Horrors, 10/30.

On the eve of All Hallows' Eve, viewing recommendations trickle on in, with the most recent rounds coming from Video Watchdog editor Tim Lucas and the staff of Film Threat, where Don Lewis recommends Rosemary's Baby; so does David Jeffers at the Siffblog.

After plugging Slither, Vince Keenan points to Tony Kay's Pop Culture Petri Dish, "where he's in the midst of his second annual Horrorpalooza. He's got you covered from A (Argento, Dario) to Z (Zombies, Nazi)."

From a highly entertaining primer-like piece by Jeffrey Hill at the House Next Door: "From about 1940-48 - the prime years for mummy movies - if you were a young woman who, through coincidence, was the spitting image of Princess Ananka and happened to be near the Universal lot, chances were that you would end up on the sacrificial table of one of these looney birds."

Thomas Scalzo at Not Coming to a Theater Near You: "A splatter-generation take on the reviled-monster tale, Basket Case modernizes the gothic locales of Frankenstein, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and the like with scenes of the grimy city, transporting the maltreated centerpiece from crumbling castle to dingy New York City hotel. And while Basket Case's Belial is cut from the same cloth as the classic horror showstoppers, writer/director Frank Henenlotter brings the idea of the abhorred abomination to a new level, weaving a tapestry of cruelty that rivals anything endured by the fiends of yore."

Also, Teddy Blanks on Shivers: "In retrospect, it's almost too perfect that this was David Cronenberg's first widely-seen picture, but its intense exploitation of deep human sexual desire and angst must have been quite shocking at the time. Which is not to say that it doesn't still shock. The mere idea of a building terrorized by sex zombies is taboo, even - no, especially - in today's horror landscape, which is gore-and-dismemberment friendly, but still treats sex as something that happens only to girls with boob jobs right before they get stabbed."

Häxen is "one of the most visionary - and lethally pointed - horror-comedies ever made," writes brotherfromanother at Reverse Shot, where, for Robbiefreeling, Poltergeist is "something like a particlarly gruesome Little Golden Book; it could be subtitled 'My First Horror Movie.'"

"Horror movie fans will take it on faith that an evil transplant has a life of its own; which is why the Hands of Orlac story has been done again, and again," writes Richard von Busack at Cinematical. "A scholarly round-up by Kinoeye's Ruth Goldberg notes the various versions, except the one she neglects, the satire, 'My Bloody Hand' on SCTV. Mad Love is the best, because of the way [Peter] Lorre fleshes the bizarre fable out."

"Just in time for Holloween come two erotic horror films from Jesus Franco, with a greater emphasis on the erotic." Peter Nellhaus reviews Macumba Sexual and Mansion of the Living Dead.

"Tobe Hooper inaugurates the second season of Showtime's Masters of Horror by rotating, whirling, and shaking his camera with what feels like desperation," writes Nick Schager in Slant.

Chris Tilly for Time Out: "The world's first made-for-mobile horror series hit the very small screen this week in the shape of When Evil Calls."

Jonathan Marlow at the Guru: "Over a two-year period (1971-2), [Robert] Fuest released among the most original pair of horror pictures ever made, both starring the legendary Vincent Price as Anton Phibes: The Abominable Dr Phibes (amazingly, Price's 100th movie appearance), and the less successful Dr Phibes Rises Again."

That Little Round-Headed Boy is no fan of horror, but that won't keep him from appreciating Boris Karloff.

Online viewing tip. Jerry Lentz's Security Cam Ghost.

Posted by dwhudson at October 30, 2006 8:05 AM