Read whatever social analysis into it that you like, but there’s no question that horror is a more popular entertainment genre with every passing year. Once largely relegated to drive-ins, grindhouses, and late-night TV, movies in that category are now a year-round mainstream staple, particularly valued by the industry because they are almost always profitable yet cost relatively little to produce. (In contrast to, say, the risky high expense of large-scale, FX-laden comic book action spectacles.) Things that used to be controversial, such as the very existence of slasher flicks, the misogyny of so much horror violence, and bad-taste exploitations of sacred cows like Santa Claus—you could program an entire retrospective of killer Santa movies now—no longer raise an eyebrow.
A perfect illustration of that normalizing is the Terrifier series, which hinges entirely on the kind of extreme gore that once might have ignited storms of protest, and/or got relegated to the dreggiest ultra-low-budget, near-amateur titles aimed strictly at “hardcore” fans. These movies are well-made, though very cheap by Hollywood standards, and in their way represent a triumph of independence fully outside “the system”: Following a couple viral shorts introducing the character of bloodthirsty Art the Clown, the crowdfunded 2016 first feature generated enough of a cult following to earn about ten times its reported cost of under $50,000; the 2022 sequel, produced for about a quarter mil, grossed about seventy times that. Now there is Terrifier 3, about whom the most shocking aspect to many will be that it is indeed another killer Santa movie—evil-Pierrot-looking Art returns to terrorize Miles County during Xmastime—yet is getting released before Halloween, just cuz.
Once again written and directed by Damien Leone (who is also a special makeup FX expert, natch), 3 has mute unstoppable-killing-machine Art (David Howard Thornton) and victim-turned-demon-possessed-henchwoman Vicky (Samantha Scaffidi) coming back to life, or undeath, or whatever, five years after the events of 2. High on their Yuletide wish list are the lives of that last film’s surviving siblings Sienna (Lauren LaVera) and Jonathan (Elliot Fulham), both of whom are still barely holding it together after witnessing the gruesome deaths of their immediate family last time. They plan to spend the holiday with other relatives, though needless to say that only leads catastrophic harm straight to a new suburban doorstep.
Before that inevitability, however, Art and Vicky find time to wreak lethal havoc on various unlucky chance acquaintances including Jonathan’s college classmates, several bar patrons, two building inspectors, and an entire queue of moms & tots waiting for a department store Santa. Some of those roles are played by a roster of familiar guest-star faces, including Clint Howard, Daniel Roebuck, Jason Patric, original gore effects wizard Tom Savini, and wrestler Chris Jericho.
Though the main actors take it seriously enough, these movies occupy an odd if now familiar tonal intersection where the extreme gore and prolonged sadism is made kinda-sorta “okay” by taking place in a somewhat cartoonish movie universe of shallow archetypes, minimal narrative, and flexible logic—it’s a “yuk” experience in the sense of being both deliberately repulsive and implicitly a joke. Even after three features, the backstory/mythology around Art & Co. is still close to nonexistent. Leone is no inept bonehead with a camera and a barrel of stage blood; the first Terrifier was expertly made for what it was, and each successive one is more elaborate and polished. But their failure of imagination outside splitting skulls, eviscerating midsections et al. (and the grossouts get nastily sexualized a couple times here) becomes depressing after a while, even if you’ve got a strong stomach.
It’s not just that the script matters so little, it’s that nothing does—plot, character, sense, et al. are just factors that can always be arbitrarily sacrificed to allow for another viscera-clogged bloodbath. Terrifier 3 is a bit shorter than the seriously overlong (at 138 minutes) 2, yet it also overstays its welcome, leaving you exhausted by so much empty excess. I’ve already seen many worse movies this year, but this one may take the prize for leaving one with a sense of existential futility. Of course, that’s just me—the target audience will no doubt lap up every limb-severing moment. Terrifier 3 opens in theaters nationwide this Fri/11.
More to my taste were a couple new streaming releases that lean towards the suggestive, atmospheric end of horror cinema. Gabriel Bienczycki and Richard Karpala’s Falling Stars is one of those movies that arrests attention because it treats fantastical themes in such disconcertingly matter-of-fact, everyday fashion. Three brothers (Shaun Duke Jr., Andrew Gabriel, Rene Leech) get it into their heads that they want to see a witch—and they know someone (Greg Poppa) who knows where one is buried. After a long drive in the desert (the film was shot around Joshua Tree), the quartet duly dig up the skeleton of that creature. But an accident desecrates the grave, bringing almost immediate, dire consequences.
Corny as that may sound, the result is never laughable or formulaic—the quiet urgency of the direction, Karpala’s script, and the performances (including one long, unsettling scene for Diane Worman as the leads’ mother) are gripping. There is almost no need for any special effects (let alone gore) here, while there’s an intriguing originality in the offhand way we gradually glean that these people are already accustomed to living in a world of occult threats and “sacrifices,” due to catastrophic developments never fully spelled out. While the fadeout may leave more questions dangling than some viewers will like, this is the rare genre film whose elegantly spare story and aesthetic make a real virtue of its budgetary limitations. XYZ Films is releasing to VOD platforms Fri/11.
In a similar vein of eerily low-key folk horror is the English Daddy’s Head from writer-director Benjamin Barstool. When architect James (Charles Aitkin) dies, his surviving family—Isaac (Rupert Turnbull), an only child by a first marriage, and much-younger second wife Laura (Julia Brown)—are bereft. The situation is all the worse because they have no one else, yet don’t like each other. Tween James is withdrawn and resentful; Laura, who never wanted children, has her own mental health and substance abuse issues. Left alone in a glass-and-steel modernist box the late man built as his home in a remote area, they have as intermediaries only occasional visits from a loyal family friend (Nathaniel Martello-White) and a court-appointed child services worker (Mary Woodvine).
Soon, however, it becomes apparent they have additional company: A hostile presence in the surrounding woods, one that feeds on grief and discord. Particularly after a bizarre structure is found hidden in that forest, Isaac assumes this entity is his father, somehow come back from the dead. But “it” may well be something much worse—though the film isn’t interested in explaining just what. Precise and confident in execution, if ambiguous in content, Daddy’s Head is a strikingly atmospheric cipher. It premieres on streaming platform Shudder Fri/11.
Next week brings another wide-release horror sequel, Smile 2—the sleeper-hit 2022 original was certainly good enough to warrant a followup, though this one looks a bit overblown and overlong. (I am unenthused about horror trending the way of comic-book movies, i.e. well past the two-hour mark.) Hot on the heels of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’s 50th anniversary re-release, there will be similar honors for the now 20-year-old initial chapter of the Saw franchise via single-date showings October 20 and 23.
Around the Bay Area, there are more special screenings of old horror favorites than we can possibly list here. Suffice it to say, if you’ve been jonesing to see Night of the Living Dead, The Exorcist, Halloween, Scream, Hocus Pocus or Rocky Horror yet again, a local venue is very likely to accommodate you before month’s end. But we’re happy to note a few more less predictable revivals on the calendar. On Tue/15 the Balboa offers Val Lewton’s original 1942 Cat People; a few blocks away, the 4 Star ripostes with Grace Jones as fanged 1986 Vamp (10/20) and It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (10/26-27); the Vogue coughs up Rob Zombie’s directorial debut House of 1000 Corpses (10/12-13), Hitchcock’s The Birds (10/22), Lucio Fulci’s 1981 gate-of-hell opus The Beyond (10/23-24) and Peter Jackson’s pre-Tolkien 1992 comedic splatfest Dead Alive (10/25-26).
In the Mission District, the Alamo Drafthouse has your Halloween needs covered with Klaus Kinski as Nosferatu the Vampyre (Sat/12); Drew Barrymore in rare possessed-sexpot form as a 1992 Doppelganger (10/16); 1979’s The Brood, arguably the most perverse David Cronenberg movie ever, which is really saying something (10/28); 1964’s The Mask of the Red Death, Roger Corman’s best Poe adaptation (10/29); and bizarre Romania-shot 1994 fantasy Dark Angel: The Ascent, from prolific Full Moon Entertainment.
Not to be outfoxed, the Roxie is offering an October 20 double dose of vintage Italian horrors, Blood and Black Lace and The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave; from the same late ’60s-early ’70s baroque Eurotrash era, lipstick-lesbian-vampire classic Daughters of Darkness (10/21); 1932 Bela Lugosi chiller White Zombie (Oct. 23); and another pre-Code shocker, Todd Browning’s Freaks (10/29). On Halloween itself the theater will host a multimedia blowout of live music and clip collage in “The Bad Sleepbomb Trip Experience.”
Similarly over the in the East Bay, BAMPFA will show 1920 German Expressionist milestone The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari with live accompaniment by Aidan Latham for free on the night of October 18. New Parkway carves out another singular experience on October 20 with a screening of F.W. Murnau’s original silent Nosferatu as accompanied by a special mix of Radiohead tracks. That Oakland venue also has on tap James Whale’s delirious 1935 The Bride of Frankenstein (Sat/12), Nicolas Cage at his battiest in Vampire’s Kiss (10/17), Wiccan grrl-power fave The Craft (10/19), indescribable recent toddler nightmare Skinamarink (10/30) and 1977 Japanese bounce-house-of-horrors Hausu (10/31).
Of course for some, one horror movie at a sitting is not enough—they must gorge. Alas, unless you already have a ticket, there’s no table setting for you at the annual Dismember the Alamo (whose individual exploitation titles are a mystery until showtime) on October 19; it’s already sold out. But you can get your marathon genre fix the same date at the Balboa, where a Supernatural Film Festival (more info here) offers an all-day menu of 1960s programmers, 1970s TV movies, Japanese monster cinema and more.
On Oct. 25, a “B-Movies With A-Ideas” (more info here) triple at that same theater features Ti West’s homage horrors X and Pearl, plus Christina Hornisher’s recently excavated 1973 obscurity Hollywood 90028. The latter is not just a rare commercial film of its era directed by a woman, but also an interesting and intelligent curiosity on the border between exploitation and arthouse, focusing on a homicidal photographer (Christopher Augustine) whose psychosis seems an amplification of the soulless So. Cal. culture around him. Female lead Jeannette Dilger will be present for a post-screening Q&A.
The Roxie serves up its own “Graveyard Shift” (more info here) from dusk Fri/11 to dawn Sat/12, encompassing surreal Donnie Darko, antic Spider Baby, campy Andy Warhol’s Dracula, Cronenberg’s Rabid, and “more surprises to be announced.” On Oct. 17 you can get a similar experience in miniature with Spookfest 2024 (more info here)—a two-hour program of thirteen diverse horror and horror-adjacent shorts. Costumes are encouraged and “spooky prizes” promised.
