Supernatural Horror Films

This has become my favorite genre by well nigh on a parsec. And for the record, it excludes slashers, torture porn, serial killers and space alien McGuffins. It's all about the woo-woo--devils, demons, witches, ghosts, black magic, haunted houses and your traditional monsters/entities such as Dracula, werewolves and mummies.

Now I'm working my way through a very long list of these puppies, and am nowhere close to having exhausted it. Therefore, my opinions are based upon admittedly inadequate data. But to start this thread, I'll just mention a totally overlooked and underrated film I watched twice this weekend--The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh (2012) starring Vanessa Redgrave in strictly a voice-actor role.

A good way to judge the quality of a supernatural horror film is whether or not it casts a pall. This one assuredly does. On the first viewing I rated this haunted house flick as spooky and punctuated by several truly freaky moments. After the second viewing I revised that estimate to flat out scary and borderline brilliant.

These sorts of films trade very much on gothic imagery, and Last Will deploys this--angel statuary, bizarre bric-a-brac from hell--to tremendous effect. The house in question was inherited by the main character, Leon Leigh, from his estranged and recently deceased mother (Redgrave). He's come to take stock of his new property and quickly discovers that her presence still pervades the dwelling, and that she is communicating with him on a psychic level. The film is essentially her monologue delivered to her atheistic son and his responses to what she says and the strange happenings in the house.

In addition to being a frightening film, Last Testament is fundamentally a meditation on a son's duty to his aging mother. It's an insidious and unnerving film, particularly if you've experienced the loss of your mother. But even if you're fortunate enough not to have suffered this loss, Last Testament is definitely worth a viewing. Or two.

x

I would recommend the work of Ti West.
"The House of the Devil" and "The Innkeepers" are two horror films that would fall into the category you are describing.

x

You may like The Conjuring and its many spin-offs and sequels.

Erica Ambler wrote:

Khan, you've got to see The Legend of Hell House. Largely forgotten Brit-horror flick from 1973, written by the late great American Richard Matheson. I'm sure you'd enjoy it.

It is on the list noted above. And I know Matheson well from his writing for the Twilight Zone. He also wrote the script for Spielberg's Duel, did he not?

Salomé wrote:

I would recommend the work of Ti West.
"The House of the Devil" and "The Innkeepers" are two horror films that would fall into the category you are describing.

We're definitely on the same page, Sabs. Both of those are already on my list. The next DVD I'm purchasing, however (paleodude that I am, I watch all of my pictures on DVD), is The Devil Rides Out starring our mutual friend, Christopher Lee.

Erica Ambler wrote:

I've not seen Burnt Offerings (1976), another haunted house drama, but the late Roger Ebert's review makes me want to.

Quote :

"Burnt Offerings" is a mystery, all right. What's mysterious is that the filmmakers were able to sell such a weary collection of ancient cliches for cold hard cash. That's why they're rich and the rest of us are poor. Say I was sitting in my garret room, the moths flying through the flame of a sputtering candle, as I bent over my foolscap and composed this story line: A young married couple, their son and an aunt move into a vast Gothic mansion. It is rented to them by a cackling old fool in a wheel chair and his sinister sister. It is alleged that their mother lives in a room at the top of the house - a room that is never opened. The monthly rent is suspiciously low, but soon after the family moves in, Strange Events start to occur . . .

OK. So now the sun is rising over the lake and the Muses have left to spend the day shift with Bob Greene. Exhausted by my labors, I stick my last 13-cent stamp on an envelope and mail my story off to a big Hollywood studio. The rejection slip comes so fast they must have readers in the mailbox. You gotta be kidding, they say. This story has been done a thousand times. Didn't you see "The Legend of Hell House?" How could you miss . . . blah, blah, blah. Embittered, I crumple the rejection slip and throw it into a drawer with dozens of others. I abandon my writing career and seek honest work.

And yet, and yet - incredibly, "Burnt Offerings" was not only made into a movie, it was made into an expensive one. A talented cast (Karen Black, Oliver Reed, Burgess Meredith and the sainted Bette Davis) was sacrificed to this slop. And the movie even has Artistic Pretensions! The photography is consciously arty, and the dialog is fiercely elliptic, and the filmmakers didn't even have the courage to approach their material as the silly trash it is.

If they had, "Burnt Offerings might have been a lot more fun. When you're making a totally unnecessary retread of a wheezy old haunted-house howler, the least you can do is populate it with camp actors and write them some absurd dialog. Vincent Price and Shelley Winters might have been right for the couple, with Marjoe Gortner as their aging son. But, no, the dialog in "Burnt Offerings" actually sounds as if people might be saying it, and the actors turn in good, realistic performances. What a waste.

But then again, it's a tricky business, making a supernatural thriller with artistic ambitions. Roman Polanski and William Friedkin have pulled it off in recent years, with subtle blends of the mundane and the preternatural. And, come to think of it, "The Legend of Hell House" brought out the fun in this sort or material very well. But "Burnt Offerings" just persists, until it occurs to us that the characters are the only ones in the theater who don't know what's going to happen next.

Ah, the seventies... THE decade of the supernatural horror flick. I remember when this one came out, but I wasn't allowed to see it. The parents were protective of their son, dontchaknow. And thank God!

Kath wrote:

You may like The Conjuring and its many spin-offs and sequels.

I've seen the original; it's scary and quite good. I've got a friend who began watching The Conjuring but quickly turned it off because it frightened him so severely. I can dig it.

BTW, I like Patrick Wilson. He was rock solid in Insidious, too.

x

Dunno if you're familar with this Khanners, but it's far and away my favourite scary movie of more recent years -

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_babadook

Blunt Instrument wrote:

Dunno if you're familar with this Khanners, but it's far and away my favourite scary movie of more recent years -

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_babadook

Ha. Do I? Got it on DVD. Except for the goofy, nonsensical, feel-good coda, it is quite excellent indeed. Not sure I've ever seen a film that portrays insomnia and bone-dead fatigue better than this one. And the imagery the mother sees on her telly, along with that in The Babadook book, is creepy in the extreme.

Kath wrote:

You may like The Conjuring and its many spin-offs and sequels.

The first one had some spooky moments but the second one was ruined somewhat by the nun

bitchcraft wrote:

Kath wrote:

You may like The Conjuring and its many spin-offs and sequels.

The first one had some spooky moments but the second one was ruined somewhat by the nun

I think the best thing about "The Conjuring" franchise is the chemistry between Wilson and Farmiga. They really work well as an on-screen couple.
The first movie is the best, but I wouldn't consider any of them among my favorite horror films of the 21st century.

bitchcraft wrote:

Kath wrote:

You may like The Conjuring and its many spin-offs and sequels.

The first one had some spooky moments but the second one was ruined somewhat by the nun

What about the latest, Annabelle? I've heard it's pretty good.

A current UK cinema release ... perhaps one for the future, Khanners?

Blunt Instrument wrote:

A current UK cinema release ... perhaps one for the future, Khanners?

Thank you kindly, Blunts. It's now on The List.

How many of you have seen Jacob's Ladder (1990, Tim Robbins, Elizabeth Pena, Danny Aiello)? Saw this for the first time about a month ago, and it really took me unawares. The film's reputation--such that it is--didn't precede it, and the title hardly strikes fear in the heart of a movie-goer. And perhaps it was because I was so unprepared that the film really shook me up. It is grim, oppressive, and frankly one of the very scariest films I've yet seen.

Normally, we think of the sort of mysticism associated with neoplatonism and the likes of Meister Eckhart (who is mentioned in the film) as a comforting thing. I.e. our physical world is but an illusion hiding the fact that we are one with the godhead or the universe and that it will warmly enfold us once our present, conscious life concludes. And then, perhaps, it will infinitely recapitulate us into future lives. God is like a mother holding us at its bosom. Jacob's Latter twists this philosophical monism into a horrifying and disquieting vision. The godhead, it turns out, is not quite so beneficent after all, and we are eternally locked into tormented existences. Existence is, in fact, hell.

So, not quite the feel-good hit of the summer then, but all the same, a film to see if you think you can handle it.

I've seen it. Very good film with a really great hazy visual style and plenty of frightening imagery. Definitely Adrian Lyne's best work (and his odd man out given his previous two films were relationship drama/thrillers 9 1/2 Weeks and Fatal Attraction) and was a big inspiration for the Silent Hill videogame series. Also features a very noteworthy performance from Danny Aiello.

One of my favorite semi-recent horror films was "The Wailing" and I think it also fits into this genre as you are describing it, Khanners.



People are somewhat divided about the ending, but I like it.

I've yet to see an oriental horror, unless you count that underground vid of George Takei and the schnauzer...

Perilagu Khan wrote:

bitchcraft wrote:

Kath wrote:

You may like The Conjuring and its many spin-offs and sequels.

The first one had some spooky moments but the second one was ruined somewhat by the nun

What about the latest, Annabelle? I've heard it's pretty good.

There are 3...Annabelle and Annabelle: Creation, with a 3rd on the way (July 2019). They have their creepy moments but sometimes it seems more like sci-fi than supernatural spooky to me.

That's why Insidious didn't spook me either.

bitchcraft wrote:

Perilagu Khan wrote:

bitchcraft wrote:

Kath wrote:

You may like The Conjuring and its many spin-offs and sequels.

The first one had some spooky moments but the second one was ruined somewhat by the nun

What about the latest, Annabelle? I've heard it's pretty good.

There are 3...Annabelle and Annabelle: Creation, with a 3rd on the way (July 2019). They have their creepy moments but sometimes it seems more like sci-fi than supernatural spooky to me.

That's why Insidious didn't spook me either.

Creation is the one I was thinking of.

I thought Insidious had its moments. There is a scene where the wife is home alone and the demon is pacing back and forth outside of her curtained window that is plenty scary. And, in contradiction to much popular opinion, I actually thought the father's venture into "the Further" was well done. I mean, "Tiptoe through the Tulips"? A bit of an eerily droll masterstroke from Wan there, I think. And, of course, the conclusion is anything but your typical Hollywood/Spielberg ending, and the better for it.

This is also worth watching if you haven't already, Khanners.

And this, which you should watch just for the quality of Angela Pleasence's performance alone, imho.