The Fortress of Horror Returns

Some more stuff a little off the beaten path:

A Bell From Hell (1973)
The Day of the Beast (1995)
Deranged (1974)
Possession (1981)
The Devils (1971)
The House With Laughing Windows (1976)
The Reflecting Skin (1990)
Eyes Without a Face (1959)
Kill List (2011)
Santa Sangre (1989)
Shock Waves (1977)
Uzumaki (2000)

House

The Gate would be a good one too.

Michael Barnes wrote: The Gate would be a good one too.

Oh yeah, definitely. Nostalgia aside, this movie is strangely effective and the stop-motion effects for the creatures are far more creepy than CGI.

As for recommendations, I would say 1972's Horror Express would be a good candidate, merely for the fact that it's the least known of the four "The Thing" films. It even stars Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, with Telly Savalas hamming it up in a memorable supporting role. You could do a roundup of all four movies as you've probably already seen The Thing from Another World and John Carpenter's The Thing.

Ha, I meant to put Horror Express on my list...that's a cool movie. It is The Thing on a train.

The Gate would be interesting to look at too because it seems to be one of the less obvious things that influenced Stranger Things.

How about Poltergeist? I think it's become somewhat underrated and under appreciated over the years...there really isn't any other horror film like it...it has that whole Spielberg thing, but it's malicious...and it's not some kind of coy, ambiguous thing...IT'S ACTUALLY FUCKING GHOSTS.

The beginning with Carol Ann talking to the TV is one of the creepiest scenes in any film ever.

I have full intentions of doing Poltergeist this year. Was actually considering The Gate, too. I want to make a point to watch Halloween III this year, as I've never seen it (or any other movie in the Halloween series aside from the first). I know its reputation and why it doesn't have anything to do with the other movies in the franchise and it's always fascinated me.

I think I did House? Can't remember. What a weird flick (either movie bearing that title, doesn't matter).

Drewcula, if it's the 2000s anthology movie Trick r Treat you mean, I'm sorry but I'm not a fan of that one. But I do like the majority of the others you listed. There's a cult classics group that's started up here in Connecticut. Every month they rent out this old movie theater from the 40s and do a double feature, complete with old trailers at the beginning of each flick. Their first night was Fright Night and Lost Boys, which Egg Shen and I went to and had an absolute blast. The next one is Stephen King night, Christine and Creepshow. You can bet your ass we'll be there.

The Witch has been talked about quite a bit on here already and my love for it has already been made known. It's another one that's hard to talk about because what makes it is the ending. You really do need to wait for the very end of the movie before you can truly assess it, but it is so worth it. The ending will hit people in different ways, largely based on your spiritual standing, which I think is really cool. Some people might be startled by it, personally though, I was grinning from ear to ear.

I do really want to do Eyes of Fire though and I've been eager to rewatch it (but I'm waiting for that New England autumn to hit first). It's on YouTube, and since you can't watch it any other way aside from hard to find VHS tapes, I don't feel so bad about pointing people to watching it on there.

Looking over all these movies, many I've seen (and love), lots I haven't and am intrigued by. Getting a lot of great stuff here, thanks everyone. The season can't get here soon enough.

Given the giant debt the hobby owes Lovecraft, and of course my personal fondness for the mythos, it would would be col to get a top x rundown of Lovecraft movies.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Films_b...s_by_H._P._Lovecraft

"Lovcraftian" movies is kind of tough. You could take that as actual adaptations of his work, and that being the case, the majority aren't any good as adaptations. There are a small hand full that do their own thing that are good though, Re-Animator being the clear best (though ironically being one of Lovecraft's weakest stories).

Or you could look at things in the broader sense, looking at anythings that explores his key themes. In that case, so many horror films meet that criteria. Hell, Ghostbusters is probably the best Lovecraftian movie ever made (ancient interdimensional god opens a portal to our world after an insane architect designs a building that can makes it all possible). Cabin in the Woods

I'll ponder on that one. Its easy for me to cross the line into Lovecraft fatigue, but there's something interesting there.

My unwarranted two cents. I watched Nightbreed The Director's Cut a few months back. Barker's reach definitely exceeded his grasp. The film wants to present a whole other society and it's unclear if Barker wasn't given the right budget or if the movie would have been better served being made at a later time. The makeup effects are fine and Cronenberg's mask is exceedingly creepy, probably the perfect representation of Batman's Scarecrow.

The mythology of Nightbreed is mostly filled out with the viewer only doing minor lifting to fill in any missing pieces. Boone is by far the weakest character in the bunch. The actor is given the thankless task of being the every man/savior archetype. It's a necessary role in that we get to see the world as our main character sees it for the first time, but he's kind of boring as shit. You want to follow these other characters, but we're meant to keep following our vanilla lead.

That whole other society in Nightbreed didn't seem to amount to anything more than a cross between carnival freak show and Halloween at the goth club. All visuals and no sense of community. Aside from the makeup, I found all the characters uninteresting.

Nightbreed is such an interesting film- not necessarily because of the content, but because of its ambition, concepts and production. It was definitely a film that was ahead of its time in a lot of ways and it splits genres like crazy. It's a dark fantasy/horror/slasher movie. It pushes the "sympathetic monsters" angle to a degree that was not common in 1987, 1988. There's obviously a lot of heart and passion in it, especially in the character designs and makeup work. But it's a film where its reach greatly exceeds its grasp, and it is pretty evident that NO ONE really knew how to execute it quite right. Possibly not even Barker himself.

It's also a picture that resulted in a lot of scratching heads at the studio, so to speak. How do you market this thing? What is it really about? Why isn't this more like Hellraiser? Who is the audience for this? There was a lot of studio tinkering and recutting, Barker himself cut it a few times, and overall it's one of those films that bears the mark of a lot of post-production juggling. That it came out at all is kind of a miracle.

I remember seeing it in the theater when it was released and at the time I just thought it was amazing. It really captured my imagination. But I also recognized that it was awkward, tentative and sort of half-formed.

The director's cut helps, but it still feels like half of the movie that it should be. I almost think that all of the Cronenberg stuff could (regretfully) be cut. Boone was terribly miscast, that is one of those instances where you can tell that the actor has no fucking idea what they are involved in.

If this story were filmed today, it would likely be a cable/Netflix series with a much greater emphasis on developing the setting, expanding the concept of Midian and giving it all more room to breathe. And then maybe the slasher storyline works without compressing it into a feature length film. You'd also get more of a sense of the other characters, like the crazy looking moon dude and the porcupine girl, which is one thing the movie REALLY needed to develop audience sympathy and engagement with the monsters.

I love the movie, but it is a total mess.

That's what I love about Barker even when he completely strikes out, at least he strikes out swinging for the fences. Looking at IMDB it looks like the last screenplay he wrote was for Lord of Illusions, another movie that has a lot of great images and moments but never quite gets where its trying to go.

What are the great Clive Barker movies? Hellraiser and maybe Candyman?

Hellraiser is his one hit wonder and even that's more concept than craft.

Lord of Illusions fascinates me. There are so many things that I like about the movie, but it falls down in key places. The Clive Barker story that I would really like to see on the big screen is Coldheart Canyon.

The opening of Lord of Illusions is one my favorite bits in a horror movie. The raid on on the cultists feels so desperate and laced with menace. It's really the final confrontation at the end that doesn't live up to all the build up.