As horror fans, we are constantly seeking out the new and the different. Because the genre is marked by so much sameness—sequels, franchises, remakes, copies of copies—it can sometimes be a challenge to find those horror films that truly carve out their own space. They don’t even have to be great movies, necessarily; many times, “different” is enough to make us happy.
With that in mind, here are 10 horror movies currently available on the terrific streaming service Shudder that are, if nothing else, different from almost anything else you’ll watch this October. They vary in quality from title to title, but what even the roughest among them lacks in technical polish, it more than makes up for in sheer maniac insanity. After you’ve cycled through all your favorites this October, why not add a little WTF to your lineup?
1. Beyond the Darkness (1979, dir. Joe D’Amato) The first Italian insanity on this list, though not the last. The tale of a man, his housekeeper, and his dead girlfriend is full of disturbing violence and scenes that are really, really hard to watch, but it’s all so out there that it becomes sort of comic… though the suggestion that any of it could be construed as funny probably says more about me than it does about Beyond the Darkness. I think what I’m talking about is protective laughter, because this movie is so grim and off-putting that the only way to digest what’s being shown on screen is to be amused at just how far Joe D’Amato is willing to transgress. Yes, this landed on the Video Nasties list because of course it did. You’ll understand when you watch it.
2. Black Devil Doll from Hell (1984, dir. Chester Novell Turner) This low-budget bit of blaxploitation insanity was originally conceived as just one chapter of a larger anthology. It probably should have stayed that way. A woman buys a haunted doll from a thrift store and it turns her into a sex freak. The writing, acting, editing, and photography are all incredibly clumsy, but there’s something about the movie that cuts through all the pretense and bullshit and goes right to being completely bananas. The version streaming on Shudder appears to have been sourced from an old VHS copy, which is probably the right way to see this one.
3. Wild Beasts (1984, dir. Franco Prosperi) More insanity from Italy finds a city terrorized by murderous animals after PCP gets into their water supply. SEE rats gnaw people to death! SEE a human stomped by an elephant high on angel dust! SEE a polar bear attack a dance studio full of children! There is some unfortunate footage of real animal violence, so be warned that Wild Beasts does carry on that reprehensible tradition of Italian horror. If you can make it past that, Wild Beasts offers scene after scene of completely crazy animal attacks.
4. Uninvited (1988, dir. Greydon Clark) The one and only Greydon Clark—the filmmaker responsible for other WTF classics like Black Shampoo, Joysticks, and Satan’s Cheerleaders—brings his unique voice to this tale of a mutant cat that stows away on a luxury yacht and proceeds to kill everyone on board. Somehow, Clark talked both Clu Gulager and George Kennedy into appearing in this nonsense, which has the distinction of being one of only a handful of horror movies set aboard a cruise ship (joining the prestigious ranks of Ghost Ship and Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan) and being one of the very few murderous mutant cat movies the genre has ever known. It’s not a film that’s easily characterized as objectively “good,” but when talking about movies like Uninvited, good’s got nothing to do with it.
5. Burial Ground (1981, dir. Andrea Bianchi) Of all the crazy Italian horror films on this list, Burial Ground—aka Nights of Terror, aka Burial Ground: Nights of Terror, aka Zombie Horror, aka The Zombie Dead, aka Zombie 3—is by far the craziest. The reason why can be summarized in just two words: Peter Bark. He’s a grown little person playing a young boy who gets trapped along with a group of people inside a house during a zombie attack. The zombies themselves aren’t all that interesting—pretty standard early ’80s Italian stuff—but every scene with Bark is bananas, none more so than when he finally convinces his mother to let him breastfeed once more. Moments like this are why we horror fans continue to seek out the craziest movies we can find. It’s not because we particularly like them, but just because it’s the kind of stuff we can’t see in any other movie.
6. Cathy’s Curse (1977, dir. Eddy Matalon) This incredibly odd little Canadian sleeper has re-entered the horror community’s public consciousness in recent years thanks to the efforts of Brian Collins, author of A Horror Movie a Day, who has long championed it as a classic of true WTF-ery. Drawing inspiration from The Exorcist, Cathy’s Curse finds a young girl possessed by her dead aunt. The movie follows few of the rules of traditional narrative and is hypnotic in its strange incompetence, but there’s something charming about just how goofy it all is. There are two different versions of the movie available, but thankfully Shudder is streaming the shorter, 80-minute US cut. It makes just as much sense as the longer cut—which is to say not much— but you get to save 10 minutes.
7. Island of Death (1976, dir. Nico Mastorakis) This Video Nasty was long most widely available in an edited form, but Arrow Video released the longer, uncut version in 2011. That’s the version available to stream on Shudder and the only one worth seeing. A brother and sister, engaged in an incestuous relationship, travel to an island to punish and murder “sinners.” Sometimes it’s the people they seduce and sleep with. In one instance, it’s the goat that the man has sex with. This is that kind of movie. Sure, you may want to take a shower after you see it, but I promise that Island of Death will be unlike almost anything else you watch this October. I think. I mean, I don’t know your life.
8. Blue Sunshine (1978, dir. Jeff Lieberman) Cult director Jeff Lieberman—the man responsible for Slugs, Just Before Dawn, and Satan’s Little Helper—directs this trippy cult horror film focused on a rash of murders brought about by a group of people who took LSD years earlier, lost all their hair, and are now psychotic killers. Future softcore titan Zalman King plays the lead, just in case that plot description doesn’t sound eccentric enough.
9. Blood Harvest (1987, dir. Bill Rebane) Some of you may be too young to remember musician/personality Tiny Tim, a giant weirdo who became known for his ukulele playing and falsetto singing style; horror fans probably know him best from the use of his song “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” in the Insidious franchise. Despite being a well-known media presence on the variety and talk show circuit, Tiny Tim starred in only one feature film: the 1987 slasher Blood Harvest (also known as Nightmare). He spends most of the movie in clown makeup, which is maybe the only way to make Tiny Tim even weirder. The movie is incredibly sleazy, mostly for the way that lead actress Itonia Salcheck is constantly exploited, and the film’s weird and gross sexuality coupled with the nightmarish presence of Tiny Tim makes for one of the great oddities of ’80s horror. Watch for Six Feet Under star Peter Krause in an early supporting role.
10. Night Train to Terror (1985, dir. Jay Schlossberg-Cohen) Insane, inscrutable, occasionally inept horror anthology in which God and the Devil exchange scary stories aboard a train at the same time that a full ’80s song-and-dance party is going on. Schlossberg-Cohen is the credited director, but the individual segments are directed by the likes of John Carr, Gregg Tales, Tom McGowan, and Phillip Marshak. I mention their names not so much to give them credit, but so we know who to blame for this anthology, scraped together from three other features both complete and unfinished: Cataclysm, Death Wish Club, and Scream Your Head Off. The individual segments rarely make any sense, but they’re all pretty crazy and over-the-top gory. Plus, I dare you to try to get that opening number out of your head. I haven’t seen it in months, but I still can’t get it out of mine. And I never want to.
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In case you missed it, check here to read our other special features that celebrate the Halloween season, and stay tuned to Daily Dead for more articles in the coming weeks!
Patrick lives in Chicago, where he has been writing about film since 2004. A member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Online Film Critics Society, Patrick's writing also appears on About.com, DVDVerdict.com and fthismovie.net, the site he runs and hosts a weekly podcast.
He has been an obsessive fan of horror and genre films his entire life, watching, re-watching and studying everything from the Universal Monsters of the '30s and '40s to the modern explosion of indie horror. Some of his favorites include Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (1931), Dawn of the Dead (1978), John Carpenter's The Thing and The Funhouse. He is a lover of Tobe Hooper and his favorite Halloween film is part 4. He knows how you feel about that. He has a great wife and two cool kids, who he hopes to raise as horror nerds.
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