It’s … alive! This newsletter, that is.
I’m going to try and re-establish some semblance of a schedule for this in November (routine? I don’t know her!) — but for now, I didn’t want to let the month go by without passing along some unconventional scary movies for the season! It’s the time of the year when people revisit familiar franchises like Scream or Halloween as well as one-off favorites from The Shining to Hocus Pocus. But there’s a wide world of sensational spooks out there!
I don’t pretend to be an expert in the horror genre by any means, especially when it comes to schlockier or more mainstream movies. But when you cover contemporary world cinema in the depth that I do, it’s unavoidable that a few scary movies pop up on your radar. The ten films below are primarily new indie visions of horror, with a few foreign classics mixed in for good measure. You might not get the jump scares or clichéd cheekiness of run-of-the-mill horror, but these movies all possess an artful eeriness that will unsettle you in a more profound way.
Funny Games (1997), HBO Max and Criterion Channel
Director Michael Haneke did a shot-for-shot remake of Funny Games in 2008 with an English-language cast, which is fine if you just really don’t have the patience for subtitles. But if you don’t mind the one-inch barrier, you’ll find this Austrian vision of violence a truly chilling experience. Haneke is known for his “cinema of cruelty,” an austere and unsparing look at humankind’s potential for menace. Funny Games demonstrates his philosophy like no other as two young men clad in tennis whites terrorize a family on a lakeside vacation.
Goodnight Mommy, free with ads on Tubi and Pluto TV
If the trope of creepy children in horror movies is your thing, then Goodnight Mommy ought to be your jam in a major way. This slow-burning fire of a movie opens with two twins reacting to the return of their mother after a mysterious surgery that leaves her face bound up in bandages. But the sands imperceptibly shift beneath our feet as directors Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala slowly shift the axis of horror within the film. Maybe it’s not the mom but the kids who have the biggest secret. This is a vision of horror that will lodge itself under your skin and stay there.
In Fabric, free with ads on Tubi and Pluto TV
Let’s just say it doesn’t always work out when you say yes to the dress. Peter Strickland’s In Fabric sounds a bit silly on paper when you reduce the concept to a simple logline: a killer red dress. But there’s little silly or flippant about the way he shows this garment disrupting the lives of everyone it comes in contact with, bringing a kind of cursed power that people discount at their own peril. You’ll never know you could be so scared of a piece of clothing.
It Follows, free with ads on Peacock
Fear of teenage sexuality has often lurked under the surface of classic horror, but David Robert Mitchell’s ingenious It Follows elevates that theme from subtext to subject. The menacing monster in the film takes on the logic of an STD: transmissible through carnal relations and forever lurking in the background until passed onto another. Mitchell’s genius is in channeling the well-known sensations of John Carpenter/Halloween-style suburban horror (down to the synth score!) without relying entirely on winking referentiality. He knows his film can thrill on its own merits, and it’s one of the most captivating American indies of the ‘10s.
Let the Right One In, Hulu
Perhaps you’re familiar with this story if you saw the 2010 film Let Me In (featuring very young Chloë Grace Moretz and Kodi Smit-McPhee), which transposed this Swedish story into Reagan-era America. Or maybe you didn’t since the movie bombed! Nonetheless, it’s always a good rule of thumb to ensure you see what the American remake derived from. Let the Right One In is a startling vampire story because of its juxtapositions: the gore of a young vampire’s bloodlust and the sweetness of that young girl bonding with a bullied teen boy.
Nothing Bad Can Happen, free with ads on Tubi TV
My experience encountering Nothing Bad Can Happen is perhaps my purest example of the ecstasy of film festival discovery. I had a big block of time to kill in Cannes one day and stumbled into this movie in the Un Certain Regard sidebar — based on perhaps nothing more than a poster, a production still, and a brief logline mentioning a young evangelical Christian in Germany. What I got blew my face off. This terrifying modern parable depicts the travails of young Tore when he ventures into the lion’s den staying with a sadistic couple. Director Katrin Gebbe’s vision of torture takes on a fascinating psychological dimension through Tore, who comes to view his struggles as a kind of divine trial.
Raw, Netflix
If you want to know if you can stomach Julia Ducournau’s Palme d’Or winning Titane (now available to rent!), a good litmus test would be how well you can handle her feature debut Raw. This is quite a unique coming-of-age story as new veterinary student Justine endures intense hazing rituals to tear down her guard. The only problem for her is that, at her core, she enjoys the pleasures of the flesh quite literally. Yes, she’s a cannibal. The great irony of Raw is that while it’s about devouring humans, Ducournau creates so many avenues to connect to her protagonist on a deeply human level.
Relic, Showtime Anytime
If you like your genre thrills more metaphorical and intellectual, then Aussie horror Relic is the movie for you. Natalie Erika James stimulates the senses by drawing a parallel between a haunted house and the decaying mind of a matriarch as she loses herself to dementia. The film makes palpable the dread that three generations of women within a family face when forced to confront the concept of legacy. (It also runs a tight 89 minutes — we have no choice but to stan.)
Suspiria (1977), free with ads on Tubi TV
I’ll be the first to tell you I don’t know the first thing about Italian giallo horror (and I’d guide you toward this excellent primer if you want to educate yourself along with me). But you don’t need to be any kind of genre scholar to appreciate the thrills of Dario Argento’s Suspiria, an explosion of cinematic verve as vibrant as the colors on screen. This movie earns its canonical status as Jessica Harper’s American ballet student vividly peels back the layers of a German dance academy’s politeness to reveal something entirely shocking and supernatural.
Videodrome, free with ads on Peacock
No one does body horror quite like maestro David Cronenberg. Though four decades old and highly analog, his Videodrome still rings with relevance for the digital era. He was ahead of the curve in predicting the way mankind would merge with machines by way of lurid, sensational content that draw our attention inexorably. The film now assumes the quality of an ancient (sorry Boomers), unheeded prophecy.
Alright, friends, enjoy your weekend (and maybe go see Dune on a giant screen!?) — I’ll be back in your inboxes shortly with The Downstream to give you ten streaming recommendations about to expire!
Yours in service and cinema,
Marshall