HULU
1) Hellraiser
“Oh, we have such sights to show you.” Thanks Pinhead.
Hey, I’ve got a sight, too: it’s called Hellraiser! I actually half-watched this again over the weekend while some friends and I played a spooky board game and, as much as I love it, Hellraiser is not a party horror movie. It’s a depraved, gory and insatiably, incredibly, just…stupid horny picture. It truly is the first BDSM-based horror film. No movie will ever make making out with a skinless ex more appealing, except for maybe the second Hellraiser.
Horror writer Clive Barker adapted his own short story for his first time behind the camera, and despite admitting that he was reading “How To” books on movie-making while, uh, making a movie, the dude really pulled through. The cinematography is pretty darn good, as it plays with lighting quite a bit to create dynamic moods throughout. The best part, of course, are the amazing effects, which I think still hold up pretty well. Christopher Young’s score, and a mixture of gothic horror, circus act, and torrid romance, give the film yet another signature feel, making it stand out among the 80’s slasher crowd.
2) Event Horizon
I’ll just say what we already know: Event Horizon is Paul W.S. Anderson’s best film. Honestly, it edges close to his only good movie, and that depends on if you enjoy the schlock that is the Mortal Kombat flick. The major difference between these two, however, is overall competency and seriousness, which Event Horizon has in spades. We get a gross-out sci-fi space horror film that never loses track of what it is and, more importantly, what it can do with its setting. We also get Dr. Alan Grant turned into an eyeless evil ghost man, which is a fantastic sentence I got to write.
In Event Horizon, we follow a crew dispatched to the titular ship, which has just resurfaced near Neptune after literally disappearing into thin air (er, space) many moons ago. Laurence Fishburne leads a ragtag rescue crew who, almost immediately, know something is off about the ship. What follows is almost two hours of advanced, almost X-rated gore effects, blood orgies, airlock shenanigans, and Sam Neill yelling “Miller!” over and over into the vacuum of space. It sounds ridiculous, and it is, but it’s also foreboding, takes enough time to develop the dread, and lets it breath for a hot second before moving on.
3) Evil Dead & Evil Dead II: Dead By Dawn
Yes, yes, I know: this is two movies. But honestly, if you watched Evil Dead and its sequel back-to-back, you’d have one coherent storyline. Seriously! Evil Dead II starts just as Evil Dead ends, so just trust me on this one, alright? I’ve been known to heap praise and talk about this series a lot on this site already, so I would hope I know what I’m talking about.
If you’re a horror fan, you already know what’s up here. Bruce Campbell stars as Ash, a poor twenty-something who has to battle Candarian demons and try to save his friends from possession, dismemberment or a combination of the two. This is one of the first “cabin in the woods” entries into the horror genre. While the first film hasn’t aged as gracefully as the second, both are important to the horror and horror-comedy genres. Evil Dead II, especially, is a massive cult hit, which I actually watched with Campbell recently in Milwaukee. Come for the serious demon slaying, stay for the silly chainsaw hand.