Month: October 2019

By Ed Sum
(The Vintage Tempest)

The horror movie experience is subjective when looking at any screaming list of what to watch in the days leading to or on Halloween Day. Any long-time fan will have developed an immunity to certain levels of gore. When I was younger, I was not as hardened. What you see here is one where I reflect to those movies that really got to me when I was a tyke–still discovering what comes naught may.

I break a few entries down to include even more films since they represent a particular subgenre. Here’s my guide for what to view tonight (or any other). For a few of us, All Hallow’s Eve lasts longer. After all, the Day of the Dead takes place November 2nd, but this cultural celebration differs from the American-Celtic tradition.

Häxan
(1922)

Horror films from the silent film era are unique. The more aged the presentation is, the more detached it is from our sense of what modern times entails. Perhaps the way each frame flips or an original cinema screening skips, can jar our belief in reality–whether or not it is dreamlike.

There’s no denying Nosferatu (1922), The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (109), The Phantom Carriage (1920) and The Phantom of the Opera (1925) are masterpieces. A bigger question lies in what can truly disturb, or cause nightmares to those not used to tales of the macabre? When this Swedish-Danish work was originally meant to be a documentary that looks at Witchcraft throughout the ages–also this film’s English title–and the gory practices involved that cast them as demons, this film does the job!

Continue reading “A Creepy International Movie Guide to Enjoying Halloween”