Skin's "Makes my flesh crawl" list of shockers
Here's my take on some of the outstanding horror movies that have made my flesh crawl.
I have gone for unsettling rather than downright gory, i prefer my imagination to fill in the blanks, having said that i dont mind a gallon of claret every now and again, there are some obscurities here from all eras and doubtless some you would not consider horror flicks at all, but what the hell it's my own, personal list so my own prejudices show, for instance not too many asian horror flicks as i just don't find them scary, and a few...well off kilter shall we say well enjoy and i hope you find something you haven't heard of before cheers Skin
PS...There were a couple of REAL obscurities that even IMDB didn't have listed, a special mention should go out to Heartbeat In The Brain (date unknown) and Niku daruma 1998 both are INCREDIBLY difficult to track down and i have seen each only once, i can't really recommend them as such as they aren't really movies as most people would understand the term, however they both left quite an impression and if you want to push your boundaries then they certainly do that. I also hear persistent rumours that Genesis p orrdige and cossi fanni tutti's performance piece "Cease To Exist" performed at LAICA in the US in 1976 was filmed, has anyone ever seen this, from the written description i don't think you would forget it in a hurry.
I have gone for unsettling rather than downright gory, i prefer my imagination to fill in the blanks, having said that i dont mind a gallon of claret every now and again, there are some obscurities here from all eras and doubtless some you would not consider horror flicks at all, but what the hell it's my own, personal list so my own prejudices show, for instance not too many asian horror flicks as i just don't find them scary, and a few...well off kilter shall we say well enjoy and i hope you find something you haven't heard of before cheers Skin
PS...There were a couple of REAL obscurities that even IMDB didn't have listed, a special mention should go out to Heartbeat In The Brain (date unknown) and Niku daruma 1998 both are INCREDIBLY difficult to track down and i have seen each only once, i can't really recommend them as such as they aren't really movies as most people would understand the term, however they both left quite an impression and if you want to push your boundaries then they certainly do that. I also hear persistent rumours that Genesis p orrdige and cossi fanni tutti's performance piece "Cease To Exist" performed at LAICA in the US in 1976 was filmed, has anyone ever seen this, from the written description i don't think you would forget it in a hurry.
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- DirectorBenjamin ChristensenStarsBenjamin ChristensenElisabeth ChristensenMaren PedersenFictionalized documentary showing the evolution of witchcraft, from its pagan roots to its confusion with hysteria in Eastern Europe.A silent classic based on the malleus malificarum or hammer of the witches, banned in the US for containing graphic scenes of torture and sexual perversion (it WAS 1922) a semi documentary and wholly fascinating
- DirectorJohn CarpenterStarsKurt RussellWilford BrimleyKeith DavidA research team in Antarctica is hunted by a shape-shifting alien that assumes the appearance of its victims.John Carpenter at his very very best, an all male cast struggle in the snows against the titular thing, great performances incredible special effects and a nice bleak ending....all together now "NO F..KIN WAY MAN"
- DirectorRidley ScottStarsSigourney WeaverTom SkerrittJohn HurtThe crew of a commercial spacecraft encounters a deadly lifeform after investigating a mysterious transmission of unknown origin.Ridley Scotts masterful take on the haunted house...but in space, where as we all know nobody can hear you scream, it's all about the fear of male rape doncha know?.....well possibly
- DirectorAndrzej ZulawskiStarsIsabelle AdjaniSam NeillMargit CarstensenA woman starts exhibiting increasingly disturbing behavior after asking her husband for a divorce. Suspicions of infidelity soon give way to something much more sinister.Genuinely unsettling, hysterical performances and not in a funny way, a truly horrible monster (and i mean REALLY horrible) and THAT sex scene that got this nasty little gem banned nearly everywhere on release, a real sense of horror in the truest sense of the word permeates the scenes with the beast, and the subway miscarriage is difficult to sit through.
- DirectorRobert WiseStarsJulie HarrisClaire BloomRichard JohnsonHill House has stood for about 90 years and appears haunted: its inhabitants have always met strange, tragic ends. Now Dr. John Markway has assembled a team of people who he thinks will prove whether or not the house is haunted.ignore the farcical remake and revel in robert wise's downright terrifying version of the haunting of hill house, i defy anyone on first (or even 3rd) viewing not to feel the hairs on the back of your neck rise when the corridor scene plays, oh and the creepiest damn statues in movie history.
- DirectorJonathan MillerStarsMichael HordernAmbrose CoghillGeorge WoodbridgeClassic BBC adaptation of an equally classic ghost story about a skeptical professor on vacation in Norfolk who finds a cursed whistle. Unlike most other episodes of this documentary series about music, this one is live action folk horror.A BBC production of the MR James classic, watched this as i kid and the apparition on the beach haunting Michael Hording has stayed with me ever since, a beeb classic.
- DirectorWilliam FriedkinStarsEllen BurstynMax von SydowLinda BlairWhen a young girl is possessed by a mysterious entity, her mother seeks the help of two Catholic priests to save her life.The greatest poster for a movie ever, and what a movie it is, a stone cold classic that has lasted very well indeed, must have scared the crap out of a 70s audience, i know it did to me.
- DirectorDaniel MyrickEduardo SánchezStarsHeather DonahueMichael C. WilliamsJoshua LeonardThree film students vanish after traveling into a Maryland forest to film a documentary on the local Blair Witch legend, leaving only their footage behind.3 deeply unpleasant students enter the woods to film a documentary about a rural legend and come very unstuck, guerilla independent innovative film making at it's best, spawned dozens of clones but this remains far and away the best....what WAS in the stick bundle?
- DirectorPaul W.S. AndersonStarsLaurence FishburneSam NeillKathleen QuinlanA rescue crew is tasked with investigating the mysterious reappearance of a spaceship that had been lost for seven years.Was always going to suffer in comparison to Alien, but in truth it's a very different movie, don't listen to the nay sayers this is a class horror film that has one of my all time favourite scenes when the crew of the lewis and clark listen to the last transmission of the event horizon, "i think it's latin" just watch it, it's great
- DirectorPeter WeirStarsRachel RobertsAnne-Louise LambertVivean GrayDuring a rural summer picnic, a few students and a teacher from an Australian girls' school vanish without a trace. Their absence frustrates and haunts the people left behind.Dreamlike, ethereal and rather bloody creepy, where did the girls go? what if anything took them, a majestic film immaculately made by Peter Wier, many textured with no easy answers, a perfect antidote for the flimsy torture porn murder crapfests that infest horror today, wonderful.
- 2005–200759mTV-MA7.5 (9.8K)TV EpisodeDirectorJohn CarpenterStarsNorman ReedusColin FooUdo KierWith a torrid past that haunts him, a movie theatre owner is hired to search for the only existing print of a film so notorious that its single screening caused the viewers to become homicidally insane.A TV movie i hear you scream in indignation, well hang on a sec this is the second carpenter on my list and it's JC back on form, tautly directed great performances (Udo Kier is a scream) and a great central theme, the apocalyptic movie "Le Fin Absolute Du Monde" one of the all time great plot devices, much better than you would imagine.
- DirectorElem KlimovStarsAleksey KravchenkoOlga MironovaLiubomiras LauceviciusAfter finding an old rifle, a young boy joins the Soviet resistance movement against ruthless German forces and experiences the horrors of World War II.It's a war movie right, what's it doing on this list?, well this is a horror film in the truest sense, in that it inspires horror, a nightmarish and surreal voyage of a young boy through the horrors of the reichs "cleansing" in Belarus during WWII, powerful, brutal, uncompromising, mesmerising devastating film making of the highest order, of all the films on this list this is the one i that has left the most profound mark on me, unforgettable, try as you might.
- DirectorRoy Ward BakerStarsJames DonaldAndrew KeirBarbara ShelleyA mysterious artifact is unearthed in London, and famous scientist Bernard Quatermass is called in to divine its origins and explain its strange effects on people.From the sublime to the rid.... well lets not be cruel, i LOVE all things quatermass and this is my favourite, a metallic object is found under hobbes lane, is it a bomb?, a rocket? or something far far stranger.
Only Quatermass can save the day, stuffed full of stiff upper lips and Bristish boffins, spiffing stuff, also contains my candidate for best horror dialogue "They were jumping and leaping AND I WAS ONE OF THEM" - DirectorStanley KubrickStarsJack NicholsonShelley DuvallDanny LloydA family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where a sinister presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from both past and future.Yes it's an obvious choice, but rightly so, Kubrick brings the overlook ALIVE, stunning steady cam shots, a hysterical Shelly Duvall (Driven that way by Kubricks inhuman treatment of her) and a scenery chewing jack nicholson, far and away the best adaptation of any of King's oeuvre, even if he doesnt like it, idiot.
- DirectorPhilip KaufmanStarsDonald SutherlandBrooke AdamsJeff GoldblumWhen strange seeds drift to earth from space, mysterious pods begin to grow and invade San Francisco, replicating the city's residents one body at a time.Skip the original with it's tacked on happy ending and instead watch this criminally underrated remake, great performances, genuinely scary and one of the bleakest, most horrifying end shots in horror history, watch it and never sleep again.
- DirectorBoris SagalStarsCharlton HestonAnthony ZerbeRosalind CashDr Robert Neville has developed an experimental vaccine which makes him the only immune survivor of a biological catastrophe. A gang of homicidal mutants blame science for their condition and attempt to kill him.THIS is the definitive version of Richard Matheson's I Am Legend, ignore the pigswill which was the Will Smith vehicle and watch Ben Hur take on the armies of the night, those filthy dancing hippies....stonking stuff.
- DirectorClive BarkerStarsAndrew RobinsonClare HigginsAshley LaurenceA woman discovers the newly resurrected, partially formed, body of her brother-in-law and lover. She starts killing for him to revitalize his body and escape the demonic beings that are pursuing him after he escaped their underworld.Open the box, go on i DARE you, included for the remarkable feat of turning a nail headed bald man into a sex symbol, AND i thought the female cenobite was horny, but that's just me.
Clive Barker, not a man to let the imagination fill in the blanks, this is a great movie, all the others are crap mind you. - DirectorDavid CronenbergStarsJames WoodsDebbie HarrySonja SmitsA programmer at a Toronto TV station that specializes in adult entertainment searches for the producers of a dangerous and bizarre broadcast.I could have chosen half a dozen cronenberg flicks, the brood, shivers, rabid, scanners etc, but this is my choice to illustrate cronenbergs twisted take on (un)reality, great central performances, icky special effects and debbie harry looking OMG sexy. A surreal nightmare that genuinely f..cks with your head, deserves to be much better known.
- DirectorLuis BuñuelStarsPierre BatcheffSimone MareuilLuis BuñuelLuis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí present 16 minutes of bizarre, surreal imagery.Bunel and Dali's infamous collaboration, when they stated "No idea or image that might lend itself to a rational explanation of any kind will be accepted...We had to open all doors to the irrational and keep only those images that surprised us without trying to explain why." they meant it, lyrical, disturbing and wince inducing, if you havent seen this 17 min masterpiece do so, and you thought it hurt getting dust in your eye....
- DirectorRuggero DeodatoStarsRobert KermanFrancesca CiardiPerry PirkanenDuring a rescue mission into the Amazon rainforest, a professor stumbles across lost film shot by a missing documentary crew.My concession to the blood and gore brigade, i saw this waaay too young and the sheer bloody power of it haunted me for a long time.
And it IS powerful...gruesome, horrible, bloody yes but it has something that keeps you watching, again and again, avoid the prints with the animal cruelty at all costs, and guys cross your legs before THAT scene. - DirectorJacques TourneurStarsDana AndrewsPeggy CumminsNiall MacGinnisAmerican professor John Holden arrives in London for a parapsychology conference, only to find himself investigating the mysterious actions of Devil-worshipper Julian Karswell.Just released on DVD, an absolute gem, based on MR James "Casting The Runes" this is a a black and white masterpiece, you will be so caught up in the plot that you wont even snigger at the demon effects, promise.
- DirectorRobin HardyStarsEdward WoodwardChristopher LeeDiane CilentoA puritan police sergeant arrives in a Scottish island village in search of a missing girl, who the pagan locals claim never existed.I struggled to include this as it's such an obvious choice, but for sheer malice, atmosphere, and chills it had to be in, a heart stopping, bleak unforgettable ending elevates this to best British horror film ever and a strong contender for the all time top spot, AND it has Britt Ekland writhing around, what more do you want?
- DirectorPiers HaggardStarsPatrick WymarkLinda HaydenBarry AndrewsIn early 18th century England, the children of a village slowly convert into a coven of devil worshipers.No one has heard of this....WHY?
The second best British horror flick a gory, unsettling, upsetting, censor baiting classic, an absolutely mesmerising performance by Linda Hayden is the very epitome of seductive evil.
Ignore the rather silly title and treat yourself, if you haven't seen this before (and a lot wont have) you my friend are in for quite a ride. - DirectorMasami AkitaStarsToshirô HasegawaAsako MochidukiChimuo NurekiA woman commits Sepukku on herself.I tracked this down as it's directed by Japanese noise artist Merzbow, one of my heroes, it's........well it's horrible to be honest, almost impossible to get hold of and quite possibly illegal, but whats most unnerving is who is this sort of material made for?....made me want to wash out the inside of my skull, but leave an impact it most certainly did.
- DirectorPier Paolo PasoliniStarsPaolo BonacelliGiorgio CataldiUberto Paolo QuintavalleIn World War II Italy, four fascist libertines round up nine adolescent boys and girls and subject them to 120 days of physical, mental, and sexual torture.Pasolini completed this and was murdered for it.
A scathing indictment of the modern world as potrayed by a group of jaded fascists in the closing days of WWII.
Those coming to this expecting a T&A remake of De Sade will be sorely disappointed.
A horror film?, unquestionably Genius?, unreservedly ... a enjoyable watch?...no not really