Cal is a veteran of the Flip Flop Slap Fight podcast and designed many, MANY shirts for GiantBomb/Tested. He loves good games and good drinks. Cal is a well of useless knowledge, and has been generous enough to write out a list of his favourite horror movies as well.
When Scott asked me to do create a list, he told me to make it 5-10 items and that I didn’t have to go into too much detail. Well, I went for the maximum amount of films, and I’ve included way too much text about each. I’ve also added some fun facts that have popped into my head as I’ve been typing all this, a further “fuck you” to the instructions I was given. Sorry, Scott, but you’ve talked to me and you know I love to prattle on. This is all your own doing, mate. Have fun editing this, you monster.
(I should point out that, aside from the last entry, these are in no particular order; the last item on the list is definitely my #1 pick.)
Candyman I loved this film so much as a kid that, as soon as the credits started to roll on my first viewing, I immediately rewound the tape and watched it again. Tony Todd’s hypnotic performance was so intense that he made me forget I was watching a fiction, convincing me completely that he was The Candyman. All these years later, I can still recite his opening lines verbatim (remind me to do it next time I’m on your podcast, Scott).
Also, I used to love terrorizing my idiot friends by going into the bathroom at boozy high school parties and repeating “Candyman” five times. For real, people ran out of the room, or tried to drag me away from the mirror while covering my mouth to prevent me uttering the murderous spirit’s name for a fifth and (very) final time. Fun facts: Phillip Glass composed the haunting score; Ted Raimi plays a young punk boyfriend towards the start of the movie; the song “Scared” by 90’s Swedish industrial metal band Misery Loves Co. samples a line from the closing scene; classic “hey, it’s that guy” actor Xander Berkeley still has one of the fucking coolest names in Hollywood.
Jacob’s Ladder There’s nothing quite like Jacob’s Ladder. Well, there is, but that other movie (which I won’t name here) wouldn’t come for another nine years afterwards. Even then, few movies outside of a David Lynch joint have evoked the feeling of being trapped in a warped waking nightmare where, just as you feel you’re getting the hang of what’s going on, everything melts into a darker, more claustrophobic version of what you thought you knew before.
A proper mind-fuck that you’ve just got experience for yourself.
Fun facts: The imagery in this movie draws a lot of inspiration from the work of Joel-Peter Witkin (as does the video for “Closer” by Nine Inch Nails), homage that fascinated me as a teenage art student; a sample of dialogue spoken by Danny Aiello is used in the song “Rabbit in Your Headlights” by UNKLE.
A Nightmare on Elm St A big one for me. The first time I ever saw this film I was staying overnight at a school friend’s house (I was probably 10 or 11 years old) and saw that they had it on VHS. I then waited until the rest of the house was asleep before I snuck out to watch the whole thing by myself in the dark. The slight bummer was that nobody was any the wiser in the morning, so I couldn’t have an eager conversation about the disgusting awesomeness I’d witnessed splashing across their TV screen only hours earlier. Fun fact: This is honestly the only entry in the franchise I’ve ever fully watched (I don’t really think Freddy vs Jason counts) – the rest I’ve only ever seen small clips of.
Tetsuo: The Iron Man It was only after I went through my DVDs and whittled down my list that I realized that I’ve only included one non-American horror movie. And it’s not even a long one, coming in at a lean 67 minutes. But holy hell does it pack a lot into its running time.
This is another one of those formative films from my teen years where I watched it twice in one sitting. Whether or not it’s pure horror is debatable – it also has elements of straight action, fucked up romance and Japanese giant-monster movies – but there’s certainly enough gross, messed up tension here that would probably have a non-horror fan lunging for the remote to make it all just stop already.
Oh, and the industrial soundtrack is great (although, sadly, the official release omits some of the better songs).
From Dusk till Dawn Over the years, unkind words about this movie have reached my ears; for ages I just assumed everyone shared the view it was amazing kickass cinema. More specifically, I hear people bleat about the wild story/tonal shift, which I’ve always thought was one of its main assets.
When I saw From Dusk till Dawn at the theatre, the only thing I knew was that this was the latest project from Quentin Tarantino. That was all I knew – I hadn’t seen a poster, advertisement or review – and that was good enough for me. Being blindsided by the sudden tsunami of bat-shit crazy made my fucking decade.
Fun fact: The amazing touch of Michael Parks’s jaw spasming while he’s lying on the floor still gives me the fucking heebie-jeebies.
Evil Dead/Evil Dead 2 Okay, two of my picks I’m lumping together, and it’s probably obvious why: they’re both different takes on the same movie. Even at ceremonial knife-point I could probably never separate my love for both of these films. I’ll end up watching both of these gems a few times each year, usually after returning home after a boozy outing. I don’t really need to go into any more detail on these seminal classics.
Day of the Dead I felt I had to select at least one installment of Romero’s Dead franchise. Well, I actually wanted to include Zach Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead retread (which I’ve got a brilliant story for) but I gotta give the appropriate respect here.
This was a tough one for me to choose. I mean, obviously it was only gonna come from the first three, but they all bring such different things to the table. I guess my big guilty secret is that I’m someone who thinks Dawn of the Dead has kinda become the weakest of the trio over time. But, while I think Night of the Living Dead is the more important (and more stylish) or the three films, I just have a weird soft spot for the tone and effects of Day that makes it my pick.
Fun fact: The opening of this movie serves as the intro to the song “M1-A1” by Gorillaz.
Re-Animator This one’s a weird one for me, because for years the only relationship I had with this movie was with its video cover. Whenever my family would visit the video store, I’d always peel off to dare myself to hold and look at fucked up menagerie lurking in the horror section’s artwork. Even letting my fingers creep to the back of the VHS cover while I was holding it meant maybe one of the creatures depicted could maybe bite my finger.
Re-Animator’s art was one of the biggies in this masochistic pursuit (so was The Incredible Melting Man, but that movie sure ain’t making this list). A crazed, sweating doctor with a glowing green syringe! A bloodied, decapitated head in a tray! A shadowy form lurching from the dark! It was a perfect little tableau of terror.
Despite my fascination, I just never got around to watching the actual movie until I bought it on DVD as an adult. But man, like Herbert West’s life-restoring gunge, this movie is still shiny and evergreen. Now I watch it on the reg, maybe unwittingly trying to make up for lost time.
Zombie Flesh Eaters AKA Zombi 2 AKA Zombie This movie. This fucking movie. My all-time favourite horror flick. It’s by no means perfect, but goddamn it does so much right. If you’ve seen the Shark vs Zombie scene before, you know what I’m talking about; if not, you gotta at least see that shit, even if you don’t watch the rest. But you should watch the rest (if you can sit through some possibly ponderous non-action bits). Fun fact: A fair amount (if not all) of the New York scenes were filmed guerrilla-style, which only adds to the dodgy coolness of this grotty little wonder.
Comments