[Editorial] Welcome To The World Of Horror

I’m tired of articles which list the “best of” a film genre, and only offer British or American titles which are usually modern, fairly big budget and widely known.

There’s a whole world of films out there, and I’m sure you won’t be surprised when I declare that horror is everywhere. There’s also a good chance you’ve seen most of the films that click-bait pieces rave about; but if you’re fairly new to the genre, my tips below will help you talk like a true cosmopolitan film buff.

Comedy Horror

Shaun of the Dead

Broaden your horizons away from Tucker and Dale vs Evil and Shaun of the Dead and travel to Norway for Dead Snow. Zombie Nazis may seem a pretty serious prospect to some, but this film is a riot. One Cut of the Dead is a Japanese comedy (again about zombies) that’s full of surprises, and one that I’d absolutely recommend going into blind. If zombies just aren’t your thing, and you appreciate a milder chuckle, try Extra Ordinary, an adorable comedy about ghosts from Ireland.

Dark Fantasy

Pan’s Labyrinth

If you liked having your childhood fairy tales messed with in The Company of Wolves, try Pan’s Labyrinth, set shortly after the Spanish Civil War. Then there’s Tale of Tales; disturbing, surreal and sumptuous.

Gothic Horror

The Orphanage

Bram Stoker's Dracula is all well and good, but have you seen The Orphanage? Melancholy and tragic, this is a gripping story of a past that won’t let go. Then, there’s one of the earliest horror films, Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror. My skin is prickling just remembering the classic images, and I’m awestruck at the thought that it was made nearly one hundred years ago.

Cannibals

Cannibal Holocaust

Enough about Silence of the Lambs: have you taken the plunge with Cannibal Holocaust? There’s an impressive realism to it but if that feels a bit too extreme for you, how about We Are What We Are? A domestic thriller on the surface, in which disturbing traditions emerge in a time of crisis. A more recent example is Raw, a female-centred film about fitting in, and family.

Zombie Horror

Train to Busan

I could write an entire article on the sheer range of zombie films (maybe next time): there’s pretty much something for everyone. It’s only natural to start off with Night of the Living Dead and its follow-ups, but there are so many more, and from all over the world. I’ve already mentioned some examples of comedy zombie films, but let me see if I can show you just how far across the globe these ghouls have spread (and this is just a sample):

• Argentina (Plaga zombie)

• Australia (Little Monsters)

• Canada (Pontypool)

• Chile (Descendents)

• Cuba (Juan of the Dead)

• France (The Night Eats the World)

• Italy (The House by the Cemetery, and Nightmare City)

• Japan (Tokyo Zombie)

• New Zealand (Braindead AKA Dead Alive)

• South Korea (Train to Busan)

Folk Horror

The White Reindeer

The Witch and Midsommar may have brought this subgenre back to wider awareness, but folk horror can be found everywhere. An early example is The White Reindeer, an utterly beautiful film of Lapland tradition. Hagazussa: A Heathen's Curse is about fear of witches in a fifteenth century village and if you have a taste for anthologies Kwaidan has a lot to offer in the form of ghostly folk tales.

Evil Spirits

Verónica

Demons have been a staple theme in horror for many, many years. If you’re a fan of The Exorcist, or – like me – The Last Exorcism, there are some great films about evil spirits tormenting the innocent from overseas. Verónica made the most of familiar tropes such as Ouija boards and spooky nuns, and did so very effectively. Luz is artsy and contemporary in comparison, and was produced on 16mm camera for the director’s film school thesis.

Body Horror

Taxidermia

Perhaps you’re more of a Cronenberg nut? If you relish mutations and bodily terror, I dare you to track down Tetsuo: The Iron Man, a low-budget cyberpunk film. It’s difficult to watch in parts, but gripping. More surreal is Taxidermia, and yes, the title does suggest what happens to the protagonist.

Found Footage Horror

Be My Cat: A Film for Anne

You might not realise it, but there’s more to found footage than just horror such as sci-fi and crime, for example. But the technique has really found a place to reside in horror because hey, if a film was simply found, rather than completed and released, something must have gone badly wrong. It certainly did in the case of these examples. In [•REC], a young reality-TV presenter spends a night with some firefighters, and keeps filming when she finds the building they have been sent is sealed off, due to an infection. Be My Cat: A Film for Anne is one of my personal favourites, especially for the sense of realism the acting and naturalistic filming generates.

Psychological Horror

Goodnight Mommy

Psychological horror films can mess with your head through sheer tension, and not usually utilising violence or jump scares a great deal. At times, you can be sucked into the fears of the characters, and then in a sudden moment realise that the story is tragic as well as gripping. Goodnight Mommy is a prime example, and one I had trouble watching myself, as a parent to a son who was the same age as those in the film when I first watched it last year. I recall the feeling of fear while watching The Babadook more vividly than the story itself which focuses on a widowed mother and son who are haunted by a black figure from a book, while also dealing with the loss of a father figure.

Monster movies

Shin Godzilla

If it looked like Godzilla, King of the Monsters was just trying too hard, I’d recommend seeking out Shin Godzilla. The creature design is terrific, and the unusual political satire in the plot sharp and engaging. There are myriad monsters (or kaiju) in Asian films, but not just there: Trollhunter from Norway is clever and entertaining, and is beautifully produced too.

Vampires

Night Watch

Naturally, vampires appeared under the “Gothic” heading above, but there are some terrific modern bloodsuckers that  deserve a section of their own; and they’re surprisingly varied too. Let the Right One In in focuses on two adolescents (or should that be one?) and some shocking and beautiful snow scenes. Thirst is about a priest who receives an infected blood donation, and is a strikingly sensual film. Night Watch (and its sequel Day Watch) is a story of good versus evil in contemporary Moscow. 

Serial Killers and Slashers

Of course, horror is about bad people sometimes, as well as spooks, and there are plenty of many films about killers outside of Hollywood. I Saw the Devil is a thumpingly good revenge film from Korea. Red Screening sees a mystery killer getting creative inside an arthouse cinema and Inside is a French Extreme take on a slasher, woman-on-pregnant-woman style.

Something for everyone, from everywhere, in the world of horror cinema. Here’s the full details of the films I’ve mentioned above:

• Dead Snow AKA Død snø (Tommy Wirkola, Norway, 2009)

• One Cut of the Dead AKA Kamera wo tomeruna! (Shin'ichirô Ueda, Japan, 2017)

• Extra Ordinary (Mike Ahern and Enda Loughman, Ireland, 2019)

• Pan’s Labyrinth AKA El Laberinto del Fauno (Guillermo Del Toro, Mexico, 2006)

• Tale of Tales AKA Il racconto dei racconti (Matteo Garrone, Italy/France/UK, 2015)

• The Orphanage AKA El orfanato (J. A. Bayona, Spain, 2007)

• Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror AKA Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (F. W. Murnau, Germany, 1922)

• Cannibal Holocaust (Ruggero Deodato, Italy, 1980)

• We Are What We Are AKA Somos lo que hay (Jorge Michel Grau, Mexico, 2010)

• Raw AKA Grave (Julia Ducournau, France, 2016)

• Plaga zombie (Pablo Parés and Hernán Sáez, Argentina, 1997)

• Little Monsters (Abe Forsythe, Australia, 2019)

• Pontypool (Bruce McDonald, Canada, 2008)

• Descendents AKA Solos (Jorge Olguín, Chile, 2008)

• Juan of the Dead AKA Juan de los Muertos (Alejandro Brugués, Cuba, 2010)

• The Night Eats the World AKA La nuit a dévoré le monde (Dominique Rocher, France, 2018)

• The House by the Cemetery AKA Quella villa accanto al cimitero (Lucio Fulci, Italy, 1981)

• Nightmare City AKA Incubo sulla città contaminate (Umberto Lenzi, Italy, 1980)

• Tokyo Zombie AKA Tôkyô zonbi (Sakichi Sato, Japan, 2005)

• Braindead AKA Dead Alive (Peter Jackson, New Zealand, 1992)

• Train to Busan AKA Busanhaeng (Yeon Sang-ho, South Korea, 2016)

• The White Reindeer AKA Valkoinen peura (Erik Blomberg, Finland, 1952)

• Hagazussa: A Heathen's Curse (Lukas Feigelfeld, Germany, 2017)

• Kwaidan AKA Kaidan (Masaki Kobayashi, Japan, 1965)

• Verónica (Paco Plaza, Spain, 2017)

• Luz (Tilman Singer, Germany, 2018)

• Tetsuo: The Iron Man (Shinya Tsukamoto, Japan, 1989)

• Taxidermia (György Pálfi, Hungary, 2006)

• [•REC] (Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza, Spain, 2007)

• Be My Cat: A Film for Anne (Adrian Țofei, Romania, 2015)

• Goodnight Mommy AKA Ich seh, Ich she (Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz, Austria, 2014)

• The Babadook (Jennifer Kent, Australia, 2014)

• Shin Godzilla AKA Shin Gojira (Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi, Japan, 2016)

• Trollhunter AKA Trolljegeren (André Øvredal, Norway, 2010)

• Let the Right One In AKA Låt Den Rätte Komma (Tomas Alfredson, Sweden, 2008)

• Thirst AKA Bakjwi (Park Chan-wook, South Korea, 2009)

• Night Watch AKA Nochnoi dozor (Timur Bekmambetov, Russia, 2004)

• Day Watch AKA Dnevnoĭ Dozor (Timur Bekmambetov, Russia, 2006)

• I Saw the Devil AKA Ang-ma-reul bo-at-da (Kim Jee-woon, South Korea, 2010)

• Red Screening AKA Al morir la matinée (Maximiliano Contenti, Uruguay, 2020)

• Inside AKA À l'intérieur (Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury, France, 2007)

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