October Horror Movie Marathon

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922)

An unofficial German adaptation of Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula in which pretty much all the names and places are different with the great vampire now being named Count Orlok.

A silent classic which in truth plods along going precisely nowhere until Orlok sets sail for Wisberg. All the situations are present and correct but the visit to Orlok's castle of Thomas Hutter (Jonathan Harker) takes up the bulk of the film and it's only the last half hour in which the action really ramps up when Orlok's journey begins.

The scenes on the ship are brilliantly realised with rats living in the coffins full of earth prior to Orlok stalking the deck killing those he comes across. The best sequences are in the last few minutes with Orlok preying on Ellen Hutter in her bed. There's a genuine creepiness to this that remains a century later and proves mesmeric viewing.

Max Schreck who is immortalised as the vampire Count Orlok is simply amazing. Looking more like a creature of the night than any other vampire since. He gives a genuinely haunting and at times scary performance. When you compare him to Bela Lugosi who starred as Dracula in the first talky version of the novel nine years later there's really no comparison. One's a camp, starey thespian whilst the other's a f*cking frightening, bald corpse like figure who sweeps through the streets like the plague in a film with a final half hour that reeks of putrefaction.

[MrBarlow]

Cry Of The Banshee. 1970.

Second Vincent Price movie of this Octoberthon, playing a cruel witch hunting magistrate who believes there is a coven of witches in a small English village and is slowly tormented by a evil spirit.

This is not Vincent Price's greatest performance, but he still completely owns the film in every sequence that he's in, the way that the plot plays out is mostly good enough to hold the audience's interest; there isn't a great deal of suspense in the film, but director Gordon Hessler does a good job of creating the right atmosphere and setting up a suitable feel for the film. The banshee isn't what you would think it is, you would think it be the shape of the screaming woman but instead its a dog...again you go with what budget you have and what you can do. The set pieces are crafted nicely and looks authentic as well as the costumes. Think this one may grow on me yet.

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[MuckyFunster]

6. Just Before Dawn

Been meaning to revisit Just Before Dawn for a while now as I couldn’t really remember any of it from the first viewing not long after the blu came out. I suppose I’ve seen so many of these ‘backwoods’ slashers that they’re starting to bleed into one another. The set up here is the usual type, but it’s done pretty well and the characters are likeable from the start. Some okay killings but mostly the usual kind of stuff.


7. Deadly Games - first time watch.

Oh man, what is this film? Is it a horror or a Hallmark? The character of Keegan does not shut up. Just rambles on and on, maybe trying to add a quirky or funny side to the character, but she is so annoying - watching her on the screen was like being locked in a room with one of my kids high on Fanta. Actor Sam Groom, playing Keegan’s love interest, just seemed to stare at her, barely speaking (not that he’d be able to get a word in) with a sort of soft smile on his face all the time. The ballad backed montage showing them falling for each other felt out of place for a slasher film. Then, when Keegan offers it to him on a plate - he wants to wait, cause she’s special Awww And that’s when she realises she’s fallen for him.

Honestly, if they toned down the already very tame killings I could almost picture my granny watching it on Channel 5 on a rainy afternoon. Still, it was a slasher so always worth a watch.

On a side note, when I was Wikipediaing the films earlier on today I saw that American football star turned actor Dick Butkus, who played diner owner Joe in Deadly Games, died on Thursday this week, 5/10/2023.


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[Frankie Teardrop]

STRANGELAND – This is a shout from the late nineties horror wilderness, caught between post-‘Scream’ nouvelle slasher spectacle and pre-torture porn grot. Twisted Sister Dee Snyder plays a red-maned body mod fanatic who likes to string people up in candlelit rooms and pierce them until they reach some plane of spiritual emancipation; Kevin Gage basically resembles some guy from a cop show. It’s a long and winding road, but along the way we get to see Robert Englund watch questionable porn in his underpants and lead a mob of angry, right thinking townfolk. ‘Strangeland’ is total schlock that’s still quite enjoyable. You’ll have to humour the wooden set-up and hope those stiff-as-a-board detectives just get the police procedural over and done with, because what really makes ’Strangeland’ tick is its overload of dated pop culture sensationalism. Its take on the underground is so plastic you’d think it was posing photographs for the tourists; chatrooms from the internet of yore are places where the young are lured to their doom, goths in fetish gear writhe to Nu Metal just like they do in any late nineties nightclub scene, people with facial tats and piercings are scary and often seem like they might be quoting Nietzsche… etc. It’s fascinating to feel so weirdly outside times I lived through. I’m deducting a few points for the gratuitous use of an ‘Exorcist’ reference (Snyder’s character is called Captain Howdy), and ultimately it has to be said that ‘Strangeland’ does not push any envelopes and fails to offer any real genre novelty, but all those candlelit rooms, mild scenes of S&M torture sleaze, and vibes of clumsy-smooth nineties artifice give it some pull. It's also nice to know Snyder is such a gent that he’ll catheterise you if he feels you’re going to be immobilised in his dungeon for any length of time. Titillating, awkwardly formed trash that’s good for a laugh.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop

STRANGELAND – This is a shout from the late nineties horror wilderness, caught between post-‘Scream’ nouvelle slasher spectacle and pre-torture porn grot. Twisted Sister Dee Snyder plays a red-maned body mod fanatic who likes to string people up in candlelit rooms and pierce them until they reach some plane of spiritual emancipation; Kevin Gage basically resembles some guy from a cop show. It’s a long and winding road, but along the way we get to see Robert Englund watch questionable porn in his underpants and lead a mob of angry, right thinking townfolk. ‘Strangeland’ is total schlock that’s still quite enjoyable. You’ll have to humour the wooden set-up and hope those stiff-as-a-board detectives just get the police procedural over and done with, because what really makes ’Strangeland’ tick is its overload of dated pop culture sensationalism. Its take on the underground is so plastic you’d think it was posing photographs for the tourists; chatrooms from the internet of yore are places where the young are lured to their doom, goths in fetish gear writhe to Nu Metal just like they do in any late nineties nightclub scene, people with facial tats and piercings are scary and often seem like they might be quoting Nietzsche… etc. It’s fascinating to feel so weirdly outside times I lived through. I’m deducting a few points for the gratuitous use of an ‘Exorcist’ reference (Snyder’s character is called Captain Howdy), and ultimately it has to be said that ‘Strangeland’ does not push any envelopes and fails to offer any real genre novelty, but all those candlelit rooms, mild scenes of S&M torture sleaze, and vibes of clumsy-smooth nineties artifice give it some pull. It's also nice to know Snyder is such a gent that he’ll catheterise you if he feels you’re going to be immobilised in his dungeon for any length of time. Titillating, awkwardly formed trash that’s good for a laugh.

Love this. I remember buying it on US dvd when it first came out in the early days of the format. Might even have been the first release from Artisan. It was pretty grueling stuff at the time baring in mind this was years prior to films like Hostel appearing and all the nasties were still cut to shreds.

The soundtrack - Megadeth, Anthrax, Pantera, Manson, Nashville Pussy, System etc (Seriously look at soundtracks from the era. Bloody System of a Down were on everything - Blair Witch 2 reviewed by me yesterday? Yup, System are there) is brilliant.

[Frankie Teardrop]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

Love this. I remember buying it on US dvd when it first came out in the early days of the format. Might even have been the first release from Artisan. It was pretty grueling stuff at the time baring in mind this was years prior to stuff like Hostel appearing and all the nasties were still cut to shreds.

The soundtrack - Megadeth, Anthrax, Pantera, Manson, Nashville Pussy, System etc (Seriously look at soundtracks from the era. Bloody System of a Down were on everything - Blair Witch 2 reviewed by me yesterday? Yup, System are there as well) is brilliant.

I quite like the way Snyder looks a bit like Tiny Tim with a ponytail at points.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop

I quite like the way Snyder looks a bit like Tiny Tim with a ponytail at points.

I found it interesting that you said "People with facial tats and piercings are scary".

Again seen now, not so much, but back then he was a lot scarier than anyone that normally walked around town listening to Nu-Metal. Even the bands didn't look as 'extreme' as Snyder did.

Maybe Dez Ferrara from Coal Chamber was sporting a large nose ring at the time i can't remember but most looked like they'd just nicked their sisters black eyeliner pencil with the best ones looking something akin to extras from Ghosts of Mars

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Vampire Circus (1972)

In 1825, the mysterious Circus of Night enters a sleepy Romanian village cut off from the rest of the world by the plague. The villagers are immediately wowed by the performances which include acts where people transform into wild animals. Suspicions arise when bodies start turning up drained of blood.

For me this is the best film in a small genre of movies which mix the circus with horror. The film has quite a bit of grisly gore and nudity for a Hammer production and was pretty strong stuff for its time.

The circus performances are effectively filmed with very good animal transformations during the acts as well as an extremely memorable display by actual performers Milo and Serena. The film has enjoyable turns from the lovely Adrienne Corri, Lawrence Payne and Thorley Walters, but John Moulder-Brown seems like he needs to go back to stage school.

On the whole Vampire Circus is a successful attempt by Hammer to do something different with the vampire formula in what is a racy, gritty affair with an unwavering atmosphere of doom and gloom.

[MrBarlow]

The Exorcist: Believer. 2023.

Took a chance to see this and really not what I expected it to be, like the original at the start in a foreign country we see two dogs fighting and people wondering about doing their own thing while strangers are wondering about being tourists. Set in Washington like the original, this focuses on two 13 year old girls who somehow become possessed and different religions being involved. If the title wasn't used and Chris MacNeil not being mentioned this would be a new run of the mill possession movie. Thanks to the trailer the jump scares were predictable yet one or two people at the cinema still jumped This isn't great but not terrible either, will take another glance at it when it's released.

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[Demdike@Cult Labs]

The Fog (1980)

The Fog is one of my top ten horror films and also ranks highly in my choice of favourite films of all time. I watch it at least once a year sometime in October and when i remember on the 21st of April too.

Despite knowing it so well i'm still able to pick out new points of interest with each viewing.

Jamie Lee Curtis plays a character called Elisabeth Solley, one scene in particular made me wonder if this wasn't really her name and it was in fact Laurie Strode, who was hitching her way to the sunny climes of the Californian coast to get away from her past in Haddonfield, Illinois.

Don't be daft i hear you cry. Yet this one brief sequence perhaps alludes to this theory when she and Tom Atkins character Nick Castle (Lol) are having a quiet chat, she says.

"Ever since you picked me up things have been going wrong". "Things seem to happen to me... I'm bad luck"

What things are these one wonders? Being chased about on Halloween by a madman with a large kitchen knife? Maybe, who knows.

On that little note i'll leave you with some music as the witching hour approaches and if you've time for one more story -



The Sounds of the Surf From Antonio Bay. KAB 1340.