November 18, 2016

With the advances in home theater set-ups and multiple digital platforms going live regularly, there’s no shortage of places online to consume your horror. Most stick with Netflix, while other’s take advantage of Hulu or Amazon Prime. A few weeks back, I wrote about how thrilled I was that Shudder has now been added onto Amazon Prime as an additional service for $4.99 a month. At that time, I had only just scratched the surface of the robust library they’ve accrued, catered specifically to the die-hard horror fan.

Since then, plenty of newer titles have been added to their queue, so I decided I wanted to follow up my “6 great horror films on Shudder” piece by recommending another six! So, if you’re all signed up and ready to go, here’s a good mix of horror titles; old and new, something for everyone, all of which I think you should definitely check out!

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD 1990

At the time that this update of George Romero’s seminal classic NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD came about, remakes were a fairly uncommon thing as opposed to now. But with the key people from the original involved, including Romero, John Russo and Russ Streiner as producers and FX legend Tom Savini making his feature directorial debut, I walked into theaters with a lot of confidence for this particular retelling. And while I hold the original up as a horror masterpiece, I honestly think this is one of the best remakes ever done, and hold it almost in equal regard. Tony Todd channels the great Duane Jones and yet makes it his own as Ben, the leader of this group of survivors holed up in a house during the zombie apocalypse. Patricia Tallman transforms the meek version of Barbara from the original into a Siqourney Weaver-esque bad-ass, and the rest of the cast is rounded out by so many great recognizable faces like Tom Towles, William Butler and Bill Moseley. It follows the template of its inspiration and yet changes up some of the fun twists making it a worthwhile and vastly underrated remake. Highly recommended.

FLATLINERS

I was about 14 years old when FLATLINERS was originally released in theaters, and also in love with Julia Roberts, so I ended up going to see this thing 3 or 4 times. It made such an impression on me both for my over-active imagination, and also because I was just starting to grasp the concept of mortality at that time. What does come after death? To me, the idea of a group of medical students dying and then coming back, but bringing back their “sins” with them in physical form was mind blowing. Add to the great concept the stellar cast of Kiefer Sutherland, Kevin Bacon and Oliver Platt and you have one hell of a fun movie. Haven’t seen it in years, but since it’s here on Shudder, I plan to revisit it.

HAUNTER

I love a good haunted horror film, although most tend to fall into the same predictable traps: move into a house, it’s haunted, dumb family doesn’t leave until it’s too late. But here, with Vincenzo Natali’s HAUNTER, he tells arguably one of the most unique ghost stories the genre has ever seen. Abigail Breslin plays Lisa, a young kind of gothic angst-filled teenager, only we discover pretty quickly that she’s living in the middle of a time loop, forever reliving the day before her birthday. It turns out her and her family are already dead, and they are haunting their old home, with her fully aware of their inevitable fates. Every morning, she’s forced to relive this day, the last day they were all alive, with the full knowledge of that and no way to alter it. As deviations happen and she starts to uncover clues to a darker, more sinister truth regarding their demise, and that’s when this afterlife loop starts to become scarier. The entire concept is tremendously ambitious and interesting, even if it doesn’t fully come together by the conclusion, but just for being so starkly different, I recommend checking this one out and trying to piece it together for yourselves.

TOURIST TRAP

You know what’s scary? Mannequins! (Unless they look like Kim Cattrall!) You know what’s even scarier? Chuck Connors. Dude freaks me out. When a group of friends get stranded at a secluded roadside museum, they can’t possibly predict the horrors that wait for them. From director David Schmoller, who heled Full Moon’s original PUPPET MASTER movie, as well as NETHERWORLD and CRAWLSPACE, and featuring an amazing original score by the legendary Pino Donaggio, TOURIST TRAP is mandatory horror viewing.

STUCK

Director Stuart Gordon may have gotten his “master of horror” reputation for helming such genre films like RE-ANIMATOR, FROM BEYOND and DOLLS, but I’ve found the latter period of his career to be utterly fascinating. In particular, his last 3 dramatic films, consisting of KING OF THE ANTS, EDMOND and STUCK, which make up their own weird little trilogy; STUCK being the most outrageous story, even though it is in fact based on a true story! A young hospice nurse (Mena Suvari) accidentally hits a down on his luck man with her car on the way home. The hit and run is horrifically bad and finds the guy embedded in her front windshield. She’s convinced he’s dead and drives home with him still plastered across the front of her car. But, once in her garage, it turns out he is, in fact, still alive, and she refuses to help him. What follows is some of the darkest comedy from the worst example of “having a bad day” syndrome ever committed to film. Worth a look.

TIME CRIMES

I’m always so fascinated by any horror or sci-fi movies that tackle the subject of time travel, I think because the complexities of maintaining the rules in a time travel story constantly keep my mind at play. TIME CRIMES is no different. A man inadvertently finds and walks into a time machine and travels back one hour into the past. In doing so, he uncovers a strange, scary bandaged man carrying scissors as weapons who may or may not be some kind of deranged killer. But every time he interferes, he tampers with the time line a bit more, and continues to travel one hour back in an attempt to fix things. And the more he does it, the more things aren’t exactly as they seem. TIME CRIMES is a mind-fuck of a movie, and an impressive feature film debut from writer/director Nacho Vigalondo. If you’re looking for something trippy and dense, this is the pick.

SHUDDER is available on a number of digital platforms. Visit the official website to see which one best suits you. Amazon Prime now offers a Shudder account for $4.99 a month, and they kick you off with a free month trial. If you love and have an insatiable appetite for horror, it’s worth investing in!