Two films enter, one film leave! Or both films leave! Together!

Dead Alive

If you weren’t familiar with Peter Jackson before that whole Lord of the Rings stuff, then check out this classic gem which clearly influenced The Mighty Hollywood Powers to put him in charge of a massive three-picture multi-million dollar franchise.

It starts off innocently enough; a trip to Strange Foreignland to bring back an evil rat monkey for a zoo in New Zealand, a comely Spanish girl falls in love with a fuddling mama’s boy because her crazy-eyed gypsy grandma says so, and OH MY GOD PEOPLE ARE EATING THEIR OWN EARS.

Better known as Braindead anywhere else but the ‘States, Dead Alive is easily one of the most goriest, silliest, straight-up insane comedy horrors to ever be created on a modest budget. There are things that simply defy conventional imagination, like fat-cheeked zombie babies riding around in split heads, kung-fu priests with no patience for leather-clad ruffians, and the importance of reading labels on suspicious jars of poison.

Jackson is someone who understands the importance of “the big finish,” and boy oh boy does he give it in spades here. There’s nothing wrong with your screen; that red-orange tinge you’re seeing is the mass amount of PEOPLE STUFF left over from the climax. Not since Evil Dead 2 has a movie had so many satisfyingly ridiculous blood & guts moments while still keeping its captive audience laughing and screaming at the same time.

Society

This movie is bad. It’s so bad that the ending is catapulted to levels of extreme awesomeness nary achieved in the history of terribly amazing horror films.

Director Brian Yuzna, based known from the Re-Animator films, has a habit of making half-assed political and social statements in his silly scare-fests, and in his first major feature he jumped straight to the high class. In this Beverly Hills community, Bill, a young guy in a well-to-do family who’s at the top of his game before he’s even hit college, is starting to suspect there’s something weird and sinister going on with his family. Why it took him nearly two decades to notice that sometimes his sister’s head is facing the wrong side or that there are people in the neighborhood who like to eat hair, we will never know.

While there’s a a simple set up for a weird secret society murder plot going on, and an uncomfortable romance between the star and his flexible wannabe-girlfriend, it’s told in such a campy way with some of the worst acting ever that it is incredibly entertaining to just make fun of. You’ll be MST3King your way up until the last 15 or so minutes when everything, to put it lightly, goes bat-shit crazy.

Like Dead Alive, Society is a movie you watch with a group of friends. It’s better with alcohol but, really, don’t overdo it because your stomach might not be able to handle itself during the shunting. And that’s all I’ll say on the subject. The subject of the shunting.

Sweet jeebus, the shunting!

Let me tell you something about horror films: I love them. And yet, they spurn me. There are so few actual good ones and so few of those are good in literal quality, not just “absolutely hilarious in its awfulness.” Heck, I even have trouble pronouncing “horror,” leading to very embarrassing situations. It would seem the stars defy me to love the genre, yet I do. And that love will be shared by telling you the best ones to enjoy this All Hollows’ Eve from your local Videology.

Drag Me To Hell

Sam Raimi is perhaps best known for being “that guy who made two really great and one really, really bad Spider-Man movie.” But true fans know him as the creator of the epic Evil Dead trilogy. You see, horror is easy to do on the cheap, something Raimi exploited for his first major film and then followed it up with two incredible sequels that defined slapstick horror. He’s a bit of a master at this craft. Remember the scene with Dr. Octopus’ arms coming to life in the hospital? That shit was freaky.

So thank gosh he came back to his roots for what is easily one of the best films of the year.

The story is about a young, doe-eyed woman trying to get a promotion at her bank job. She’s probably never even used a penny from the penny tray at the store. But she needs that promotion if she’s going to marry a talking computer boy. So when an old woman… okay, you know what? Skip to the end. The chick gets cursed by a gypsy and there is just no way around that. You are screwed. Thus she spends the movie trying to save her very soul while being haunted so as not to be taken to a fiery doom for all of eternity.

Going into Drag Me To Hell, you need to leave your disbelief at the door and just enjoy what’s happening. It’s absurd, it’s silly at times, once in a while you might even jump, but mostly it is just plain fun.

The Descent

The go-to film recommendation for people wanting a scary movie that’s not more than 15 years old, the Descent is genuinely jump-worthy and cringe-heavy even in the beginning.

A group of ladies get together for a cave expedition, because apparently they’re way more hardcore than they look. And in this cave… terrible things happen. That’s really all that needs to be said. Heck, even before the terrible things show up, it’s an unnerving film to watch in the dark from the claustrophobic sensations it dishes out.

It’s certainly not the most revolutionary film, especially in terms of plot details, but there’s a genuinely scary sense of realism despite some of the things that, on the surface, should be pretty damn silly. It’s also damn unrelenting and not in a Hostel sort of way.

Purists should do their best to make sure they watch the original ending over the US version. You won’t be disappointed.

May

This movie is not scary. But! It has great indie cred in its cast, a soundtrack by Kelley Deal of the Breeders, and some really adorable moments. And then it gets wacky and Halloween-appropriate. Poor, shy veterinarian May just wants to be loved but everyone else is so selfish and nasty. Time and again, she’s tricked into falling for a boy or (as the case may be) a girl, only to be jilted once more. All she has is her doll that she talks to and the screwed up memories of childhood. Golly, I hope nothing really terrible happens to tip her over the edge into a vixen-y rampage!

(Spoiler: that happens).