Vampires, Delusions, and Horrors
An emphasis on horror including Criterion Channel's 70s Horror Subcategory
I wasn’t always a fan of horror films. As a matter of fact, I used to run out of the room when my friend’s would sit down with a horror movie. I remember them watching classics like Evil Dead and Halloween, as well as, unsung choices like Dead Alive and Session 9. It is amazing what you can recall from those times when you are an adult. The screams and graphic violence vividly used to unsettle me. It was not only a reflection of what I was like as a teenager, rather cautious, but more of an unwillingness to lose control.
When we watch horror movies, we are giving up our control to the director. There are specific jump scares, audio cues, and pacing to every horror movie. Some are much more effective than others. The best ones? They live rent free in our minds. In fact, NME published a study looking into the heartrates of viewers of specific horror movies. Perhaps this would be a way to determine the most horrifying movies. The study used a variety of people with heart monitors to get the results. But that only only measure fear in the moment. What about the fear the lingers after the last sequence is shown? Does something like Uncut Gems measure up as a horror movie because of tension it causes?
I’d say for most of the last decade, I’ve been interested in watching all the classics in the horror genre. Movies like Halloween, The Exorcist, The Thing, and Night of the Living Dead are in that pantheon not only because they are scary, but because they still hold up to scrutiny. And while I’ve found that I like to be scared, I know many other people love a good thriller like Jaws or Gone Girl for their horror fix. Even something light like Hocus Pocus or It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown might be the ideal for someone. It’s all about getting those frights, jumps, and shivers wherever we can.
For my Halloween post, I wanted to give some recommendations for the weekend and review some bizarre horror movies I’ve been watching as part of the Criterion Channel’s 70s Horror subgenre. The three reviewed movies below are some of the “off the beaten path” movies in the collection. Below that I recommend some essentials and other places to watch some great horror movies.
In-Depth Review
Let’s Scare Jessica to Death
Despite its B-movie aesthetics and the free spirted protagonists, Let’s Scare Jessica to Death reminded me a lot of a David Lynch picture. Let me explain. The film follows Jessica (Zohra Lampert), a troubled young woman who is going with her husband and his friend to an island to help her recover from her mental illness and stress. When they arrive at their new residences, Emily (Mariclare Costello) was already occupying the house. Instead of kicking Emily out, the three of them decide to let Emily live with them.
Jessica doesn’t find the respite she was looking for. She is instead haunted by voices in her head and confronted with bizarre visions. What we are left with is an unreliable narrator in a series of peculiar events. Is she really seeing these abnormal visions? It doesn’t provide the exact answers you might be looking for, but leaves enough enough of a trail that you can figure out where Jessica is headed. Add in the B-movie aesthetic I mentioned earlier and you have your David Lynch comparison. Jessica takes a little while to get going, but once it finds it’s rhythm, it becomes quite unsettling. I recommend you give it a shot even if I think it is a little slow.
It was out of print for awhile, but in addition to the Criterion Channel, Let’s Scare Jessica to Death was issued on Blu-ray by Scream Factory in January 2020.
The Velvet Vampire
Following one cult horror film for another, The Velvet Vampire is straightforward in its intentions. Lee and Susan Ritter decide to accept an invitation to visit their new acquaintance Diane (Diane LeFanu) in her secluded desert home. What they don’t know is that she is a centuries-old vampire, who is looking to make them her next victims. I’m not going to mess around here, The Velvet Vampire is horrendous, but in a so bad its actually good way. This movie has a vampire that loves the desert, rides around her sharp yellow dune buggy, and gives her visitors mysterious sex dreams. Readers, I guffawed. The Ritter’s are obnoxious and I never really cared about their fates, but each time something happens you can’t help but laugh. I imagine the movie would be best in a large gathering, but taken by itself I can’t recommend it.
The Blu-ray for The Velvet Vampire from Shout! Factory is out of print, so this might be your best chance to check it out.
The Vampire Lovers
What these three movies have in common is that in some way they all reference the Gothic novella, Carmilla. Carmilla is one of the earliest works of vampire fiction, and the story features a young woman who is preyed upon by a female vampire. The female vampire uses her power to seduce her victim and take her blood. The Vampire Lovers adapts that story with Hammer Film Productions at the helm, giving this story plenty of violence and explicit lesbian themes. Carmilla (Ingrid Pitt) befriends women from all over, coming into their house as a guest, and leaving victims in her wake. When she meets Emma (Madeline Smith), she encounters more trouble than she bargained for. All the while, General Spielsdorf (Peter Cushing) and company are discovering the secret behind the mysterious deaths. The Vampire Lovers is actually the first in a trilogy of films focused on the Carmilla story, but as a standalone entry, it leaves something to be desired. I suppose if you are looking for titillations and violence you might get something out of it, but I just can’t help to think that there are more entertaining films in the Hammer Film catalog than this one.
The Vampire Lovers is available on Blu-ray from Shout! Factory.
Recommendations
There are some horror films from the 70s horror feature that I’m familiar with and would recommend without hesitation.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Wicker Man
Don’t Look Now
Black Christmas
If you are looking for general horror recommendations for this weekend some of my favorites include:
Suspiria ‘77
Train to Busan (Prime Video)
The Host (Criterion Channel)
Halloween (Shudder)
Cam, Session 9 (Netflix)
House, Ready or Not (HBO Max)
Links
Chris Plante has been recommending horror movies all month. Check it out for some last minute inspiration.
Keith Phipps ranks some all-time classics in the Universal Classic Monsters series. And in another piece he looks at old horror blood.
Alan Sepinwall reviews one of the hottest horror shows this year, The Haunting of Bly Manor.
Glow ended far too early. Valerie Ettenhofer talks about how it should end.
The 1990 adaptation of The Witches holds up. Fiona Underhill talks about its most frightening scene.
Minari is one of the most exciting releases of 2020. Reuben Baron has a review of it.
Streaming this weekend (Oct 28- Nov 1):
The Craft: Legacy (VOD)
His House (Netflix)
Question of the week: What are some of your favorite horror movies?
Send links, tips, comments, questions, and more to @mhcovill.
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Running out of the room when horror movies started playing was my general attitude for me when I was younger. The earliest horror movie I remember seeing was a double feature of Lake Placid and The House on Haunted Hill. The former was more disturbing to me, and I'd say it turned me off of the genre for a bunch of years (because it was just gratuitous), until I decided to sit down and watch Alien a couple of years later. College helped, especially after I took a course in Gothic Lit taught by F. Brett Cox here in Vermont.
The differences there are enormous — Alien's a phenomenal film, and while it's scary, there's just so much more depth to it. I've been a casual fan ever since, although I've yet to really delve into the classics.