MUBI Update: 3 November 2011

6 0

This Monday was Halloween and we’ve put together a list of our community’s favorite scary movies playing on MUBI!  Here are some of the top picks, but we have many more in our library.

vampyr

Vampyr (Carl Th. Dreyer, Germany/France)

Our friends at The Criterion Collection say it best: With Vampyr, Danish filmmaker Carl Theodor Dreyer’s brilliance at achieving mesmerizing atmosphere and austere, profoundly unsettling imagery (The Passion of Joan of Arc and Day of Wrath) was for once applied to the horror genre. Yet the result—concerning an occult student assailed by various supernatural haunts and local evildoers in a village outside Paris—is nearly unclassifiable, a host of stunning camera and editing tricks and densely layered sounds creating a mood of dreamlike terror. With its roiling fogs, ominous scythes, and foreboding echoes, Vampyr is one of cinema’s great nightmares.

Available in: United Kingdom, Ireland

repulsion

Repulsion (Roman Polanski, UK)

“Roman Polanski followed up his international breakthrough Knife in the Water with this controversial, chilling tale of psychosis. Catherine Deneuve is Carol, a fragile, frigid young beauty cracking up in her London flat when left alone by her vacationing sister. She is soon haunted by specters real and imagined, and her insanity grows to a violent, hysterical pitch. Thanks to its disturbing detail and Polanski’s adeptness at turning claustrophobic space into an emotional minefield, Repulsion is a surreal, mind-bending odyssey into personal horror, and it remains one of cinema’s most shocking psychological thrillers.” —The Criterion Collection

Available in: France, Belgium, Netherlands, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Austria,  Germany, Switzerland, Luxemburg

suspiria

Suspiria (Dario Argento, Italy)

Widely considered to be the most shocking and hallucinatory horror movie in history – and described by director Dario Argento as “an escalating experimental nightmare”, Suspiria stars Jessica Harper as a young American ballet student who arrives at a prestigious European dance academy and is confronted by a series of bizarre and horrific deaths. Packed with vicious violence, ultra gory effects and dazzling cinematic set pieces, Suspiria is a gruesomely gothic masterpiece of the macabre.

Available in: Australia, New Zealand

the house of the devil

The House of the Devil (Ti West, USA)

“Ti West’s slow-burn horror movie is cast with numerous cult icons, past and present—from Cujo mom Dee Wallace to mumblecore muse Greta Gerwig. The film’s grainy textures make it seem like a found object from the locale and era (a slasher-flick version of an American college town circa the 1980s) that it re-creates with loving fidelity. But West isn’t having a nostalgic laugh, plopping period trappings onscreen for their remember-those-days recall value. He’s out for something more timeless: to induce paralyzing fear.” —Time Out New York

Available in: Denmark, Finland, Norway

lettherightonein

Let the Right One In (Tomas Alfredson, Sweden)

Swedish filmmaker Tomas Alfredson weaves friendship, rejection and loyalty into a disturbing and darkly atmospheric, yet poetic and unexpectedly tender tableau of adolescence. Let the Right One In is based on the best-selling novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist. Twelve year old Oskar is an outsider; struggling to fit in at school and left alone to fend for himself at home while his mother works nights. One evening he meets the mysterious Eli. As a sweet romance blossoms between them, Oskar learns to overcome his tormentors and discovers Eli’s dark secret and the connections to gruesome events occurring across town. Together they must help Eli be gone and live, or stay and die.

Available in: Italy, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland

survivalofthedead

Survival of the Dead (George A. Romero, USA)

“In a world where the dead rise to menace the living, rogue soldier Crocket (Alan Van Sprang) leads a band of military dropouts to refuge from the endless chaos. As they search for a place “where the shit won’t get you,” they meet banished patriarch Patrick O’Flynn (played with zeal by Kenneth Welsh), who promises a new Eden on the fishing and ranching outpost Plum Island. The men arrive, only to find themselves caught in an age-old battle between O’Flynn’s family and rival clan the Muldoons. It turns out that Patrick was expelled from the isle for believing that the only good zombie is a dead zombie, while the Muldoons think it’s wrong to dispatch afflicted loved ones, attempting to look after their undead kinfolk until a cure is found. But their bid for stability on the homestead has turned perverse: the undead are chained inside their homes, pretending to live normal lives – and the consequences are bloody. A desperate struggle for survival will determine whether the living and the dead can coexist.

Such apocalyptic themes have long haunted George A. Romero, much to the delight of his legions of fans. He now follows Crocket, a minor character from his last film, Diary of the Dead, to present a new doomsday scenario. In that film, Crocket made a brief appearance with his militia to appropriate the heroes ‘supplies at gunpoint. For Crocket’s subsequent journey, Romero does something that most horror directors have forgotten in recent years – he uses the genre to address societal issues. As a socially conscious filmmaker, Romero creates a world in which he can wrestle with the human condition while simultaneously finding new and creative ways to exterminate lurching flesh eaters.

George A. Romero’s Survival of the Dead is also a sharp subversion of the western. It can be seen as a reflection of William Wyler’s The Big Country, in which stubborn clans feuded as larger troubles raged. We needn’t look further than today’s news headlines to see examples of such fracture and to understand how it prevents more significant problems from being solved.

Fear not, Romero is still determined to give you gruesome and macabre thrills, but will also serve up a bloody little parable on the side. So who are you going to side with, the living or the dead?” —Toronto International Film Festival

Available in: Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden

Join the Conversation

Add a Comment

But don't be a jerk!

Please be kind, considerate, and constructive. Report inappropriate comments to us_playstation_blog_moderation@sony.com

6 Comments


    Loading More Comments

    Leave a Reply

    Please enter your date of birth.

    Date of birth fields