Already seen "Saw"? Check out these treasures for your Halloween fright festival!
Mark Trammell, Features Editor
Published On: 10/28/2008
Well, it’s Halloween time again, and you know what that means, yet another installment of the seemingly endless story that is the “Saw” franchise.
It’s like that old “Field of Dreams” adage in reverse: if they come, we will continue to make them. In fact, a sixth installment has already been announced, complete with a tie-in reality show.
“Scream Queens,” the series follows 10 would-be actresses as they compete for a role in “Saw 6,” with “Saw” femme fatale Shawnee Smith as one of the judges. Between this and spoofs like the one in “Scary Movie 4,” it’s safe to say the franchise has started to lose some of its bite, despite its admirable efforts to at least have some semblance of an interesting, coherent plot — not exactly a trademark in horror films.
Alas, the longer the series continues, the more convoluted it has become. After all, the main two cohorts who did the killing are (spoiler alert!) dead already as “Saw 5” begins! Fortunately, your old pal Mark has some horror movie alternatives for those who’ve soured on “Saw.” Check out these lesser known fear flicks for a fun Halloween fest!
Psycho Killers,
Qu’est-ce que c’est?
Few things are scarier than a reality based serial killer, as they are much scarier than over-the-top horror villains like Jason, Freddy, and Michael. Arguably the most influential real life serial killer, at least in terms of horror movie inspiration, is Ed Gein. Though he didn’t kill that many people, it was what he did with the corpses that earned him notoriety. Gein skinned his victims, and make clothing, furniture, and various other bric-a-brac with their skin, skeletons, and other body parts.
Gein directly inspired such horror movie titans as Norman Bates (“Psycho”), Leatherface (“The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” series), and Buffalo Bill (“The Silence of the Lambs”). There’s also a biopic, “Ed Gein” featuring Steve Railsback, who previously portrayed another notorious serial killer, Charles Manson, in the original “Helter Skelter.”
Gein also inspired several lesser known cult flicks, and some are well worth checking out, including “Deranged,” with Roberts Blossom (“Christine”) as the Gein-like Ezra Cobb, and “Skinner,” with Ted Raimi as the titular killer and Ricki Lake and Traci Lords as two of his would-be victims.
Another big name in the movies is Ted Bundy. A ladies man with a killer’s appetite, Bundy was not your average murderer. His guy-next-door looks coupled with a charming demeanor made him perhaps the most charismatic of serial killers, resulting in an unprecedented number of female groupies lobbying for his release — and his hand in marriage after he was caught and incarcerated!
Bundy was first portrayed by “NCIS” star Mark Harmon in the made-for-TV flick “The Deliberate Stranger,” before getting updated in “The Stranger Beside Me” and “Bundy,” all of which are worth a look, especially “Stranger.”
Further Viewing: “Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer” (inspired by Henry Lee Lucas, the most prolific serial killer); the faux serial killers of the “August Underground” series; “Audition”; and the underrated “Fade to Black,” which features a film geek who replicates his fave movie villains when he stalks his prey.
Literary Horror
Looking for something less gruesome? Check these cult classics inspired by some of literature’s most respected authors. No horror discussion would be complete without a mention of H.P. Lovecraft, who inspired the much-beloved “Re-Animator” series, among others. Some of the lesser known Lovecraft-inspired flicks include “From Beyond” and “Dagon,” both from “Re-Animator” director Stuart Gordon.
Though not directly an adaptation, “Halloween” auteur John Carpenter’s excellent and underrated “In the Mouth of Madness” is heavily Lovecraftian, with a top notch cast that includes Sam Neill (“Jurassic Park”) and Charlton Heston (“Planet of the Apes”), plus a young and uber-creepy Hayden Christensen (aka Anakin Skywalker).
Though more of a sci-fi writer, H.G. Wells also tried his hand at the horror genre with “Food of the Gods” and “Empire of the Ants,” both of which were adapted into delightfully cheesy giant critter movies that recall the work of FX virtuoso Ray Harryhausen, of “Clash of the Titans” and “Jason and the Argonauts” fame.
Both feature then-familiar cult stars like “Gods” stars Belinda Balaski (“Piranha,” “Gremlins”) and Pamela Franklin (“The Innocents,” “Satan’s School for Girls”), and “Ants” stars Joan Collins (TV’s “Dynasty,” the original movie version of “Tales from the Crypt”) and Pamela Susan Shoop (“Halloween II,” TV’s “Night Gallery”).
And really, how can you go wrong with a killer chicken? OK, not everyone’s cup of tea, but still …
Further Viewing: The films “Gothic,” “Haunted Summer,” “Rowing in the Wind,” and “Frankenstein Unbound” were all inspired by the summer during which Mary Shelly and Lord Byron wrote some of their most famous works, including Shelley’s “Frankenstein.”
Renowned avant garde director Ken Russell’s “Gothic” is predictably the most hallucinatory and features Gabriel Byrne and Julian Sands (“Warlock”). “Summer” has Laura Dern and Eric Stoltz, and famed cult filmmaker Roger Corman’s “Unbound” features Bridget Fonda, Raul Julia, John Hurt, and INXS singer Michael Hutchence.
“Summer” also features Alice Krige (best known as the Borg Queen from “Star Trek”), who stars in the underrated adaptation of Peter Straub’s “Ghost Story,” which is well worth checking out.
Fairy tales gone awry
Before “The Crying Game” put him on the map, director Neil Jordan did the excellent “Company of Wolves,” a revisionist take on “Little Red Riding Hood” starring Angela Lansbury and Stephen Rea, who would go to appear in Jordan’s “The Crying Game,” among many other films. The effects are way cool and eye-poppingly inventive. In a similar vein is “Lemora,” featuring cult actress Cheryl Smith (“Parasite,” “Massacre at Central High”) as a put-upon little girl just trying to make her way home as she faces horrors nearly every step of the way, including a female vampire that has a taste for the kiddies.
Further Viewing: Don’t miss the French werewolf epic “The Brotherhood of the Wolf” with the delectable Monica Belucci (of the last two “Matrix” movies) and the trippy circus-themed “Santa Sangre” from oddball Chilean filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky.
Mad Scientists
A fan of “Fringe”? Don’t miss these sources of inspiration! The pilot of the show was heavily influenced by the Ken Russell flick “Altered States,” which features William Hurt and a young Drew Barrymore, and deals with deprivation chambers and LSD. Influences from David Cronenberg’s early work, including “Shivers,” “Rabid,” “Scanners,” “The Brood,” and his remake of “The Fly,” also can be seen in “Fringe,” and the last two films were a big influences on the current season of “Heroes” as well.
There’s also the cloning gone horribly awry epic “Embryo,” featuring the unlikely casting of Rock Hudson as the mad scientist, and the trippy psychiatric nightmare “Brain Dead” (not to be confused with the Peter Jackson film of the same name), with future stars Bill Pullman and Bill Paxton.
Skeletons in the closet
Name a celebrity and if they have done a horror movie — and most have at some point — I can name it. Here’s a few worth seeking out.
Love “The Daily Show”? Check out Jon Stewart in a creepy turn as an alien in Richard Rodriguez’s “The Faculty,” which also features Rodriguez’s future “Sin City” cohorts Josh Harnett and proto-Frodo Elijah Wood, plus Usher and Salma Hayek, among other familiar genre faces.
Love “The Office”? Check out Jenna Fischer (aka Pam) as yet another receptionist, albeit of the possessed variety, in the underrated “Slither,” which also features Nathan Fillon of “Firefly” and rising star Elizabeth Banks of “the 40-Year-old Virgin” and perhaps the scariest movie ever, “W.”
Prefer your horror injected with a little skinemax? Check out Tony Scott’s atypical entry in the horror genre, “The Hunger,” which features no less than rock star David Bowie, plus for good measure, Susan Sarandon, French legend Catherine Deneuve (also in the excellent horror classic “Repulsion”), and vampirish rockers Bauhaus performing their best known song “Bela Lugosi’s Dead.” It’s a stylish tale about vampires that age rapidly if they don’t feed regularly.
Further viewing: Before he was Hannibal Lecter, Anthony Hopkins was equally creepy as a ventriloquist in the underrated “Magic.”
Scarlett Johansson did her time as a scream queen in the spiders-gone-amuck fear fest “Eight-Legged Freaks.”
Brad Pitt played a possible whackadoodle in the slasher flick “Cutting Class,” and Holly Hunter and Jason Alexander (“Seinfeld”) both crop up in the “Friday the 13th” rip-off, “The Burning,” among other familiar faces.
Wanna try and stump me? Shoot me an e-mail and I swear not to use the Internet to cheat!
Still haven’t had enough? Check out our Web site, www.uabkscope.com
And try to stay out of the darkness!
Email: kscopefeatures@yahoo.com
