Spooky season will be over soon but we still have time to binge some Halloween favorites so share your favorite scary movie recommendations in this thread.
Don’t sleep on ‘Nope’. I recently watched it and it’s so good. Great tension.
Yeah nope is a fun movie. Not very scary, but there’s something about that movie that really appeals me. And that deep thrum of the UFO is next level.
I loved that movie right up until it switched to daylight for the rest of the movie. Ruined the tension for me.
I disagree but you’re not the only one. Personally, I found how they shot day-for-night fascinating both technically and in the result.
It does look like full-moon lighting a clear night and I’ve always found that erie in itself. Add how the night sky becomes its own character and it’s fantastic.
The night scenes were so good because they invented a new method for filming night scenes. If I recall, it’s filmed at the same time with 2 exposures, the lighter for the subjects and darker for the sky, overlayed.
Crazier than 2 exposures: they filmed with a normal cinema camera and an infrared one in parallel.
Yeah, more of an adventure movie at that point, but I loved how weird that thing kept getting. It kept the eerie feeling of not understand what it was or what it would do even though you could see it. For me at least.
Gotta mention The Thing (1982). Impeccable cinematography, sounds, colors, everything. Practical effects that are still unsettling today, and good old fashioned “humans are not enough and never will be” horror.
Will always upvote The Thing. It’s probably my favorite scifi horror. And it holds up so well.
I am not much into horror, but one movie that has stuck with me for a long time is Cube.
It is a gory, psycological horror movie, and while it lacks the Halloween theme, it is a brilliant movie.
Cube is so underrated! Even the sequels are pretty decent. If you can get past the low budget and questionable acting, it’s a fun movie with an interesting premise.
The autopsy of Jane Doe is a recent favorite.
I was surprised by that one. I had figured it would be like C-tier horror, but it was closer to A-tier than I’d thought.
I watched this a couple years ago. I remember it being pretty decent.
Very fun but not one of my super favs.
Watching the Korean movie “The Wailing” was fantastic as a movie in general.
I also liked Smile if you want something more traditionally horror.
Final suggestion is Event Horizon because I fucking love that movie.
I still rewatch Event Horizon like once a year. It really doesn’t hold up all that well, but it’s a classic that I loved as a kid. I wish Paul W.S. Anderson would do more like it instead of a million terrible movies starring his wife.
Smile was better than I was expecting. It wasn’t great, but a lot of cool, creepy imagery kept me interested.
And The Wailing is something every horror fan should see. It’s so good. Korean Horror is almost always worth a watch.
The fact that the hell footage, including the blood orgy sequence (filmed with actual adult film stars), is lost forever is the true nightmare of Event Horizon. Another reason to hate Titanic.
EDIT: Context
Oh wow, I knew about the lost footage, but not about the Titanic connection. Thanks!
I should probably re-watch Event Horizon. I am not big into gore and I fucking hated it back when.
But perspectives change (mine by a lot) something tells me I might sing a different tune.
Everybody keeps praising it on here.
Also Sam Neill is always amazing in my book. And of course Lawrence Fishburne too.
If you love Sam Neill (as well you should) check out “In the Mouth of Madness”, and it even fits the Halloween theme.
I don’t know what I’m missing with Event Horizon. I’d heard it repeatedly recommended, so decided to watch it with the wife who’s much more into horror. Neither of us really enjoyed it. The effects were cool, but the writing was kinda so over the place and it just didn’t really leave an impact.
No One Will Save You for fantastic alien abduction with 1 sentence spoken the entire movie. Was incredibly tense!
Evil Dead Rise for balls to the walls crazy good possession that IMO is the best of the franchise. A lot of gore and unnerving creepiness.
Barbarian for something very unique. Don’t watch any trailers, just read a small plot and go in blind. It’s a movie made by an OG YouTube skit comedy channel. It has a bit of everything, including comedy, moments so tense you have to remember to breathe, to uneasy fly on the wall moments.
All 3 came out in 2023.
No One Will Save You
Caught this recently and it’s very good.
Evil Dead Rise for balls to the walls crazy good possession that IMO is the best of the franchise
Umm, what?
Barbarian
Fantastic movie, agreed on going in blind.
All 3 came out in 2023.
Barbarian came out Sep 2022
What was confusing about my Evil Dead Rise recommendation?
Also, I guess wherever I looked up Barbarian was wrong. It said early 2023.
What was confusing about my Evil Dead Rise recommendation?
Just messing with you. You’re on a very small list of people that liked Rise, let alone think it’s the best one.
Since I just saw a post of a sequel, it reminded me: It Follows. The dread of something that is coming for you and it can’t be stopped no matter where you go or what you do is what makes it scary to me. I actually had dreams (or nightmares) of something following me a few nights after watching it. And you know what happens when you try to run in dreams right? So yeah.
For a fun Halloween movie, Friday The 13th: Part 6 is the way to go.
Some people say part 4 is the best and maybe they are right, but part 6 is the most fun. It’s got the Jason mythology crystallized, it’s got an actual main character, it’s got fun side characters. It’s just peak slasher movie that mixes in the right amount of self aware humor without becoming obnoxious.
I’d also suggest Killer Klowns From Outer Space, The Gate, and House (1986) for fun scary movies for watch parties.
Fox news. I can’t even bear to watch it.
The Ritual - psuedo-Lovecraftian horror with no explanation No One Gets Out Alive - more psuedo-Lovecraftian horror with no explanation Mama - Guillermo del Toro is awesome NightBooks - Sam Raimi Hansel & Gretel tale that’s tame enough for the kids but spooky enough for the adults
Those are some that I hadn’t seen before this season. I pretty much watch horror from mid-September on, so there’s a bunch of the old favorites that got watched, but these surprised me.
We watched The Ritual last year and absolutely loved it.
Two foreign ARTSTY horror films:
Posession 1981 (French/German) there will never be another film like it.
Suspiria 1977 (Italian) another one-of-a-kind-film. Thees both have their flaws, but to me it only adds character. Their motifs are comletely realized and both had lasting effects on the horror genre.
I just watched Possession for the first time recently and was blown away. No idea how I never heard of it before. It just sucks you in.
Banshee Chapter is one of my favorites =)
Oh nice, an adaptation of Lovecraft’s “From Beyond”. Thanks!
This sounds interesting. I love horror in non-traditional settings. Western Horror is incredibly underused. The only one that comes to mind is Bone Tomahawk, which is a must see if you haven’t. Thanks for the suggestion!
M3GAN is a fun movie, if not overly horror.
There’s talk about a Chucky v M3GAN movie that I really hope gets made, because that would be off the rails in such a banging way
Trick R Treat is a Halloween Classic, watch that if you haven’t
Gonna recommend some slower artsy horror films that I really enjoyed but aren’t for everyone. If you enjoyed the movies like The VVitch and Hereditary they may be right up your ally.
-A Dark Song (Slow Burn Occult Horror inspired by an actual ritual done by Alester Crowley)
-The Endless (Low-budget Cosmic Horror story about two brothers returning to the UFO cult they escaped from as children)
-Annihilation (Cosmic Horror. A team of female Scientist must cross a growing barrier which allows no people or communication to escape.)
-Men (Folk Horror. A traumatized woman retreats to a quiet English village but finds herself tormented by its inhabitants.)
-The Empty Man (Based on a graphic novel, sort of a mix of a Slasher and Cosmic Horror. A bit overlong and needed to be edited, but enjoyable none-the-less)
-Suspiria (Both the original and the 2016 remake, they are best enjoyed together as the remake compliments the original rather well. A young American woman enrolls in a prestigious German dance school where not everything is as it seems)
-His House (A refugee family flees to the UK. Can they escape the ghosts and trauma of their past while attempting to adjust to their new life?)
-Amulet (Another topical horror film involving refugees in the UK. An ex-soldier moves in to a new flat occupied by a woman and her ill mother where he is tormented by ghost past and present.)
-The Blackcoats Daughter (Slow Burn Religious Horror. Two girls are left alone at a Catholic boarding school over winter break when one of them begins to exhibit unsettling behavior)
Might update with more later if I think of them.
The Empty Man, which sounds dumb, is surprisingly really good. That whole opening is a masterclass of tension.
The Endless is so good, and you have to watch Resolution, if only for the connections and easter eggs.
The same duo behind The Endless and Resolution released a film on Netflix called Synchronic that also has ties to the other two. Personally I found it to be the weakest of the trilogy but it was worth watching. Its much more accessible to mainstream audiences and is more a sci-fi thriller then horror.
Oh I had no idea that was made by them as well. I’ve heard mixed about it, but I’ll have to check it out. Thanks!
