9 Hidden Horror Gems on Shudder
by Clayton Hayes, Staff Writer
1.The Power (dir. Corinna Faith, 2021)
Movies like The Power are exactly why I like taking a chance on the unknown. I added it to my watchlist when it popped up on Shudder in April and I don’t think I’d even seen the trailer when I decided to give it a watch. And I’m really fortunate I did! It’s a great atmospheric horror film that is all the more impressive because writer/director Faith seems relatively new to features.
Instilling a film with a genuine sense of tension can’t be easy these days, especially when most viewers are going to experience it via a streaming service at home. I’m not one to rant about the supposed purity of watching movies in theaters, but it’s undeniable that a film like this, which relies so much on visual atmosphere and sound design, must hit different to a theater audience.
(Tangent: I read Joan Hawkins’ book Cutting Edge recently, and imagine my surprise to see her addressing the same sort of arguments about home media vs. theaters way back in 2000. Film folks have been complaining about the “impurity” of the home viewing experience for decades, and Hawkins’ reasoning when dismissing that point of view remains compelling. Anyway, great book and I’d highly recommend.)
The tone of this film is handled so well, and the sound design was so spot-on, that I found myself feeling genuine tension! I sometimes worry that I’ve watched so much horror that it’s left me jaded and longer able to feel any sort of tension or fear anymore (or maybe it’s just from having been alive for the past several years). The Power was a wonderful breath of fresh air from a filmmaker whose career I’m really excited to follow.
2. Knife + Heart (dir. Yann Gonzalez, 2018)
I want movies to be weird. That’s when films are at their most interesting to me, when they’re coming from a cast and crew who are able to go all-in on something bizarre. It’s hard to fault filmmakers that swing for the fences, even when things don’t quite work out, because when they do work out you get a masterpiece.
Knife + Heart (though the original title, Un couteau dans le coeur, translates to “A knife in the heart,” which feels a lot more fun to me) is easily one of my top movies of the past 5-10 years and would likely make my list of all-time favorite horror films. Watching it for the first time, it was easy for me to feel like I had opened up some secret Eurotrash film vault that had been hidden away for forty years.
It’s an absolute treat to watch, lovingly filmed in 35mm and drenched in neon light and shadow. I found myself reminded of the opening scenes of Argento’s Suspiria, when the camera focuses on Jessica Harper’s face through a rain-clicked car window as it moves past bright, monochrome lights. Even the premise feels as though it could have been written alongside Mario Bava’s Blood and Black Lace: the cast and crew of a sleazy film production are being picked off, one by one, by a masked killer.
But, as a story told from a queer perspective about a cast of queer characters, it isn’t the sort of film that would have made it onto the screen in the 60s and 70s. It draws (very successfully) from horror/thrillers of that era, which often relied on queer-coded characters as a sort of scare tactic, and centers the narrative on this historically marginalized group. I think it’s brilliant and I’m so excited to see what Gonzalez does next.
3. Prevenge (dir. Alice Lowe, 2016)
Alice Lowe is an evil genius when it comes to filmmaking. At least that’s what I’m forced to conclude having seen this, her first feature. What kind of mind would write a movie about a pregnant woman whose unborn child is, apparently, commanding her to kill random strangers? What kind of person could successfully direct that movie as a comedy? And when will we get more?
I was aware of Lowe primarily from her role as Madeline Wool as Dr. Liz Asher in the 2004 series Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace and it took a long time for it to click that this was the same person (I blame the blonde wig). The promo image for the film and the brief synopsis Shudder provides didn’t do me any favors, either, giving the sense that Prevenge is silly or intentionally cheesy. Don’t get me wrong, it is funny. It’s just that Lowe isn’t afraid of going very, very dark with her humor and the inclination to laugh is often at odds with what’s up on the screen. It balances that humor, though, with a genuinely heart-wrenching story and (to me) pulls off the balancing act spectacularly well. I hadn’t anticipated that a movie with the premise “my fetus tells me to kill” would have a strong enough story to move me close to tears but, well, here we are.
It also doesn’t hurt that she’s working with a terrific cast: Gemma Whelan, Kate Dickie, Dan Renton Skinner, Tom Davis, Mike Wozniak, and Kayvan Novak to name a few. They’re stalwarts of British comedy and drama, and will be recognizable to fans of shows as varied as Game of Thrones, What We Do in the Shadows, and Taskmaster.
4. Def by Temptation (dir. James Bond III, 1990)
In putting this list together I’ve realized how much I’m drawn to oddities, films that just don’t seem to be like anything else out there. Case in point, this is the sole directing and writing credit for James Bond III, who also produced and plays one of the leads. Films like this, straight horror (by which I mean it’s not exploitation cinema) with an all-black cast and majority-black crew are why I’m eternally grateful for the existence of low-budget and independent production companies (then and now).
Its uniqueness is part of why it’s interesting, but most importantly it’s just a plain old great watch! The action mostly follows two childhood friends reuniting in New York after years apart, only to have a run-in with a succubus at a local bar. I don’t think it’s wrong for me to say it feels like a take on the vampire film, but it leans a bit harder into some more overt religious overtones. (I’ll admit I’m a real sucker for christianity in horror; I was raised religious, though, so maybe that isn’t a key to your heart like it is with me.) It also looks great, with some very stylish visuals shot by frequent Spike Lee collaborator Ernest Dickerson.
Incidentally, one of the most disappointing things about Def by Temptation might be how it gets marketed. Samuel L. Jackson happens to have a small role but, perhaps unsurprisingly, his is the first (and sometimes only) name you see. It’s a shame, because this movie absolutely deserves to be considered on its own merits.
5. Black Roses (dir. John Fasano, 1988)
To me, few things have cast as long a shadow on horror media in the U.S. than the Satanic Panic. 1978’s Halloween may have brought horror movies to the suburbs, but fears stoked by the Satanic Panic seemed much more tangible. And it didn’t take long for filmmakers to start reflecting them onscreen. The fears of suburban parents were transformed into movie villains, spawning a host of bizarre subgenres such as ouija board movies (1986’s Witchboard), Dungeons & Dragons but evil (1982’s Mazes and Monsters), cops vs. cults (1990’s The First Power), and, my personal favorite, rock and roll horror.
Black Roses is, to me, a perfect example of that last category. It’s set in small-town Canada, where all the teens are in love with a hard rock band called Black Roses. As luck would have it, Black Roses plan to launch their latest international tour by playing multiple nights at the local auditorium! But all is not what it seems; could Black Roses be servants of Satan? It’s up to one local teacher to find out, and save his students from the evils of rock and roll.
Thematically it’s a sort of mirror image of director John Fasano’s first feature, 1987’s Rock ’n’ Roll Nightmare, in which rock is firmly on the good side of good vs. evil. But Nightmare is (to put it mildly) absolutely bananas, and makes so little sense that the relatively conventional plotting of Black Roses can feel like a bit of a relief. I absolutely recommend watching both if you can, but Black Roses in particular is perfect for scratching that hard rock horror itch.
6. Demons 2 (dir. Lamberto Bava, 1986)
The first Demons, released one year earlier in 1985 and also on Shudder, is an absolute classic of Italian horror and I’ll be the first to admit that Demons 2 never quite manages to hit the same highs. It’s a really fun film, though, and takes some wild swings that make it worth watching in its own right. That’s not surprising when you look at who made the two films, they share more crew credits than they don’t. Perhaps most notably, both films were directed by Lamberto Bava (son of the legendary Mario Bava), produced by Dario Argento, and were written by the same team, which included Bava and Argento. The only real loss I see from Demons to Demons 2 is that of Claudio Simonetti, who scored many of Argento’s films as part of the band Goblin. Music for Demons 2 was done instead by Simon Boswell, who Argento worked with on his 1985 film Phenomena and who would continue to work with Bava.
I‘m trying to address what I see as the elephant in the room but I’ve gotten a bit off-track, and you may be wondering why you shouldn’t just go watch Demons (spoiler: you should). But the second film exists in that same kind of sequel-but-not-a-sequel limbo as Evil Dead 2, meaning you don’t need to have seen the first film to enjoy the second. And there’s plenty to enjoy: a film-within-a-film that is suspiciously reminiscent of the events of Demons, demons pushing their way across dimensions and spreading like angry zombies, and the feature film debut of the poster child for problematic faves, Asia Argento.
7. Humanoids from the Deep (dir. Barbara Peeters, 1980)
I’ll admit now that this one probably isn’t for everybody. Humanoids is utter trash, but the kind of trash that could only come from Roger Corman-era New World Pictures. It’s also one of a handful of Corman-produced horror films from that era that were directed by women, a part of the New World Pictures story that is worth talking about more. Criterion Channel even featured Humanoids alongside three other films for Halloween 2020: 1970’s The Student Nurses, written and directed by Stephanie Rothman; 1982’s The Slumber Party Massacre, written by Rita Mae Brown and directed by Amy Holden Jones; and 1984’s Suburbia, written and directed by the iconic Penelope Spheeris.
Lest you think I’m trying to tout Humanoids or Corman as pillars of feminism, this film had a notoriously troubled (and troubling) production. Corman was dissatisfied with Peeters’ final product, which he felt wasn’t exploitative enough to be financially successful, and went behind the backs of the cast and crew to film and insert several explicit rape scenes featuring the titular monsters. When they found out, Peeters and star Ann Turkel demanded (unsuccessfully) to have their names removed from the final release.
The end result is pretty uneven, which is maybe why Humanoids feels different than other intentionally schlocky Corman-produced efforts released around the same time, like 1978’s Piranha or 1981’s Galaxy of Terror. But that’s what makes it unique! There’s nothing else quite like it. And to get in a few final plugs: it’s set in a small, seaside town, which I always like in a horror film, and it has creatures designed and created by the legendary Rob Bottin. If you’re able to get past the more problematic elements, it’s worth watching.
8. The Cat o’ Nine Tails (dir. Dario Argento, 1971)
I had to include something by Argento on this list and, unfortunately (for me), Deep Red probably doesn’t count as a hidden gem. It is a masterpiece, though, and one of my favorite films of all time. But here ends my backdoor recommendation of an already very popular film!
Cat is Argento’s sophomore feature and was released just a year after his breakout success, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage. It didn’t live up to the expectations set by its predecessor, though, and Argento has gone on record saying it’s his least favorite of his own films. It’s also one of his least-watched, along with the much-harder-to-find Four Flies on Grey Velvet and The Five Days. But I think we’re all doing Cat a bit of a disservice. It’s a really interesting (if problematic) entry in Argento’s filmography that helps trace the path leading from the (relatively) grounded thriller that is Bird to the genre-defining heights he achieved with Deep Red and Suspiria.
That’s not to say it’s only of interest to an Argento completist. To me, it’s only because of the high marks set by his other films that Cat is looked down upon; I enjoy it much more than films made by Argento’s contemporaries around the same time. The Case of the Bloody Iris, What Have You Done to Solange?, The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave, none really approach the quality of Cat in my mind. Sergio Martino is the only director whose films even come close, but on personal taste I’m always going to pick Argento.
9. The Old Dark House (dir. James Whale, 1932)
If you never got into the classic Universal horror films of the 30s you may be unfamiliar with this film, now considered to be one of Whale’s best. Though made between monster classics Frankenstein and The Invisible Man, the novel it’s based on (Benighted by J. B. Priestly) is a social commentary on class structure in interwar Britain. It operates surprisingly well as a horror story in Whale’s hands, though, blending shadowy gothic visuals and tight, tense plotting with a genuinely fun (if broad) sense of humor.
The story will likely feel very familiar to a modern viewer: a group of friends, lost while driving at night in a storm, seek shelter at an isolated estate where they meet up with a few more stranded travelers. The family who dwell in the decrepit manor seem pretty odd at first but, as the night wears on, their eccentricity turns to something darker.
It’s a story that has been reused and reinterpreted time and time again over the last century, and feels especially relevant to transgressive 70s horror like The Rocky Horror Picture Show, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and The Hills Have Eyes. The enduring appeal of the story, the fantastically talented cast, and the amazing cinematography and set design (let’s not forget that Whale directed Frankenstein, after all) make this a really fun watch even if older films aren’t usually your thing.
Besides, Whale is a filmmaker you should not skip. He’s an icon of early Hollywood, a titan of horror cinema, and was openly gay thoughout his career. The man’s a legend, and deservedly so.