Slightly More Obscure Horror Movies That You Might Not Have Thought Of

As people prepare for the forthcoming holiday, DVD shelves everywhere will be awash with the classics - stuff like Psycho, The Exorcist and The Omen, along with the schlock like Saw XXIV. Now, I'm what some of my friends call a "film snob." I'm the guy who knows all the useless trivia and talks about how the original French version of your favorite movie was so much better. So I'm using my film snobbery to give you some recommendations on some horror movies that you might have never heard of.

Sunshine
Directed by Danny Boyle - 2007

Could've done without The Right Stuff rip-off poster.

This film by Danny Boyle, the director of Trainspotting, 28 Days Later and Slumdog Millionaire, might not appear to be scary at first glance. The film is about the crew of a ship sent to the sun in the 2050s in an effort to reignite fusion, after the sun mysteriously begins to go dark. To be honest, it's kind of a spoiler to ever tell you guys this, but about half-way into the movie, it becomes less 2001 and much more akin to Alien. Hell, even knowing that it takes that turn might ruin the movie for you, so feel free to yell at me if you feel that I, in fact, ruined it for you. Still, I'm sparing you all the details and, when I saw this movie, I left the screening feeling rather shaken up by the unsettling nature of some of the things in the film. I definitely recommend giving it a chance if you haven't seen it. Plus, Lost fans can be excited by seeing Hiroyuki Sanada - better known as Dogen, the leader of the Others in the temple - in one of his rare Western film roles. And it was the first time I saw Chris Evans in a movie and didn't think he was awful.

The Descent

Directed by Neil Marshall - 2005

Don't let this corny poster fool you. Seriously. This is a stupid poster. Why don't these movies have better posters?

This movie is probably the most well known of the movies I've listed tonight. By director Neil Marshall, whose track record aside from this film hasn't been great, had the honor of really disturbing my drunk ass last year at Halloween. The film follows a group of women on a spelunking trip, but one wrong turn leads them into the wrong cave for the most horrifying cave-crawling ever. The cinematography of this film alone makes it worth watching. Marshall went with a realistic approach to a cave - he kept it pitch black. The only light in the cave scenes are the lights brought by the terrorized women who are trying to escape the cave's ravenous, terror-inducing denizens. This helps create a stifling amount of dread. Unlike other movies, you really can't see anything coming until it's on top of someone. Added in the dynamic of people trying very hard to survive at any cost (even each other) creates for a really claustrophobic and terrorizing horror movie.

Incubus

Directed by Leslie Stevens - 1965

Dammit, now it's a bad DVD cover. What the hell?

 Okay, so I have to admit two things. One: I've never seen this movie. Two: I've wanted to see it for years out of curiosity and a strong belief that I would find it highly amusing. The film was one of two films ever to be made in Esperanto, an artificially constructed language meant to be a universal second language that would allow everyone in the world to communicate easily. It was directed by Leslie Stevens, the creator of The Outer Limits. For those of you who don't know, The Outer Limits is like The Twilight Zone's copycat little brother. Stevens decided to film the movie in Esperanto in order to give it an eerie feeling and also forbade it from being dubbed into any other languages. Apparently, they didn't have an Esperanto coach on set, so the film's stars didn't do a very good job with their pronunciations. Speaking of the film's stars, this one stars the King of Ham, Captain James T. Kirk himself - William Shatner. This one was actually filmed a year before the premiere of Star Trek, so this is the young Shatner. And to think, ten years ago, I wouldn't have known that I could track this movie down. It had been thought lost until a copy was found and restored by the Sci-Fi (now SyFy) Channel. The movie itself centers around succubi. That's succubus in plural. As in, beautiful women who suck the life out of men by having sex with them. Also, it's said to have been a cursed productions, since three of its stars were dead within a year - one pair of actors - Milos Milos murdered his girlfriend, Barbara Ann Thomason Rooney, then killed himself. Another of their costars committed suicide. Thank God Shatner made it. But do you guys see why I want to see it now?

And that's it for tonight's blog. I'd give you a preview for tomorrow, but I don't know what that's going to be yet!