Streaming Revenge II – 13 Horror Movies For Halloween

It’s finally October: the season of cooler weather, shorter days, and scary movies.

Speaking of scary movies, I had so much fun with last year’s Streaming Revenge: The Top 10 Horror Movies I Wasn’t Allowed to Watch as a Kid that I decided to do it again.

But there was a complication. When you watch 120 horror movies from the 1960s and 70s – as I did last year – there’s not a lot left to choose from. So this year I removed the time fences and watched anything I hadn’t seen before, or hadn’t seen in so long I couldn’t remember much about it.

Out of another long list of movies, I eliminated the ones that weren’t good enough to recommend, the newer ones that were too obvious (though I will say I loved Abigail), and the ones that are too hard to find. From that list I picked my 13 favorites.

All of these can be found on either Tubi (free with ads) or Amazon Prime (for rent). Movies come and go on streaming services all the time. JustWatch.com is a reliable and frequently updated source for what can be found where.

And now here are my 13 favorite horror movies of the past year.

photo by John Beckett — Part of my movie collection. I’ll be adding at least one of these movies to the shelf… maybe more.

13. Count Dracula (1970)

Director Jesús Franco is best known for barely-watchable exploitation movies. Count Dracula is proof that with enough time, money, and acting talent, Franco could make very good movies.

Count Dracula was filmed in Spain and stars Christopher Lee as the Count. By this time Lee had played Dracula in three Hammer films and would go on to do four more, but he was already getting tired of the questionable scripts that gave him very few lines. He wanted to play Dracula as Bram Stoker had written him. This was his opportunity.

This is one of the most faithful adaptations of the novel ever made. Until Bram Stoker’s Dracula in 1992, it was the only version that showed the Count transforming from old in Transylvania to young in England.

Unfortunately, while Count Dracula had a bigger budget than many of Franco’s films, it still didn’t have a lot. Despite the excellent performance by Christopher Lee, it can’t compare to the “Big Four” Dracula films. But if you’re a fan of classic vampire movies, it’s definitely worth watching.

12. The Iron Rose (1973)

Jean Rollin is another director who made a lot of movies of questionable quality. The Iron Rose is one of his best. It’s the story of a young man and a young woman who meet at a wedding. They leave together and eventually begin to explore a large cemetery (it was filmed in Cimetière de La Madeleine d’Amiens in France). And then they get lost, and it gets dark, and they begin to change.

This movie is slow, and it’s made even slower by the need to read subtitles (it’s in French). But it’s quite interesting, and it’s a good study of what can happen to people when they’re placed in stressful situations.

Are the supernatural elements real, or are they the product of distressed minds? Perhaps it’s both – the movie leaves it to the viewer’s imagination.

11. The Devil’s Nightmare (1971)

This is another French movie. A busload of tourists has to make an unplanned stop at the castle of a family where the first-born daughter is cursed to be a succubus. Each of the guests embody one of the Seven Deadly Sins, and one by one, they fall to the succubus. Will any of them survive?

This isn’t the most original movie on this list, but I found it quite entertaining.

10. A Dark Song (2016)

A woman hires an occultist to curse the people who kidnapped and murdered her son. She rents a house in the countryside – most of the movie is just the woman and the magician doing intense ritual preparation. They attempt the Abramelin Rite, a piece of ceremonial magic that dates back at least to the early 1600s and was part of Aleister Crowley’s practice.

I’m not a ceremonial magician – I can’t vouch for its authenticity. But it looks and sounds authentic, and I see a lot of people on the internet who say it’s close even though it’s not complete.

I was somewhat disappointed with this movie until the ending, which absolutely floored me. If you’re interested in this sort of magic, there’s nothing like it.

9. They Have Changed Their Face (1971)

This is one of the more unusual vampire movies I’ve seen. It’s in Italian and it’s directed by Corrado Farina, who also directed Baba Yaga (1973) which was #4 on last year’s Streaming Revenge list. It stars Adolfo Celi, best known for playing the Bond villain Emil Largo in Thunderball (1965).

Ever since Dr. Polidori wrote The Vampyre in the same storytelling contest that produced Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, vampires have been seen as elite nobility sucking the life out of ordinary people. They Have Changed Their Face (original Italian title Hanno cambiato faccia) updates that for the 1970s. Celi’s Giovanni Nosferatu lives in a remote castle, but instead of being a count or a prince, he’s the CEO of a corporation that seeks to control the world.

Comparisons to Elon Musk are inevitable. How accurate those comparisons are remains to be seen.

8. Bliss (2019)

When you’ve seen all the good movies that fit your preferences, you have a choice. Either you keep digging deeper into that same genre and are constantly reminded that some movies are obscure for a very good reason, or you try something different and hope you like it.

Bliss is the story of a painter whose creativity has dried up, leaving her on the verge of losing her livelihood. Out of desperation and frustration she turns to some unusual drugs. The drugs bring her brilliant inspiration, but with some wild side effects… and with a thirst for blood.

This is not a movie I expected to like – it’s full of blood and gore. But as a writer, I related strongly to the feeling of desperation that can set in when the words just won’t come (which is one of the reasons I’ve never seriously considered quitting my day job). Beyond that, something about it grabbed me. It’s not a great story, but the visuals and the themes just work.

And it was far better than another badly-written B-movie from the 1970s.

7. I Like Bats (1985)

And then there are the ones that look like yet another badly-written B-movie but when you watch them, they turn out to be pretty good.

I Like Bats was made in Poland during the last years of domination by the Soviet Union. It’s not political, but it’s also not the kind of movie that typically gets made in an authoritarian state. It’s a look at a vampire who wants to be cured, but who mainly wants to be loved.

Some reviewers call this a comedy – I think that’s a mischaracterization, even though it plays rather loosely with vampire lore, and the ending is more cute than scary.

If you’re looking for a modern-ish vampire movie that’s different, give it a try.

6. Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)

This movie is based on the 1967 novel of the same name by Joan Lindsay. It’s set in a girls’ boarding school in Australia in 1900, where most – but not all – of the students go on a Valentine’s Day picnic to Hanging Rock.

And then some of the students disappear.

[To be clear – because I wasn’t clear when I first heard about Picnic at Hanging Rock – Hanging Rock is a real place, but the novel and the movie are entirely fictional.]

What happened? Who’s to blame? What happens to the survivors? What happens to those who look for the girls? What happens to the school when parents start pulling their kids out because they fear something similar may happen to them?

There are hints that something supernatural is at work, but no conclusive evidence, even by horror movie standards. Mainly this is a very intense psychological drama.

The movie was a critical success and it did very well at the box office. It was voted the best Australian film of all time in a 1996 poll of filmmakers and critics.

5. Cat People (1942)

I hate to compare an original to a remake, but it’s hard not to do that in this case. I’ve seen the 1982 remake with Nastassja Kinski several times. This was the first time I watched the 1942 original with Simone Simon. As you would expect, the original is missing the sex and violence of the post-Hays Code remake.

But there’s something to be said for subtlety.

An immigrant from Serbia fears she will turn into a panther if she becomes intimately involved. But she falls in love with a man, who is attracted to her and also to a co-worker. Things get intense. Does she really turn into a panther?

There’s something to be said for subtlety.

Cat People did well enough it got a sequel: The Curse of the Cat People in 1944. I have not seen it, but Wikipedia says it’s “only tangentially related to its predecessor” despite having several of the same characters and actors.

4. Lair of the White Worm (1988)

This film is loosely based on the Bram Stoker novel of the same name first published in 1911. It’s directed by Ken Russell, who is best known for The Devils (1971, which I want to see but can’t find anywhere), Altered States (1980), and Gothic (1986, which I did see this year but didn’t like well enough to put on this list).

The story is based on the legend of the Lambton Worm, and tacks on Amanda Donohoe as a priestess of a pre-Roman snake cult who’s angry that Christians built a convent on the site of her former temple. And she’s eager to feed sacrifices to her God.

This is not a film to be studied in depth. This is a movie to be enjoyed, ideally with a glass of wine or a not-so-wee dram of Scotch.

3. Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970)

Have you seen the memes with a young girl about to be burned at the stake and she’s sticking her tongue out at her inquisitors? This movie is where that picture comes from.

Valerie and Her Week of Wonders was made in Czechoslovakia and is based on the 1935 Czech novel by Vítězslav Nezval, which I have but haven’t read yet. Valerie has her first period and sets out on a week of discovery. What happened to her mother’s earrings? Why is everyone trying to control her and her sexuality? And who is her father?

There are a few brief scenes of underage nudity, but this is not an exploitation film. This a beautiful, fascinating, and very surrealist film. Do not expect a straightforward story. Do expect an enjoyable experience.

2. Kiss of the Damned (2012)

Joséphine de La Baume plays Djuna, a vampire who falls in love/lust with a writer she meets at a video store. Despite her best intentions, she turns him. They begin a new life together until Mimi (played by Roxane Mesquida) shows up. Mimi is Djuna’s wild child vampire sister who likes to stir things up. Things get complicated.

Kiss of the Damned was written and directed by Xan Cassavetes. If you’re of a certain age, you may remember her father John Cassavetes, an actor and director best known for playing Mia Farrow’s husband in Rosemary’s Baby.

This is one of the better modern vampire movies I’ve seen. In addition to being entertaining it’s a commentary on addiction, lust, and life in general… and on the importance of being respectful to the domestic staff.

1. Only Lovers Left Alive (2013)

And speaking of modern vampire movies, how did I go 11 years without seeing Only Lovers Left Alive?

When I was young, one of the big attractions of vampirism was immortality. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to realize that living forever (or at least, living forever without breaks) would be as much of a curse as a blessing.

Tom Hiddleston plays Adam, a vampire who’s getting tired of living. Tilda Swinton plays Eve, his fellow vampire and sometimes-lover who’s concerned about his well-being (writer and director Jim Jarmusch insists the names aren’t biblical and he didn’t make the connection until after filming had started). As in Kiss of the Damned, there’s a wild child vampire sister who makes things complicated.

My notes from my first watching say “slow but brilliant.” I understand why it isn’t better known, and why it took me so long to finally watch it.

But it’s visually amazing and emotionally deep. I rented it on Amazon – I’m going to have to buy it on Blu-ray so I can watch it semi-regularly in the future.