The Tuesday Top 10: Most UNDERRATED Horror Movies

Here's a little something I originally whipped up while I was writing for Barnes & Noble's now-defunct Quamut line of how-to guides (the original title was "How to Scare Yourself Silly"). Those articles are no longer available online, so I'm sharing this here now. Basically, it's a list of ten horror films I find to be underrated. I figured since the last Tuesday Top 10 was the 10 most OVER-rated horror films, it would be a perfect time to dust off this oldie-but-goody.

Whereas the last list consisted of movies that I feel get far more credit than they deserve, this is a bunch of excellent horror flicks that, while often highly regarded by a certain hardcore fan base, do not get nearly as much attention as they warrant. Let me know what you think!

10. Black House (2007)
This overlooked South Korean import slipped under the radar and straight on to DVD in 2008. A white-knuckle cross between a psychological thriller and a slasher flick, it also boasts the most unlikely serial killer in horror movie history (well, aside from Chucky, perhaps).

9. Kiss of the Vampire (1963)
A product of the UK’s legendary Hammer Films, this Victorian tale of unsuspecting honeymooners targeted by a sinister coven of bloodsuckers is fairly dripping with foreboding atmosphere. One of Hammer’s most underrated gems for sure.

8. House by the Cemetery (1981)
Have your barf bag handy, as the Italian master of viscera Lucio Fulci is at his best in this ultra-violent take on the archetypal haunted house tale. For anyone who’s ever been scared to death of their own basement.

7. Dracula’s Daughter (1936)
Think Anne Rice started the whole “self-hating vampire” shtick? Think again. In this overshadowed sequel to the Bela Lugosi classic, Gloria Holden is both intriguing and chilling as Countess Marya Zaleska, the reluctant nosferatu with a penchant for lesbianism.

6. Dellamorte Dellamore (1994)
Romantic leading man Rupert Everett, of all people, plays a cemetery custodian who turns zombie-killer when the dearly departed start popping out of their graves. The last great horror film to come from Italy, a country whose fright flicks have long been known for their unflinching brutality.

5. Deranged (1974)
Necrophile murderer Ed Gein is said to have been the inspiration for both Norman Bates and Leatherface, but this bizarre adaptation of the real-life story is by far the most faithful. The killer is portrayed by Roberts Blossom, who played kindly old man Marley in Home Alone, so prepare to have your childhood memories irrevocably altered.

4. The Last Man on Earth (1964)
If you got a kick out of I Am Legend (or even moreso if you didn’t), you’ll definitely go in for this Vincent Price vehicle, the first cinematic adaptation of the original 1954 Richard Matheson novel. While the Will Smith version is more of an action flick, Last Man keeps the focus on the nail-biting terror of Matheson’s book.

3. Tombs of the Blind Dead (1971)
Featuring some of the creepiest music ever put to celluloid, this unrelentingly grim Spanish chiller from director Amando de Ossorio recounts what happens when undead crusaders return from their centuries-long slumber in search of human blood. The skeletal “blind dead” are the most haunting movie monsters you’ll ever witness.

2. The Grapes of Death (1978)
An enthralling cross between arthouse and grindhouse, this gory French offering about rural villagers transformed into homicidal maniacs by chemically treated wine feels like a nightmare come to life. It gets points for the most original horror premise, plus keep an eye out for the crucifixion/beheading scene.

1. Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (1974)
An often overlooked chestnut that came out a full four years before George Romero’s groundbreaking Dawn of the Dead, this macabre masterpiece tells the story of flesh-hungry ghouls roaming the English countryside as a result of crop-dusting radiation. Also known as The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue.

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This Should've Been the REAL Trailer for Let Sleeping Corpses Lie

Came across this the other day and just had to share it--a highly entertaining fan-made trailer for Let Sleeping Corpses Lie, a.k.a. The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue:



The Beatles and zombies. Two great tastes that taste great together!

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I'd also like to direct your attention today to the VoH's "sister blog", Day of the Woman, where BJ-C has responded to my now-legendary Zombie All-Star Team post with her very own "all-star team" of indispensable female horror icons. Hopefully, Stacie Ponder doesn't get a big head from being included in such prestigous company--Lord knows the woman has become nigh unbearable lately (I kid, Stace, I kid!).

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Jorge Grau: Unsung Pioneer of the Undead

The history of zombie cinema that I've been putting together lately has led me to explore and rediscover several of the milestone films in the genre recently. And one that I've come to marvel at has been a movie most commonly known as The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue (although it also goes by the names Don't Open the Window and Let Sleeping Corpses Lie.)

I've marveled at it so much in fact, that I've come to regard as one of the most underrated and undercelebrated pictures in modern horror history. Let's think about this. The movie, directed by Spanish expatriate Jorge Grau in 1974, was directly influenced by George Romero's Night of the Living Dead. Yet it came out years before Romero's own sequel, Dawn of the Dead.

And although Dawn of the Dead is most often regarded as the movie that brought extreme zombie gore into the horror mainstream, The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue had already done it. And in color, too. In fact, it was Grau's specific intention to take the horror of Night of the Living Dead and make it more explicit, capitalizing on color film to take it to the next level. In short, it would seem in a way that Grau beat Romero himself to the punch.

So why then, is The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue not regarded in quite the same light as Romero's films? It's certainly an excellent horror movie, and even contains a social message, much like Romero's films are usually hailed for having. What did Romero have that Grau didn't?

For one thing, Dawn of the Dead is a sprawling horror epic, giving the illusion of a much grander scale, unlike Manchester Morgue, the action of which is less ambitious, and more like Night of the Living Dead in its close-quarters intimacy. Dawn of the Dead also has more memorable individual performances overall, even if Fernando Hilbeck as Manchester's Guthrie is more terrifying than any zombie in Dawn.

And let's be frank here. Dawn of the Dead also had the Romero name to give it momentum. The director's reputation based on the mainstream classic Night of the Living Dead from a decade earlier turned Dawn of the Dead into an anticipated and high-grossing event. The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue, by contrast, was a strictly grindhouse flick that attained cult status in later years. Had Dawn of the Dead not had the Romero name, it might've been relegated to the obscure grindhouse circuit as well.

Jorge Grau's highly entertaining chiller was clearly ahead of the curve, the only zombie picture made between Night of the Livng Dead and Dawn of the Dead that truly embraced Romero's "rules" and the template he set up and did something interesting with it. It's an underappreciated gem, and for any fan of modern horror--and zombie flicks in particular--a must-see.

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They're Coming to Get You: 40 Years of the Modern Zombie Movie, Part 1

No one could have anticipated that October 1, 1968 would be the day that would change horror movies forever. But it was on that day that George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead was released--an unheralded B-movie that would attain cinematic immortality and usher in the modern horror era in the process.

But there was something else that movie accomplished, much to the delight of modern horror movie fans. Night of the Living Dead literally invented the subgenre of the zombie film as we know it today. And for the past 40 years, we've been witnessing the results.

Prior to NOTLD, not only were zombie movies few and far between, but they were of a completely different variety. Usually dwelling on the zombie's folkloric origins in the West Indies, movies like White Zombie (1932), I Walked with a Zombie (1943) and The Zombies of Mora Tau (1957) dealt with ghouls that were relatively docile walking corpses enslaved by the will of a much more sinister living villain, and capable of not much more than wandering around mindlessly. They were are also far less popular than other movie monsters like vampires, werewolves and mummies.

But in 1968, maverick Pittsburgh director Romero changed all the rules. More specifically, he created the rules. And with varying degrees of loyalty, they're the rules that have been followed by filmmakers ever since. For instance, it was Romero's film which first established that:

• Zombies are driven by a hunger for human flesh.
• Zombies can only be killed by destroying their brains.
• Anyone bitten by a zombie will become one.
• Zombies are very slow-moving, but are unrelenting, and especially dangerous in large groups.
• Zombies retain little or nothing of their former humanity.
• The ranks of zombies are made up of everyday people, including friends and family.

First and foremost, it was the whole cannibalistic angle that took the subgenre to a whole new level of grueling terror. It struck a chord at something deep within the psyche, this concept of the dead literally consuming the living. And with the Hays production code fallen by the wayside, it was perfect timing--for the zombie ouvre would necessitate some of the most graphic violence ever put to film.

Even in NOTLD, the violent scenes were so strong for the time that audiences were genuinely shocked, even revolted. What would only come to be realized later after the furor died down was that Romero was also using the imagery to make a social point. Much has been made of Night of the Living Dead as an allegory for the Vietnam War and the Cold War in general, but it's also important to remember that it was Romero as well who set this standard of using the zombie as an allegory.

The importance of Night of the Living Dead to the modern zombie movie cannot be overestimated, much like the importance of The Lord of the Rings to the modern fantasy novel. In the wake of Romero's landmark, an entire movement was about to begin.

It wouldn't happen all at once, and in the beginning the new "rules" weren't always adhered to. The first major post-NOTLD zombie movies were a pair of comedy/satires made in 1972 by Alan Ormsby and Benjamin Clark: Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things and Deathdream. One thing both films may have taken from Romero was a penchant for social commentary--the former took a shot at the hippie counterculture, while the latter was a rare Vietnam War movie actually made during the war itself.

Some movies, like David Cronenberg's Shivers (1975), would riff on the Romero device of unstoppable hordes, without actually dealing in zombies per se. But the influence was still there. Others, like Tales from the Crypt (1973)--featuring none other than Peter Cushing as a vengeful zombie--nostalgically hearkened back to pre-NOTLD ghoulish sensibilities.

The movie that would prove to be the first true descendant of Romero's work would be 1974's The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue. The work of expatriate Spanish director Jorge Grau, the movie picked up on the flesh-eating concept, resulting in material even gorier than NOTLD which would prefigure the virtual smorgasbord of zombie violence soon to follow. Grau also picked up on the apocalyptic element--which would become the bread and butter of the subgenre--and traded in social commentary for an ecological message.

While not owing much to Romero, Amando de Ossorio's memorable Blind Dead series also bears little connection to earlier voodoo-style zombie films as well. Rather, they represent something wholly unique and original. Another Spanish auteur (working in his native country), Ossorio came up with the idea to make his zombies the deathless, cursed Knights Templar--a real-life troupe of mercenaries that ran afoul of the Vatican during the Crusades.

The series includes the original Tombs of the Blind Dead (1971), The Return of the Blind Dead (1973), Horror of the Zombies (1973) and Night of the Seagulls (1975). For many, what makes these movies stand out is the striking look of the undead themselves--skeletal wraith-like beings in tattered robes, whose movements are accompanied by haunting choral music. The films focused on the destruction of youth and sexuality, dealing in carnal imagery in a way the far more chaste Romero never did.

Romero had laid the groundwork in 1968 with Night of the Living Dead, but some would argue that it was the sequel he made ten years later that would cement the zombie subgenre's cult status. If audiences thought they were seeing a lot of zombie movies before Dawn of the Dead, then there's no way they were ready for the cinematic ghoul-fest that was about to be unleashed.

To Be Continued...

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