A scary thing happened on the way to the Movie Forums - Horrorcrammers

I really like Symptoms. Similar to Repulsion, but with a fall colour palette. Good peformance from Donald Pleasance's daughter in the lead role.


Vampyres is good too, if you like sexy vampire movies. Nice cozy autumn feel to this one as well.

I was just reading about Whirpool, that one sounds pretty bleak.

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You talkin' about the old Vampyres or the remake of Vampyres?

This one.

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"Bisexual female vampires." I miss the simplicity of the old world.

Yeah, I really dug that movie. In terms of the perfect mix of macabre and eroticism, while also having a tight, almost claustrophobic feel, it may be my favorite.

(Admittedly, those are very specific terms.)

‘Twas I!

I also liked Deadly Manor and Vampyres.

As far as European horror movies pretending to be American go, Edge of the Axe is a lot more enjoyable than Body Count and Nightmare Beach.

Psst, Society came out in 1989.

There are a few out there to be found. Frankenhooker
is another from close to the same time. Butt it becomes real slim pickings around then, and then lasts for about ten years. I can't think of a worse span for horror films in pretty much all of movie history

Any omissions here in your opinions, guys?:

Almost every single one of these is beloved and as popular as a horror film can get without being absolutely mainstream ala Psycho, Halloween and Scream.

I'd say that they are beloved, but also maybe "underseen" would be a better word than "underappreciated"?

At what degree do we consider something underseen? Virtually all of them have 30k+ ratings on IMDb as a minimum. Comparatively, something like The Eyes of My Mother has 12k (it had fewer than 10k last year when I plugged it on Thief’s podcast). Edge of the Axe has 2k.

30k minimum (and this is for the older films) feels pretty substantial in terms of awareness of a film and all had positive ratings, with only Jennifer’s Body being somewhat polarizing (I suspect the negatives are largely from the time of release).

Definitely within the realm of “cult classics.”

Certainly.

I think they basically all fall into the realm of films that have been seen by a lot of people who are horror fans, but at the same time not quite mainstream horror.

By "underseen" I guess I also sometimes get the sense that they haven't been seen by as many people who weren't watching horror movies at the time of their release. For me, a shocking number of people who will tell me they like horror haven't seen Ginger Snaps and haven't even heard of Session 9.

I suppose it’s all arbitrary but I don’t find “just outside of mainstream” to be particularly illuminating. Your average Joe has seen very few films and have heard of only a few more. Most haven’t seen Moonlight but I would be remiss to describe it as “under appreciated” or “underseen.” I know many people that haven’t seen The Godfather.

I suppose my frustration with these videos and their clickbait-y nature is that I’m not entirely sure who they’re for.

If this was aimed at horror fans, I believe they’d be familiar and have seen most of these titles.

If it’s for average joes, would they even care enough to watch it?

Or is it, as I’d expect, some kind of self gratification for moderate horror fans to feel like they’ve dug deep and know more than the average joe?

I guess I just feel cynical about all of these things. I’m a fan of all the movies and I suppose if someone discovers them from this video, it’s a good thing. There’s probably a better video out there to guide a deeper dive afterward.

Not bad. Seen most of those, including the HM, and was expecting maybe a few that I hadn’t heard of yet. Surprisingly, I have heard of them all.

Not a fan of Jennifer’s Body. The Wailing is good, but is slightly overrated. At some point I should give it a rewatch. I prefer Svaha: The Siixth Finger over it.

Maybe?

My feeling on watching these videos is often disappointment, as I never find a film I haven't seen or heard of.

But, you know, maybe that's why they went with the adjective "underappreciated"---trying to convey not "No one has seen this film!" but rather "We wish more people were talking about this film!".

I mean, we've had many discussions over the year about recommending horror films, and we all tend to lean toward some sort of tiered system. I imagine that a video (especially a short one) isn't the best format for that. Either a book or a website would be the best way to present that kind of progression.

If I were to post that video on Facebook, it's safe to say that most of those films would be new to the members of my extended family, even the ones that like "scary movies". So I guess it serves some purpose for those who are not inclined to dig for themselves.

Facebook moms, is my answer to your question.

I am in no way endorsing the WatchMojo brand. Check out one of their "Top 10 guitar solo" videos if you really want to be annoyed. WatchMojo is the worst. I'm merely pointing out that the unwashed masses have seen far fewer movies than we'd expect. It's easy for me to forget that some people only watch one movie per month.

Also I'm not on Facebook.

Watchmojo's lists work good for the masses but not for more experienced cinephiles. Initially, I was a huge fan of Watchmojo, but I fell out of touch with them a while ago. If you want great movie lists, go to Cinefix. They don't post as much, but their lists are generally far better (though, I haven't seen their newer videos and I know IGN owns the channel now, so their quality might have gone down).

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