Halloween is drawing near and the spooks are lurking. Tis the season for scary movies, if you ask me. If you are looking for the perfect scary movie to celebrate the holiday and don’t want to break out the usual suspects, like Jason or Freddie, here are five alternative choices from the darkest, most forgotten corner of the horror section (also known as my video shelf). Expect to find cheese with your spook fix with these B movie gems, but expect an interesting twist on the horror genre.
Waxworks:
This movie gave me nightmares throughout my childhood, which I suppose is a testament to its B-movie scariness. Waxworks is the tale of a wax museum where all is not as it seems. ‘Would you like a closer look?,’ the sinister waxworks owner offers unsuspecting teens in this 1980’s gem. Surely, you will think twice before taking anyone up on that offer after this film, because in this waxworks the displays are actually doors to alternate realities where the ghouls and monsters are real and are after you. The unsuspecting teens suddenly must fight for their life, and stop the waxworks from taking any more lives.
Dolls:
Unlike the Child’s Play movie series that followed in later years, Dolls is a movie where the violent people-slaying dolls have a moral mission. This movie starts with the typical broken down car meets spooky house without a phone for an improptu overnight stay. Yet the typical start in this movie is the only predictable thing. The scary house belongs to a doll making couple with a secret. Their secret is the dolls are alive and into punishing wrongdoings. It’s a long night weeding out the convient bunch of degenerates who have turned up on the doorstep. Even Judy’s less than lovely parents get their just deserts (though I am not sure how you square adoption via doll justice in the real world.). Admittedly this was a movie I loved all through childhood, which might sound wrong if you knew I had an army worth of dolls and teddies. Watch this movie and you will understand why even when the dolls are being gory, it makes a child feel safe in this scary movie.
Strays:
The tagline was what sent me giggling when I first found Strays on VHS in a closed down video rental store. It read, ‘They have 9 lives, they want yours.’ In the wake of films like Cujo, pitting man against the dog gone bad, this time it is our feline friends wrecking havoc. You might be thinking “when would a cat ever decide to waste the time and energy decimating the human race?” Well, in this movie, they do when an unsuspecting family move into the cat’s house. All hell breaks loose after the new family discover a queen with her new kittens in the attic. Doesn’t sound menacing? Well, just flip on this flick and wait for the tom cat to get home.
The Company of Wolves:
Another chance encounter at the discontinued video store, the Company of Wolves is not to be missed. It’s a surreal trip into a young girl’s dreams where Little Red Riding Hood and wolf tales prevail. Its not so much a terror filling horror movie, as it is a dark, surreal journey to the darkside of wolves, capes and girls in the woods. I would dare say that The Company of Wolves straddles the line between horror and dark fantasy. Still whichever genre you want to catalogue it, you should seek it out.
With Angela Lansbury, as the grandmother, we are privy to folk tales where wolves steal away the hearts of innocent girls. She warns her granddaughter to beware of men with thick eyebrows and recounts tales of wolves infiltrating the human world. Of course, these encounters with wolves wouldn’t be right with out a hint of Little Red Riding hood and this time she happens to be in the company of a very handsome he-wolf. This movie is a dark adventure and psychologically symbolic dark dream not to be missed.
Slugs:
With the tag line ‘ They Slime. They Ooze. They Kill,’ how could you not want to see this movie? In 1998, someone realized that slugs weren’t just garden pests but out for world domination. In the film, people begin dying in mysteriously gruesome ways and no one has a culprit. Then the main character realizes its killer slugs. He’s laughed at but as people are dying the remote town realizes how right he was about the sliming, oozing murderous molluscs. Obviously, expect this film to be mostly cheese on top of slugs, but who wouldn’t want some ridiculousness in their B-movie?
Well there are five obscure, strange and wonderous B-horror movies to treat yourself this Halloween. I admit in writing this and detailing some of my favourite B- horror flicks, I am feeling a bit like the Crypt Keeper from the ‘Tales from the Crypt.’ So boys and ghouls, grab some popcorn and a copy of these films and prepared to giggle and get scared.