24-hours of Netflix Streaming Horror--A Curated List of 16 Weird, Spooky Wonders

The only one of Bava's films, and maybe also the only trilogy, I find truly scary - the good, shivery spine tingle kind, especially the Wurdulak segment, which taps into a very primal anxiety, the way family ties can become nooses without you ever noticing. Even strongly suspecting their father (Boris Karloff) has been turned vampire, the family do his bidding, too conditioned by the Catholic social structure to rebel; and the mama can't resist running out in the cold to comfort her pale dead bambino, even stabbing her husband when he tries to restrain her. Did I spoil it? No man, I didn't. PS: The American version presented here is different from the Italian most fans know by heart from the DVD, in a different order, dubbed into English, missing a lesbian undercurrent, but providing instead Karloff's real voice (not in the Italian version) and "Sdenka" (Susy Anderson) is still sexy, as is Rosie (Michèle Mercier--above), gorgeously lit as she prowls the red telephone sequence.

1985 was a year of great zombie contention, according to a hazily remembered source, between Romero and co-NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD screenwriter John A. Russo. The result was two different zombie movies coming out at the same time back when there were NO other zombie movies, outside of Italy, of course, certainly none that would make it a first run cineplex instead of a decaying drive-in. My punk crew and I saw both in one weekend; we loved THE RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, which really jibed with our then life style (the whole thing with zombies going "Braaainnsss!" begins with RETURN). But we found DAY to be way too much of a downer. Half the film is spent in irritable bickering between gonzo scientists trying to isolate what makes zombies tick and a bunch of crazed military guys getting understandably tired of being bossed around by a bunch of civilian ectomorphs down in a cramped mine shaft. The yelling and Gary Howard Klar's evil giggling get annoying, but the idea of Bub (Sherman Howard) the first sympathetic zombie, being trained by one of the lead scientist (Richard Liberty), like a combination mentally-challenged son, is tellingly Romero, who's always gone more for the social critique underlying the zombie menace, than the comedic self-awareness of most of his imitators. And perhaps the split from Russo hurts them both - the military and the scientists needing each other after all. Meanwhile, a cool Jamaican chopper pilot (Terry Alexander) and and an amiable Irish drunk (Jarlath Conroy) have the right idea: set up some inflatable palm trees around a camper at the edge of the mine shaft and grow ganja. Humanity is saved.

Not only does it open on one of the worst matte painting castle exteriors in history, it also stands as a great British horror crossroad, straddling the decades with unrepentant 70s sapphic nudity right alongside all the typical 60s Hammer vampire Gothic trappings: florid dialogue, gorgeous Brit actresses, Peter Cushing, all that. Especially if you have a good HD TV, it's worth its precious 2 AM time slot because the colors are sublime. Once you see Peter Cushing's blazing red tunic in the post-credits dance scene, and you're like DAMN. That ballroom looks 3-D, and then in comes Ingrid Pitt as Marcela Karnstein, with two gorgeous fertile looking virgins and their easily misled fathers, just waiting to get knocked over like bloodless ten pins.

So now it's late, and all that's left is a yen to see and hear British women--so effortlessly smart, confident, sexual, and relaxed compared with American actresses-- as they engage in candle lit supernatural hallway walking and weird noise investigating. Rebecca Hall, as a professional ghost-debunker lured to her existential Waterloo fits the bill; and as the movie around her aims in the direction of THE OTHERS, THE INNOCENTS, DEVIL'S BACKBONE, and THE WOMAN IN BLACK, she aims for the stalwart company of Olivia Williams, Rhona Mitra, Kate Beckinsale, and Kierra Knightley. Bullseye on both counts. She's terrific and never wastes a line. The setting and photography are evocative as greenish blue hues can make them; Dominic West is the burly school superintendent; there's a kid with a distracting haircut and a good, creepy use of a dollhouse. You'll guess the twists a mile off, but that doesn't mean you don't like guessing. Just means you're good at it. 

As the sun comes up with the October briskness, it might not be as cold where you are as up in Pontypool, Canada, in the dead of winter when it's still completely dark as you drive to your early morning job. but you can glean the early dawn vibe, the special feeling when you and maybe none or two of your mates and only a few early risers and very very late-to-bedders are up and about in your time zone. Spread you auric tentacles out and bask in the collapse of concrete consensual reality, the bizarre and magical mix of bleary crankiness and magical openness, like a whole alternate dimension that's neither asleep dream nor conscious waking. What really makes PONTYPOOL work so well, beyond the unique zombie-language gimmick, is the comfortable sense of being in a warm radio booth on a frozen Ontario small town early early morning, as disgruntled talk radio host Mazzy (Stephen McHattie) begins to think the locals are all fucking with him as the calls coming in become more and more panicked, incoherent, and violent; his producer (Lisa Houle) shows the wear and tear humoring this charismatic witty but bitter dude has wrought on her, as well as the confusion that even after all that she still kind of has a thing for him, something he's way too self-lacerating to do much about. It's so organic it all unfolds in more or less real time for long stretches without the viewer (me at least) noticing any lapse; as the influx of news and shaky narration causes a breakdown in our perception of reality, leaving us to imagine most of the carnage in a kind of WAR OF THE WORLDS broadcast in reverse. In other words, while not being specifically scary, and always kind of funny, even romantic, there's a sense that something meta is always at stake, something that might leak out and effect even your seeing it, like you could call in to Mazzy's show while watching him in the movie and maybe he'd answer, and you'd both realize you'd probably fallen asleep.(more)

The Grand Guignol meta effect is in full effect here, as it was in PENNY DREADFUL after it  and MAD LOVE before it--they're performing dastardly reimagining of Poe's classic story, wherein the ape is the hero and Herbert Lom gets acid thrown on his face (again?) but the audience of semi-bemused royals presume it's part of the show, even though it's the closest thing to a performance they've given yet. If the ape looks familiar, it should, it got it's start smashing bones for Kubrick in 1968, spooked Joan Crawford as TROG in 1970, and now here it is, much the worse for wear but still the only sympathetic face in the film. Considered by most to be Gordon Hessler's finest hour, which doesn't say a lot unless you like terrible fake sideburns, ratty period costumes, a script that's just a few dull stretches of THE AVENGERS taped together, and boozy British actors pretending they remember their lines and marks. Well, there's some of that here, but the Demoiselles are stunning and dressed in dusky reds and black lace chokers (making their acid scarring all the more painful); the actors include Jason Robards, the period mise en scene is at least at Hammer level and there's galore post-modern leakage which is why it's after PONTYPOOL. And if you fall asleep, well dream your way right in, into the cage, that is, with Erich, the gorilla! (and then see the 1932 Florey version, which is sublimely weird).

I could do without the schmaltzy concert piano score or the misogynist torture of the opener, but the rest is great, and it's perfect Halloween fare. Lots of long pans and dollies across acres of ancient castle griffins and Barbara Steele standing or lying with eerie alien stillness and holes in her face. Even the 'good' Steele is spooky looking, like a reverse Rondo Hatton! This was Bava's big American calling card, and it's a perfect breakfast movie once the ugly taste of Catholic metal spikes is out of your mouth. The print used here is just so so, but it might inspire you to get the Blu-ray, to better savor the tactile, brilliant cinematography and dreamy dark fairy tale poeticism for which Bava is without peer. Just ask Tim Lucas!

This was just an innocent list but it's become about the actresses of Great Britain, more cigarette resonant and unabashedly sexual than most American girls depicted in films. this chick Julia (Clare Higgins) has the balls to ask for a brandy from her husband when she's sick, rather than refusing one with a dainty little 'eh' of a sneeze like a Yank bird, and it's pretty great the way she plays with a sadistic smile after her first kill, traumatized but hardly succumbing to the American tendency to play the glum martyr --though even now she says she's afraid of thunder, and worthless husband Larry is like, "I'll protect you!" not realizing she's already done and seen things that would turn him ashen like a Poe sailor. To bring his brother (her lover) back from the Cenobiteverse Julia gamely lures a string of grotty 70s-looking British business men on their three martini lunch hour up to the attic, where she bashes their heads in with a hammer so her love can slowly absorb their blood and put some meat on his bones, as it were. Her stepdaughter meanwhile (Ashley Laurence) is getting wise, and endangered by angler fish-esque demons and shit. She's cool too but with her beyond morality pursuit of pleasure, unapologetic wit and intelligence, and adult way of handling her body,  Julia's exhibit A in what's lacking in so many similar American ladies who tend to be youth-worshipping baby doll types until it's too late to dodge the Baby Jane mirror headlights (click this searing yet lovingly indulgent list that tracks them from Lolita to cougar). Think Julia gives a fuck her man's got no lips or skin? She'll shag him anyway just as he wouldn't care if she was in the thick of her period. Fookin' A. Oh yeah, the Cenobites themselves, they're kind of fucked up, not my bag, but respect the analogy towards the masochism of the horror marathon viewer! If you've seen it lately, HELLRAISER 2 is pretty good too, even #3 is watchable, but it's a steep slope, human!

Keep the British lady thing going with this gem from Ken Russell, the colors on the Netflix look gorgeous (the DVD seemed washed out, though it has a wry unmissable Russell commentary track that's one of the greats). And Amanda Donohoe is a tour de force, never camping or vamping but nailing, in every possible permutation that verb can be permuted, the most intoxicating upper crust broad since Stanwyck as the Lady Eve. Her snake goddess is what Auntie Mame always aspired to be but could never shake her ostentatious Americana baggahge. Familiar Scottish face Peter Capaldi is a summering archeologist who unearths a dragon skull; Hugh Grant, in his film debut, is the local lord-inherit who inherits too the burden of a giant white worm neighbor; the two local blonde sisters at the inn (Catherine Oxenberg and Sammi Davis) are fetching, smart, and crafty, and even the hallucination scene has a disturbing potency-- "she had a bad trip" - notes Grant, after one of the sisters accidentally touches some of hallucinatory snake venom. No one ever says no to a drink anywhere in the film, thank god. Between this and his Chopin opposite Judy Davis in IMPROMPTU, and Capaldi after this and LOCAL HERO. There's also the hottest older woman-on-paralyzed younger boy seduction in film history (until Creedence Leonore Gielgud's in TROLL 2). So forgive the occasional silliness, such as the absurd fangs and charmed dancing of Paul Brooke. And be charmed yourself.


Let's end on a cheerful, non-supernatural note... Scrappy Sharni Vinson is a great final-ish girl, full of wily Australian gumption in this tale of a besieged family reunion in the woods; it works because it recalls not just classics of the 70s and 80s, but classics of the 30s, i.e. the old dark house full of secret panels, greedy relatives gathered for the will, lightning storms, scary masks, strong female leads, no one who they seem, ironic karma, sudden twisting violence, moody Carpenter-esque synth soundtrack, and a refreshing lack of any moral compass. (MORE)

If you've recently seen any of the above, do substitute SCREAM, SCREAM 2, BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, RE-ANIMATOR, JOHN DIES AT THE END, EVIL DEAD 2 (though it's got some slapstick, fair warning) and/or CABIN IN THE WOODS. And for god's sake, stay alert, lock your doors, keep watching the knobs and clutching the butcher knife, large wrench, hammer, baseball bat, or fire poker, turn on a white noise machine or Orson Welles'War of the Worlds broadcast to block the spooky noises of trees against the window, because they're not trees....