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By Helen Storey
Staff Writer
30 October 2009
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IT'S that time of the year again. Any night now your doorbell will be rung by kids in their mother's best sheets, daubed liberally in crappy fake blood asking for sweets and money.
If you're sick of the trick-or-treaters, close the curtains, disconnect the doorbell and settle in with a rented horror film-fest this Halloween. All of our picks can be rented at Blockbuster, Lovefilm and Cinema Paradiso.
Whether you're a fan of ham acting and wobbly sets or you just plain love to be scared, our Halloween movie line-up has something for everyone.
So grab your partner, friend, family member, neighbour, or even a total stranger because you won't want to watch any of these alone.
The Good
These are the flicks that are absolutely guaranteed to scare the daylights out of you. The creepy, the twisted, the gorefests that will haunt your nightmares for weeks to come.
Make sure you have enough hiding room behind the sofa before these go anywhere near your DVD player.
- Henry - Potrait of a Serial Killer - Loosely based on the real life of serial killer Henry Lee Lucas, this flick is a disturbing journey through the mind and actions of a psychotic serial killer. This is a seriously chilling pant-wetter.
- The Exorcist III - We've all seen the original Exorcist, and sequels (especially the third) are notoriously bad, but this overlooked sequel is brimming with genuine jump-out-of-your-seat moments. Directed by William Peter Blatty, the author of the original Exorcist novel, this is a highly creepy film that is highly under-rated.
The So-Bad-It's-Good
The plot is rubbish, the acting is shoddy and the continuity man was obviously on holiday. The So-Bad-It's-Good films are cringey, laughable, and, well, not exactly scary as such, but the bad plot lines are verging on being frightful.
- Demons - A badly dubbed Italian splatter flick from the 80s, involving over-acting-a-plenty, a healthy dose of gore, and as the name would suggest, demons (who ooze green slime). Silly, over the top, and including such character genius as 'Tony the Pimp'.
- Zombie Strippers! - OK, so it was made with being rubbish in mind but it still sort of counts. Starring Jenna Jameson, a government super virus turns pole-dancers into 'Super Zombie Strippers'. Full of head-exploding gore with more than a smattering of sex and violence.
- Troll 2 - This has become a bit of a cult classic, even having a drinking game devoted to it. The first thing you should know is that it's not about trolls (only goblins). Just to confuse things further, the original DVD cover sleeve has a werewolf on it. It has a terrible soundtrack, terrible acting, and terrible 'special' effects and is utterly hilarious.
The Obscure
They were mostly forgotten about in the cinemas or released straight to DVD but that doesn't mean they should be overlooked now. It is halloween after all.
- Three Extremes A Japanese horror anthology of three short, and disturbing films: Dumplings (the tale of a woman who will go to any measures to retain her beauty), Box (an unsettling story about a woman with a morbid fear of being buried alive) and Cut (about a film director and his wife who has been taken captive, and they are forced to play a very cruel game).
- Tesis - A Spanish thriller about a girl who discovers a snuff film whilst researching for her thesis. She recognises the girl as a fellow student and before long is pulled into a snuff ring. Chilling, and makes a bold (if not ironic) statement about violence in movies.
So ditch the dodgy plastic masks this year and go for an all-out film fest. All of the movies mentioned are available from Blockbuster, LoveFilm and Cinema Paradiso.
You just might need to sleep with the lights on afterwards.
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