turned around in a cinema to share a joke with another audience member) isn’t ‘a thing’.

On the day in question at least one of us had been drinking. (and continued to drink during the movie)
I drove to the cinema, and drove away from the cinema, and I don’t drink and drive ;-), so Okay, it was ‘them’.

but,… years later,… I shared a house with a couple who LOVED horrors.
They had just bought a big screen TV, and sound system, and had started renting horrors ‘by the bucketload’ from the local blockbuster.
The asked for any requests, and I stated its’ not my genre,… but if they wanted a recommendation, The Descent, would be it.

(I had known horror genre afficondos who had to watch ‘during the day’, ‘with the curtains open’…)

My awesome housemates proceeded to get ‘the Descent’ (next day) and we watched it together, against my better judgement, later that night.

As a parent, I had returned Fallout 4 to the shop because it had mutants with ‘melted faces’ and wasn’t the same game as Oblivion, for my five year old to ‘wake up’ and see Dad playing…
The filters I worked hard to keep in place to keep my house ‘appropriately’ imagination friendly… (think Stephen Fry doing the intro voiceover for Little Big Planet)…

The Descent is the exact opposite of what I wanted in my life/my mind or even to be found in a safe sanctuary I call home.

Does have plenty of insta shock and psychological shock moments, and is certainly a top tier horror flick.
(Has a sequel too)

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It, scared the bejabbers out of me.

I have the second one on BluRay and have never watched it.

Rec, the only film that I am glad I did not see in a darkened cinema

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Late to the party, but the original ‘Alien’.
I believe true horror scary.
Only one moment of gore, everything else is suspense and unexpected.

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I full agree. I would add, The Thing ( 1982, John Carpenter), Deliverance ( 1972, J Boorman), and Get out ( 2017, Jordan Peel).

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The Wicker Man, 1973

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A bit late but:

The Haunting

The Innocents

The Others

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