The Halloween Three - Part II. A seasonal selection of scary celluloid from a cabal of Cult Manchester contributors.
Halloween is looming - and even if you don’t like sweets, fright masks or kids with fright masks asking for sweets… we all love a horror film. In part one of our trilogy of seasonal film recommendations, Andy Murray pointed us towards five films that are just downright weird.
Next up, guest Cult Manchester contributor Brontë Schiltz - from the Manchester Centre for Gothic Studies - picks five modern, international horror films.
Horror cinema is - like most film genres - dominated by American offerings, with some, notable contributions (though perhaps more so on television) from Britain. But horror has always owed a debt to international creatives, from the terrifying early vampiric turns by German Max Schreck in Nosferatu (1922) and Hungarian Bela Lugosi in Dracula (1931), to the Italian giallo of the 1960s-70s, to the more recent stomach-turning contributions of New French Extremity - and that’s just Europe. Here are five masterful international horror films from the last 25 years.
Pontypool (Bruce McDonald, 2008, Canada).
In Pontypool, McDonald takes what might have been a cheap (in both senses of the word) premise - a zombie outbreak narrated through small town residents calling in to their local radio station - and adds a thrilling twist: the infection is spread not by physical contact, but by language. This increasingly claustrophobic film deftly explores divisions between English- and French-speaking Canadians, the power of both suggestion and realisation, and the capacity of speech to threaten, marginalise and seduce.
Pulse (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2001, Japan).
In an incredibly prescient exploration of the potential of internet connectivity to atomise its users, this Japanese techno-horror more than earns its place alongside forerunners like Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989) and Ringu (1998). A mystery without closure, the film is a study in the quiet desperation of life under high-tech capitalism - and contains arguably some of the most unsettling images ever put to film.
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (Ana Lily Amirpour, 2017, Iran).
Billed as 'The first Iranian Vampire Western', Amirpour’s feature debut is anything but generic. Announcing its provocations in its title, it proceeds to probe the gender politics of Iran’s underbelly both unexpectedly and horrifyingly. Shot in striking black and white, the film’s fictional setting of Bad City makes a virtue of the small cast as Amirpour reflects the loneliness of all her characters in her spare cinematography.
Let The Right One In (Tomas Alfredson, 2008, Sweden).
If you have read John Ajvide Lindqvist’s 2004 novel of the same name but have not seen Alfredson’s film, you would be forgiven for thinking that the book is unadaptable. Its graphic violence, sexual taboos (to put it mildly) and emotional weight, all centred on two children, pose what might seem an insurmountable challenge to filmmakers. But Alfredson meets this quandary head on, resulting in a film that is as surprisingly touching and beautiful as it is brutal and bleak.
Lake Mungo (Joel Anderson, 2008, Australia).
Blending elements of found footage and documentary, the fact that this remains Anderson’s only film adds to the blurring of the boundaries between fiction and reality that haunts the investigation of 16-year-old Alice Palmer’s drowning and its impact on her parents and brother. From its homage to the great David Lynch (the surname of the dead teenage girl at the heart of the narrative is no coincidence) to its evocative depiction of the terrifying enormity of the Australian landscape, this deeply unnerving and devastating film will stay with you long after its brief runtime.
Find out more about Brontë and her work here.
Tomorrow, our trilogy reaches its end as writer, former Fall drummer and all-round nice guy Paul Hanley turns nasty with his selection of films that people might not think of as horror movies.
