EXCEPTIONALLY STRANGE HORROR CULT CLASSICS
A simplistic definition of the horror genre assumes that it has to contain monsters and to follow a strict set of genre rules. I believe, however, that horror has the potential to work on a number of different levels, both metaphorical, existential and purely visceral. By its very nature it creates possibilities for expression of pretty complex questions about the nature of existence; more importantly it allows questioning film-makers to completely shatter any pre-existing ideas about what can be defined as normal. Here it is used to explore and criticise society in ways no other genre can, primarily because it is much maligned and misunderstood; film-makers have the freedom to create metaphysical spaces that would be otherwise impossible. In this list I'm interested in looking at those aspects of particular films which make them stand out from the others, which make fans of those of us who are attuned to what horror sometimes tries to communicate (and alienates as many). Horror is also an ambiguous zone of possibility that allows experimentation with forms of representation not allowable in anything outside the avant-garde. These days it's hard to find a horror film that really touches you deeply in the nightmarish kind of way true horror really should. The more recent Hollywood spectacles may look good but lack true depth, often providing a humanistic outlook frosted with a prudishly moral acceptance of empty concepts. In short, I rarely see anthing that more than skirts the edges of true horror. Sometimes you have to look really hard, both into the past and to films that aren't produced by the formulaic cemetery for cinema which calls itself an industry. The idea is to include some of them here. I'm going to try to suggest in short some of the reasons why I've added them to the list (with as few spoilers as possible); the ultimate plan is to include at my website more detailed analyses and descriptions which you can find here: http://www.nachtschimmen.eu/places/projects/ESHCC. My other lists contains films that follow the rules set by Hollywood and are not necessarily awful, but should in any case be avoided by anyone who expects something cogent from the genre. Any suggestions for this or my other list are welcome; I'd love to be made aware of more truly weird and exceptional horror films that may be worthy of this list. I'd also like to thank Frank Edelamn who is the sole creator of his astoudingly complete exploration of low-budget, exploitation and anti-Hollywood cinematic offerings in his extensive website, both well written and well-researched. He calls it, aptly, 'Critical Condition' and can be found at the following URL: http://www.critcononline.com. His site and advice helped me add many of the titles to this list.
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- DirectorRoger CormanStarsVincent PriceMark DamonMyrna FaheyUpon entering his fiancée's family mansion, a man discovers a savage family curse and fears that his future brother-in-law has entombed his bride-to-be prematurely.
- DirectorHerk HarveyStarsCandace HilligossFrances FeistSidney BergerAfter a traumatic accident, a woman becomes drawn to a mysterious abandoned carnival.Truly well-made and spooky film about a woman who during the coarse of the film gradually realises that she is dead. Made on a shoestring budget with wonderful scenes involving her seduction into the bizarre and scary 'carnival' and its set of weird characters who are metaphoric of the death awaiting us all.
- 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.If you were unfortunate enough to see the dreadful remake of this film which appears more an exaggeration of this film than a readaptation of Shirley Jackson's novel, then you really should watch the original which is in stark black and white and truly scary to the extent that haunted houses that go bump in the night can be scary. Its a good adaptation of Jackson's effective novel, and its main deviation is casting one of the psychic characters as a lesbian played by Claire Bloom.
- DirectorGeorge A. RomeroStarsDuane JonesJudith O'DeaKarl HardmanA ragtag group of Pennsylvanians barricade themselves in an old farmhouse to remain safe from a horde of flesh-eating ghouls that are ravaging the Northeast of the United States.The mother of all 'nature/culture' metaphor films which has a small group stuck in a typical family home trying to keep a horde of sepulchral ghouls from eating their flesh. I still love this film, although I have to confess that I'm fond of this particular metaphor (not so much zombies). Films like 'The Evil-Dead' and the more recent filming of Scott Smith's novel 'The Ruins' (among many others) owe a lot to this film which became a prototype to an almost endless series of sequels, imitations and finally more recent television series like 'The Walking Dead'. The acting may be campy and the horror far less violent than what we've become used to; but this somehow adds to the sense of doom on the characters, none of whom are spared the horror which envelops them and which ultimately remains unexplained. What also makes it interesting is its characterisation of its hero as a negro; although his authoritative air makes everyone trapped in the house obey his advice, they all die because of following it without question, and the very fact that he's the last to die, shot because he's feared to be one of the living dead in the title, is also indicative of racial hatred still strongly felt in a country divided by race and wealth.
- DirectorKen RussellStarsVanessa RedgraveOliver ReedDudley SuttonIn 17th-century France, Father Urbain Grandier's protection of the city of Loudun from the corrupt Cardinal Richelieu is undermined by a sexually repressed nun's accusation of witchcraft.Ken Russell's film may be based on historical fact which took place in France during the Middle-Ages, it certainly is of film with horrific undertones and with the amazing acting talent of Vanessa Redgrave as the hunchback witch who falsely accuses the the renegade priest of sexual atrocities against her, a horrific unjustice takes place made more potent by a particularly strong original score by Peter Maxwell-Davies and Ken Russell's impressive use of imagery.
- DirectorJohn D. HancockStarsZohra LampertBarton HeymanKevin O'ConnorA recently institutionalized woman has bizarre experiences after moving into a supposedly haunted country farmhouse and fears she may be losing her sanity once again.The lurid title could easily side-track you from what is essentially an extremely frightening exploration of a woman's descent into madness. You can read it, of course, in a material sense as the title suggests; but everything in this film has the potential to signify something else entirely, and its this ambiguity that makes this film so macarbe and interesting. Everything, from the killing of the 'mole' to the conclusion during which Jessica is trapped the films ambivelent set of monsters on the middle of the lake on a barely floating boat (classic metaphor for human consciousness and mental health) communicates on different levels. The fact that there is no ultimate explanation for the strange set of phenomena that take place is also demonstrative of the horrific and inexplicable quality of psychotic behaviour for those suffering from schizophrenia (for those of us that have had the misfortune to experience it) or the side-effects of drugs.
- DirectorHarry KümelStarsDelphine SeyrigJohn KarlenDanielle OuimetWhile passing through a vacation resort, a newlywed couple encounters a mysterious, strikingly beautiful countess and her aide.Delphine Seyrig plays a magnificently evil lesbian vampire in this cult film erroneously well-known for the fact that it is one of the only motion pictures ever filmed entirely on location in Ostende. With a primarily European cast, the vampire character played by Seyrig presents a convincing argument for the preference of lesbian vampire life, and is taken as the positive alternative to a violent and abusing husband - newly discovered since the couple who become the protagonists are newly wed.
- DirectorWillard HuyckGloria KatzStarsMichael GreerMarianna HillJoy BangA young woman goes searching for her missing artist father. Her journey takes her to a strange Californian seaside town governed by a mysterious undead cult.Also known under its alternative title 'Dead People', this unusual little film, although painfully dated, is in a way similar to some of the themes of 'Let's Scare Jessica to Death' where the sanity of the heroine, who in this case is searching for her father in an isolated village filled, as it turns out, with a cult of flesh-eating ghouls waiting the return of the leader who bring them on a cross-country quest of ultimate desctruction. Although allowed to leave the village because everyone knows no one will believe her, the film starts and ends in a mental institution and contains many moments of genuine cloying and unpleasant fear. It is slow-moving and ambiguous; it doesn't feel the necessity to keep you constantly excited and some of the acting is less than fantastic; but in many respects those are elements which make this film worth the effort. It's certainly a disquieting experience convincingly played at the beginning and conclusion by its head protagonist. This film also has the dubious honour of being one of the start vehicles of the porn actress 'Joy Bang', although I couldn''t specificy exactly which character she was playing.
- DirectorPeter WeirStarsTerry CamilleriJohn MeillonKevin MilesThe small town of Paris, Australia deliberately causes car accidents, then sells/salvages all valuables from the wrecks as a means of economy.This film was released with title 'The Cars that Ate Paris' and was the first part of the Peter Weir trilogy of horror films that at the time received funding from the Australian government, a blessing which resulted in lesser-known but no less deserving of attention classics like this. It explores a given that can be understood in Australian context; the vast expanse of territory allows the givens of this film to be imaginable, picturing a country bumpkin village situated in the middle of nowhere filled with inhabitants who make their living by setting traps to cause car accidents for innocent travellers who happen to make the unfortunate mistake of driving too close to the city. The wrecks are salvaged, and if the victims are unfortunate enough to survive, they become the experimentation fodder for a mad-doctor who promptly lobotomises them. This surreal environment has become metaphoric for a world strangled by technology; in an Australian-sense it also expresses the nightmare trapped feeling of being isolated in a world of mediocrity; the ending which has the youth taking a bizarre revenge by destroying the village with the imaginatively designed monster-like cars they've created from the wrecks that previously were the cities livelihood, is truly appropriate for the films thematic content and intention and this film certainly deserves its place on any list of horror cult classics; films that may seem extremely weird, but as time passes seem to make more sense as an overpopulated world becomes consumed by its obsession for wealth, oil and material gain. The two other horror films in the trilogy were 'Picnic at Hanging Rock', further on in this list, and 'The Last Wave', a far less successful venture into aboriginal mythology (but still worth a look).
- DirectorSean MacGregorDavid SheldonStarsSorrell BookeGene EvansTaylor LacherAfter five insane children are involved in a van wreck, they start killing people at a lodge who insulted them or were rude to them.The seventies was a strange era of film-making and a lot of experimentation took place by masters of the era like Pasolini. Then you had lesser-known gems like the 'The Little Girl who Lives Down the Lane', 'The Effect of Radiation on Man in the Moon Marigolds' and 'Devil Times Five' aka 'Peopletoys'. This second title, evidently the one chosen initially by the film makers doesn't seem to make much sense; why fuse two words together in this context? The children, although representing the stereotypes of adults they base their sense of selves upon, are all flesh and blood and not at all toy like. The climactic seconds of the film, which interestingly, is concluded instead with the ominous words 'the beginning', explains exactly the Peopletoys being referred to in the title; it took me the whole length of the film to work that one out but in retrospect it makes the conclusion precariously obvious and is explicative of why the film is better known under its more popular heading, Devil Times Five, a title which gives little away about what is the motivation behind the action of the children. Devil Times Five is interesting because its collection of characters are quirky and human and the five psychopathic children who murder without conscience are logical caricatures of the adult world they believe they have the right to wreak havoc upon. With the dubious honour of having as its executive producer Jordan Wank, this film makes imaginative use of colour and slow motion in ways that probably seemed unique in the seventies. If you believe that children have the real potential to commit 'evil' acts and if you enjoy films with shirt-ripping, breast-exposing cat-fights, then you'll love this extremely strange and violent romp as the set of adults trapped in the wintry isolated mansion of its over-bearing and extremely wealthy owner 'Papa Doc' who keeps going on about how hard he works and how little education he needed to achieve that wealth, then you'll enjoy this film which is gradually forming a well-deserved cult. The children, normally seen as the joy of the present and the hope for the future, spend the last third of this film ripping Papa Doc's rather loathsome American dream into pieces, and turning the adults into the very dead playthings of the five children who are then free to move on to their next conquest. It's interesting to note that one of the young male psychopaths, years before Silence of the Lambs would make the subject a taboo, likes to dress as a girl, is obsessed with his beauty and fantasises about seducing one of the older men.
- DirectorTobe HooperStarsMarilyn BurnsEdwin NealAllen DanzigerFive friends head out to rural Texas to visit the grave of a grandfather. On the way they stumble across what appears to be a deserted house, only to discover something sinister within. Something armed with a chainsaw.Despite the endless array of sequels and remakes that could make the original seem rather tacky and outdated, I still find this film to be highly shocking. Tobe Hooper did something new; based very loosely on the Ed Gein case, a group of people on tour in the American heartlands make a wrong-turn and end up meeting violent deaths at the hands of a group of savage and crazy lunatics. I can't say I enjoyed watching this film; but despite its being dated it still shocked me and provided the horror genre with an entirely new direction. From right at the beginning when the disabled man is savagely and brutally killed to the bloody and screaming escape of the single heroine at the end, a rivetting sense of tension and distaste is held and even if you find the subject matter as revolting as I did it's hard not to pay attention to it and give it the respect it deserves. It actually has about as much to do with the Ed Gein case as Psycho does; but its surprising what imaginative film-makers can do with rather unpleasant truths.
- 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.On Valentine's day in Victorian-era Australia a group from a local girls' boarding school head off for a picnic in the bush. Three of the girls and one of the teachers go off for a walk and disappear, never to be seen again. The film begins with images focussing on the eroticism of the girls who are bursting into puberty; as natural forces collide with material ones, the rock of the title undresses and consumes them. The rest of the film concerns the complex ways this event plays off in the lives of the ones left behind. Haunting evocation of the horror inherent in an unfriendly and indifferent environment.
- DirectorDavid CronenbergStarsPaul HamptonJoe SilverLynn LowryThe residents of a suburban high-rise apartment building are being infected by a strain of parasites that turn them into mindless sex-crazed fiends out to infect others via the slightest sexual contact.This is perhaps Cronenberg's most controversial film which managed to completely escape the censors, since it was classed down as a video nasty and was therefore not considered to be attempting to achieve anything higher than shock value. Like 'Rabid', it went to second feature drive-in emissions or straight onto VHS. The subject, however, is extremely pernicious and challenging. It concerns a doctor who is experimenting on dabbling with genetics, the manipulation of flesh and pederasty where a doctor basically creates worm like creatures that enter the body through the sexual organs and turn the victim into a sex maniac. Set in a modern Toronto complex, the new type of living that was fashionable at that time, the inhabitants of the building become part of an experiment that goes dreadfully wrong. Here the relationship between outbursts of sexual expression, disease and some of the problematic ideas suggested manage to be hidden under what could equally be viewed as a slimy monster movie that turns the flat residents into undead like things. Very interesting and worthy of further analysis.
- DirectorRoman PolanskiStarsRoman PolanskiIsabelle AdjaniMelvyn DouglasA bureaucrat rents a Paris apartment where he finds himself drawn into a rabbit hole of dangerous paranoia.Polanski directed and starred in this remarkable and haunting film about obsession and death; I found it original and interesting - and really quirky. Rosemary's Baby was a frightening film; but it was based on a silly novel by Ira Levin - its the actors and direction that make it unique. This film, however, is entirely unique. Shelley Winters, in what must have been one of her last roles, plays a subdued landlord while the tenant played by Polanski becomes obsessed with the woman who died in the apartment he lives in. Things are left unexplained and as the haunting terror reaches its conclusion, we are left to wonder why the protagonist throws himself out the window, and after surviving this first attempt, crawls, heavily injured up the stairs, still dressed in the female clothing he's wearing, and throws himself out again!
- DirectorDavid LynchStarsJack NanceCharlotte StewartAllen JosephHenry Spencer tries to survive his industrial environment, his angry girlfriend, and the unbearable screams of his newly born mutant child.If you like surrealistic horror metaphor films, this one has a lot of potential for you. Don't mistake it for an 'art'-film, although it has been put in that category by many. The statements it makes about the world we live in, both through imagery, metaphor and sound, are in themselves horrific.
- DirectorRichard LoncraineStarsMia FarrowKeir DulleaTom ContiAfter her daughter's death, wealthy American homemaker Julia Lofting moves to London to restart her life. All seems well until she is haunted by the ghosts of other children while mourning for her own.Peter Straub is one of my favourite writers of horror and Full Circle [aka The Haunting of Julia] (1977) is the best adaptation into film I’ve seen of his work. It has all the elements of a ghost story, so many in fact that on a superficial review of the exposition you could be fooled into thinking it is a clone of films involved with hauntings. Like The Changeling (1980) – a highly competent haunted house film - it involves a spectre attached to a location into which a recently bereaved character moves, just as the realisation of both plots have the main protagonists uncovering the dark secrets held by the house. It’s also interesting to note that the terrible Disney adaptation of Straub called Ghost Story (based flimsily on the complex novel of the same name) tries and so dismally fails to make the extremely complex and frightening horror narrative weaved by Straub interesting precisely because they tried to turn it into the ‘ghost story’ it most certainly wasn’t. This film, however, doesn’t shy away from the horrible secrets haunting the past or any of the taboo subjects that are touched on in the book; the idea of evil children is hardly new, but suggesting a pre-pubescent child could have physical and sexual charisma to attract other children to help her perform evil deeds and sexual acts wouldn’t be so easily touched upon today, in a world so horrified by the fact that children can have access to the internet and pornography, let alone commit sexual acts. This film is multi-facetted and interesting but hasn’t received the attention it deserved.
Watching Julia Lofting, played perfectly by Mia Farrow, being subsumed by her obsession with the evil child she is ultimately responsible for evoking, is one of growing dread. Tales of haunting like The Changeling involve resolution and restitution; this film, is filled with a dense atmosphere and a growing sense of dread. There’s nothing nice, logical or justified about the resolution longed for and attained by the nasty little spectre in this film. More comparable to the Japanese Ju-On which similarly involves a malevolent spirit, almost everyone involved falls victim.
The title of the film also intrigued me. I thought initially it must have had something to do with the author’s intentions because I read a book with the same name. On rewatching the film, however, I noticed straightaway that the film was actually a screenplay based on an adaptation of Straub’s Julia. After a little research I discovered that the book was republished with the film’s title, so I imagine the two parties involved in adapting the book for the screen, attempted to redirect the attention of the audience towards the narrative, one which involves a cycle revolving around an evil child and the revenge it takes upon those who had let her down in life; I’m also reminded of the haunting shot that ends the film: the camera circles around the main character, panning to reveal the bloody and circular wound cutting Julia’s throat leaving her very dead. The alternative title, The Haunting of Julia, although more descriptively accurate of the film’s contents and the author’s original title, is far less intriguing.
This film has been compared to Roeg’s Don’t Look Now (1973), and although the plot shares a few aspects, the mourning of a dead child and obsessed parents searching for a ghostly apparition, but the comparisons between the two stop there; Roeg’s lingering obsession with shots of the film’s location (Venice) and the physical presence of its two competent leads (Christie and Sutherland), where Don’t Look Now lingers Full Circle is active in realizing a very busy plot as a great number of interesting and quirky characters created by Straub are encountered as Julia gradually uncovers her involvement in the ultimate horror of an extremely nasty child she inadvertently resurrected. Roeg’s film is also based on a short story by Daphne Du Maurier; there is actually little plot to tell and so Roeg enjoys the sumptuous location which, although praised at the time, doesn’t actually say very much at all. Full Circle doesn’t have the sumptuous colour of Don’t Look Now; if anything it presents a rather ruddy set of dark blues and browns – true to London and films of the seventies but also true to the dark themes explored in the film. Any suggestion that Full Circle is in a similar fashion slow-moving either didn’t pay attention to the film or allowed the complexity of the story to completely pass them by. Full Circle constantly tells a story, whereas Don’t Look Now spends a hell of a long time teasing you into thinking you’re seeing something that actually has a story worth telling.
Although the book is remarkably true to Straub’s novel and actually manages to fit in a great deal of the content, it has some moments of its own, like a scene early on in the London residence, where she’s seen building a house of cards; as the camera closes in on Julia’s face, the card house naturally topples and you see that the playing cards actually contain identical images of her dead daughter’s face. Where the film does differ from the book, it does so mostly in ways that allow the complex story to be told without giving you the impression that you’re being fed a lot of information. No scene is wasted in revealing Straub’s narrative. The casting of Keir Dullea as the overbearing husband Magnus was an unusual choice, but in the few scenes he has he comes across sufficiently abusive. This is one variation on Straub’s intended plot that I prefer; the alduterous and criminally abusive drunk whose primary interest in his wife is attaining power of attorney over her money, is the first to fall victim to the house whereas in the novel he undeservedly survives. Another thing that makes the film special is the unusually pervasive score which is both haunting and at times horrific; in any case strange in its overbearing constancy. The themes are interchanged between recorded instruments and electronic ones; when the house is dangerous the theremin-like expression of the theme dominates; it’s overbearing like the atmosphere of the house in the book which is always so hot, dank and smelly. What makes this film worthwhile, however, is the fact that in spite of the dense plot the sense of horror develops slowly and aside from Magnus’ early death there is little actual violence or even appearances of supernatural entities – it is implied and a sense of dread gradually leads you the horrific closing of the circle suggested by the title. - DirectorDavid CronenbergStarsMarilyn ChambersFrank MooreTerry SchonblumA young woman develops a taste for human blood after experimental plastic surgery, and her victims turn into blood-thirsty zombies, leading into a city-wide epidemic.Cronenberg's ambiguous answer to the dangers of playing with the human body; pre-dates the idea of genetic harvesting but proposes ideas which seem remarkably valid. I watched it again recently and was surprised by its provocative message, one which went by the critics and censors as it was generally sent directly to second feature drive-in films and the video nasties section when both of those places still existed. Its attraction was its star, Marilyn Chambers, who for a porn actress doesn't do a bad job. The idea of a woman having a sexual appendage, essentially penis or enlarged-clitoris like, somewhere else on her body that jumps out and bites you was quite forward thinking; and as the infection she introduces spreads it becomes an all out living dead nightmare.
- DirectorDario ArgentoStarsJessica HarperStefania CasiniFlavio BucciAn American newcomer to a prestigious German ballet academy comes to realize that the school is a front for something sinister amid a series of grisly murders.This film, with its over-the-top art-deco and art-nouveau European settings, its brilliant tones, truly fascinating audio soundtrack and the superb acting of a young and beautiful Jessica Harper, gets better each time I watch it. The screen is always filled with things to see; beatiful and ugly things. I think it has one of the most horrifying opening slayings I've ever seen, in the most exquisite of settings.
- DirectorDavid CronenbergStarsOliver ReedSamantha EggarArt HindleA man tries to uncover an unconventional psychologist's therapy techniques on his institutionalized wife, amidst a series of brutal murders.Cronenberg's cult classic; well-known for the scene in which Samanthat Eggar reveals the extended womb attached to her navel which she rips open with her teeth, birthing in the most bizarre way another member of the title's 'broood'; creatures resulting from the rage of the extremely mentally disturbed mother - monsters which she, thanks to the help of her psychologist (played by Oliver Reed) and the dark and typically Cronenberg 'organisation' responsible for its perpetuation, produces without the help of a male. Arguably more shocking and controversial than the Alien bursting out of John Hurt's stomach in the similarly titled film; certainly one for the most creepy films of all time, and certainly pre-dating this film. If you like horror films and you haven't seen this, shame on you.
- DirectorDavid SchmoellerStarsChuck ConnorsJocelyn JonesJon Van NessA group of young friends stranded at a secluded roadside museum are stalked by a masked assailant who uses his telekinetic powers to control the attraction's mannequins.This little known film is surprisingly frightening. Although when I saw it, it was like many others of its irk released directly as a second film drive-in special or directly to video, its really quite well made and deserves to be seen by any fans of the genre.
- DirectorKevin ConnorStarsRory CalhounPaul LinkeNancy ParsonsA seemingly friendly farmer and his sister kidnap unsuspecting travelers and bury them alive, using them to create the "special meat" they are famous for.This unusual horror parody with its harvesting of motel guests who have their vocal chords cut and have been 'planted' in the garden for later use in sausages, seems to be making a commentary on vegetarianism, or at least that is what I felt when I saw it. The reduction of the human figure to screaming crazed animalism, along with the strange murderous pig-mask wearing butcher at the end (who confesses in his dying moments to 'using artificial ingredients' in his sausages) certainly seem to promote the advantages of a green lifestyle!
- DirectorDavid CronenbergStarsJennifer O'NeillStephen LackPatrick McGoohanA scientist trains a man with an advanced telepathic ability called "scanning" to stop a dangerous Scanner with extraordinary psychic powers from waging war against non scanners.Did you think De Palma's adaptation of the idea of psychic powers as a destructive force in 'The Fury' was predictable and lame? Then you should see Cronenberg's Scanners which does really interesting things with the idea, using it as a point of departure rather than a point of arrival.
- DirectorGary ShermanStarsJames FarentinoMelody AndersonJack AlbertsonSheriff Dan Gillis investigates eerie deaths in a sleepy coastal town.I saw this film recently and I was both astounded and shocked by its fascinating use of location, costume, atmosphere and violence to create the horrific build-up to its macarbe conclusion. It has extremely scary moments but at the same time no expense is spared in taking care of smaller details.
- DirectorSam RaimiStarsBruce CampbellEllen SandweissRichard DeManincorFive friends travel to a cabin in the woods, where they unknowingly release flesh-possessing demons.As well as being a land-breaking film on a visceral level, gripping you almost from the very beginning into its extremely morbid atmosphere, this film has meant a lot to me because of the culture/nature metaphor which is represented by those who think they're protected inside the house, and the extremely unfriendly forces outside which roots them out (no pun intended) one by one. I'm afraid I found the sequels embarrassing laughathons; and Sam Raimi has demonstrated that he can do little more than follow the Hollywood buck to film after film of horror cliché (and Spiderman? ugh). But nothing will decrease the extremity of fear and horror which is developed on a shoestring budget with only four (unknown) actors.
- DirectorFrank HenenlotterStarsKevin VanHentenryckTerri Susan SmithBeverly BonnerA young man carrying a big basket that contains his extremely deformed, formerly conjoined twin brother seeks vengeance on the doctors who separated them against their will.Cult classic which is these days pretty dated but was made on a low budget, has some interesting scenes and is in all not bad.