Since there are so few authentically brilliant horror films made due to the genre's inherent disadvantages (easy to do, hard to do well), we are annually swamped with a deluge of wimpy PG-13 wannabe chillers and ill-advised remakes. After wading through this crap, audiences have only embraced a handful of recent horror films and chances are, if it comes time to watch a Halloween-appropriate movie, most of you will end up throwing in something familiar but dependable or just saying the hell with it and seeing 'Saw II.'
This coming weekend, if you find yourself so inclined to watch a horror movie in between drunken revelry (or during), but you want something a little off the beaten path, keep reading. I've cobbled together a list of 10 movies which would make for a refreshing change of pace this Halloween. In the Madison spirit, I've arranged them by whether they'd be better to watch drunk, sober or either/or (like 'Evil Dead II,' which is too awesome to disappoint anybody in whatever state they're in).
'Dead Alive' (1993): 'Lord of the Rings' director Peter Jackson's third feature film, the zombie horror-romantic comedy 'Dead Alive' has been called the 'goriest movie ever made.' It's the story of Lionel, whose overbearing mother is bitten by a Sumatran rat monkey at the zoo and thusly zombified. Our rather foppish hero's attempts at love with the sexy Paquita are continually thwarted by his voracious mother and her frequent escapes, which only add to the number of zombies he has to contain in the basement.
For my money, this is a hell of a lot better than 'Shaun of the Dead,' and with its relentlessly black humor (including zombie sex) and grotesque set-pieces (which culminate in a truly Oedipal grand finale), 'Dead Alive's' buckets of blood shouldn't disappoint any gorehound, especially if inebriated.
'Re-Animator' (1985): Those of us who aren't hardcore horror aficionados probably know this as the movie that a stoned Kevin Spacey references in 'American Beauty' when he asks, 'Did you ever see that movie where the body is walking around carrying its own head, and then the head goes down on that babe'?
That scene is one of the many highlights in Stuart Gordon's classic, which focuses on a mad scientist's experiments to 're-animate' human flesh and thus discover the secret to eternal life. It's a gross, funny little gorefest worth checking out; although it's fun either way, enjoyment of its cheesiness would be thoroughly amplified by alcohol.
'The Devil's Backbone' (2001): An effecting political allegory meshed with a powerful ghost story, Mexican maverick Guillermo Del Toro made this right before 'Blade 2.' 'The Devil's Backbone' takes place at an orphanage school during the Spanish Civil War, where a new arrival is terrorized by not only his nasty, prepubescent peers, but a prepubescent ghost as well. This film is advertised as being 'in the tradition of 'The Sixth Sense,'' but is a much superior work. It is not only one of this decade's most underrated films, but one of it's best overall.
'Carrie' (1976): The first film adaptation of a Stephen King novel, 'Carrie' really put director Brian De Palma's name on the map. From its opening, lingering tracking shot inside a girl's locker room to the arm emerging from the grave, 'Carrie' is an eerie classic, and unfortunately, one that often gets neglected in favor of more traditional slasher films. Featuring fantastic performances from Sissy Spacek as the titular girl with telekinetic gifts, Piper Laurie as her shrieking, nutbar mother and John Travolta as a pig-slaughtering asshole, 'Carrie' is complex, thrilling and iconic.
'Ravenous' (1999): Why this hilarious, ultraviolent cannibal flick was dismissed and panned by critics and audiences is beyond me. 'Ravenous' follows the happenings at a remote Army outpost after the Mexican-American War when a sickly, presumably starving drifter (Robert Carlyle) suddenly arrives. But actually, he's a cannibal who first lunched on his doomed group members out of necessity, but then discovered a newfound appetite for human flesh. Also starring Guy Pearce, David Arquette and Jeffrey Jones, 'Ravenous' borrows the traditional elements of a vampire film but transplants them to cannibals, which makes for an infectiously entertaining romp; a sort of cannibal horror/comedy/period piece. Let's make this one's cult following a little bigger.
'Scanners' (1981): One of David Cronenberg's first theatrical successes, 'Scanners' is most famous for the scene in which a man's head literally explodes. Scanners are people born with incredible telekinetic and telepathic powers, which they attained as a side effect of a tranquilizer administered to pregnant women. Although its main draw, even after 20-odd years, is the exploding head (which is still amazing), 'Scanners' is a fast-paced, satisfying flick complete with Cronenberg's trademark gore.
'The Fly' (1986): I still consider Cronenberg's remake of Vincent Price's classic to be his best film. This really is a tragic love story, with Jeff Goldblum's nerdy but charming scientist, Seth Brundle, finding, then losing, love with a feisty reporter (Geena Davis). Brundle makes the mistake of testing out his pod teleportation invention on himself without realizing the presence of a pesky housefly in the machine with him.
At first, Brundle is delighted with his newfound strength, but pretty soon, his transformation into a fly becomes more debilitating and grotesque. While the gore is superb, especially during the third act after the shit has hit the fan, Cronenberg wisely keeps the focus on the absurd poignancy of the events. 'The Fly' is a sublime film, and certainly one of the best of the '80s.
