Ny uke, nye anbefalinger #43 - Halloween 2022
Recommendation list - Matei N. Balan
Halloween is at door once more and along with dressing up as a scary monster, your Master's thesis or J. K. Rowling , trick or treating or spicing up the fruit punch at your friend's "this year we're going to have it chill" party you will also need the perfect scary movies to watch. This year you can pick from a list that brings together all the original baddies of horror and puts them in the same room as weird cults and BDSM Goths. Fun, right? Here's what to watch this week if want to have a good scare or just a good old "Ew!".
Copyright: Willard / IMDb
Willard (2003, Amazon Prime)
There are many good ways to make friends, especially if you're not picky but open towards socializing outside of your species. In this 2003 thriller horror remake of Daniel Mann's 1971 masterpiece with the same name, our protagonist, Willard (Crispin Glover) makes his friends by allowing them to establish a colony in his basement.
His friends, the best of his friends, are rats. Both him and the rodents are outsiders and they make quite the team, especially when Willard's enemies, who are people, need to be punished. A lot of rats make up for a lot of hungry mouths and, according to this particular horror, the enemy of my friend is the tastiest.
Copyright: Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities / IMDb
Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities (2022, Netflix)
The fact that Guillermo de Toro is a master of storytelling is not secret. This year, for Halloween, you get to enjoy the master at his best - doing the horror genre like no other.
The Netflix series, out this week, is an anthology that tackles different genre-defining stories that will challenge your traditional notions of horror. So get ready to get spooked by truly weird things but fascinating nevertheless. It is safe to say that you won't be disappointed.
Copyright: House of 1000 Corpses / IMDb
House of 1000 Corpses (2003, YouTube)
Rob Zombie has dominated the metal scene with his unique mix of flashy industrial sounds and gore horror for decades now. Staying true to his artistic style he has also left a valuable mark in the realm of cinema and horror.
The House of 1000 Corpses (2003) is a trope taken to the very outskirts of madness. A group of city kids travel through the American country side only to be led astray by an evil gas station worker, who's also a career clown, and from there into the oblivion staged by a very fun guy known as Dr. Satan. It doesn't get more Halloween than this.
Copyright: The Midnight Club / IMDb
The Midnight Club (2022, Netlfix)
In this Netflix series created by Mike Flanagan and Leah Fong you'll meet a group of teenagers, all dying from various nasty terminal illnesses, and who every night gather in the hospice library. They are the Midnight Club and together they are determined to defeat death the only way anyone can - only for a moment and only by telling stories.
But of course, something else lurks in the shadows, watching them, eager to feed on their suffering and recommend miraculous homeopathic cures. You'll love it for the amazing characters study. You'll love it for the twists and turns. You'll love it for the cult theme. You'll love it because it really challenges the way scary stories are perceived in the face of death itself.
Flanagan, who you might now because of The Hounting of Bly Mannor and Midnight Mass, once more brings the best he has to offer to the genre or tormented people dealing with ghosts and monsters.
Copyright: Hellraiser /IMDb
Hellraiser (2022, Hulu)
The angels of death (or pleasure, depends what you're into) from Clive Barker's 1986 The Hellbound Heart novella, already adapted to screen numerous times (all amazing and unsettling) are back and they want what they have always wanted: to skin you alive and pull you apart. It's basically a Bloodbath album put to screen.
In this new adaptation, directed by David Bruckner, we follow Riley (Odessa A’zion), a struggling addict who comes across a mysterious puzzle box. If you know anything about Barker's work, which she obviously doesn't, is that you simply do not try and solve weird puzzles. Before she knows it, Riley has the Cenobites on her trail and the only way to truly get rid of them is to get an audience with God. Easy!