SESSION 9
A wonderfully creepy and mind bending horror film set in an abandoned mental asylum. David Caruso turns in an unusually good performance while the asylum itself provides a great, chilling setting for this film. A group of insulation cleaners come in to clear up the asylum and come across a series of tapes from the sessions of a woman with multiple personalities. The film has very little gore but it makes up for that with a great atmosphere of dread and unrelenting horror.
GRAVE ENCOUNTERS
I love found footage films, but even I can admit that most are terrible, simply done as a means to film shitty horror films with the excuse of 'BLAIR WITCH DID IT!'. Grave Encounters is a rare exception. The crew of a (staged) ghost hunting show go to an abandoned asylum (noticing a pattern?) and become trapped. The film again, has no gore, but uses sounds, dread and a TON of themes from the amazing House of Leaves. The film does have a lull, and I would actually suggest skipping a lot of the first 30 minutes, as it seems like it wants to make us care for the characters, but it only really succeeds in boring you.
YELLOWBRICKROAD
Sometimes a great horror film can be undone by it's ending. Such may be the case with Yellowbrickroad. A team of journalists and hikers go out on the same trail that an entire town disappeared on and discover horrible secrets. The film has some amazing moments, creating a feeling of not only dread, but confusion and fear, as disturbing images, sounds and ideas begin to pile up around the crew. There is some gore, one scene in particular is very gory but also a tad absurd as well. The ending though....let's just say it's strange. An attempt to , I suppose, make you think, it ends up making you more annoyed than anything. Still, highly recommended.
HOUSE OF THE DEVIL
This film is all of the best things about late 70's early 80's horror crammed into one movie. It has a very slow pace, but instead of making you bored it instills pure dread. Everything feels wrong, the film just continues to pour on a feeling of unrelenting fear as the tension raises higher and higher. A girl comes over to a strange couple's home to babysit their children. The night goes from boring, to an absolute nightmare very quickly.
CREEPSHOW
I ADORE this movie. An amazingly fun, scary and just plain cool anthology of horror stories, you get not only some awesome scares, but a ton of humor and cameos. You even get to see Stephen King play a stupid hillbilly trying to sell a meteor and exclaiming the phrase “METEOR SHIT!”. The sequel is also on Instant, and while nowhere near as good, is still worth a watch.
HELLRAISER
An absolute classic of horror and widely considered one of the best of the genre. Taking a Clive Barker story and giving it an amazing cast and some awesome effects, we end up with a terrifying tale of pain, pleasure and what happens when you find something that you can not resist and that when you touch brings you the worst pain you could ever imagine or, the most wonderful pleasure that you could ever even begin to know.
TALES FROM THE HOOD
An awesome, funny and scary anthology film. Clearly inspired by Creepshow, it follows a group of gang members bursting into a funeral home and demanding a stash of drugs they think the owner has. Leading us through some great stories, each one filled with both horror and some funny as hell moments, we get some great African American actors giving some awesome performances. The ending though has some of the worst CG I've ever seen. Which makes it even better!
ALTERED
A group of hillbilly friends beat the shit out of an alien in the woods as revenge for being taken and experimented upon. As they brig the body to a friends house, they discover that their actions may have not only killed them, but doomed the entire planet as well. A tense, well acted bottle film set in one house. The actors give great performances and the gore and horror keeps you on the edge of your seat.
NOROI (THE CURSE)
Easily one of, it not the, most terrifying found footage films of all time. With absolutely no gore this film focuses on fucking with you in every possible way. It is slow but it does not fuck around. Every scene mounts tension and reveals more and more horrifying information. It leads to a climax that will leave you begging for more. You can find it entirely on youtube with subtitles. I'll only give you this: It deals with a man trying to find out the secrets to a demon and what it has to do with the entire country.
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