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witchunic @witchunic.moe · 7h

👻 SHUDDER Blues 🎃 @frownt.bsky.social · 51m

Didn't even know there was a novelization of it! Wow! Seems like it was written by a guy who specialized in novelizations. Not really a known guy to me but they would sometimes bring in actual heavy hitters to do novelizations.

The cover of the novelization of Dark City.

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👻 SHUDDER Blues 🎃 @frownt.bsky.social · 12h

35. Isle of the Dead (1945) - Opens with a Greek general played by Boris Karloff pressuring a disgraced subordinate into suicide, turns into a haunted journey with an American by his side to the Isle of the Dead. When a plague breaks, Boris quarantines everyone there. Murder ensues. Slow but creepy.

Of course there are spooky babes on the Isle of the Dead.

Some of them return from the dead and stab people with a trident.

The journey to the isle in the movie's opening.

Arriving at the island itself based on an 1880 painting from Swiss artist Arnold Bocklin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isle_of_the_Dead_(painting)

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👻 SHUDDER Blues 🎃 @frownt.bsky.social · 12h

34. Night of the Living Dead (1990) - A faithful remake of Romero's Night with an updated script and directed by Savini. The acting is much better, the zombie FX are much better, and the extended ending is great. I like Savini's changes but it does lose a haunting quality with the modern upgrade.

Patricia Tallman as Barbara is the biggest upgrade in quality but Tony Todd as Ben is predictably great. Also Tom Towles as the dumbass piece of shit Harry Cooper.

Easily the best looking zombies in the series up to this point.

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👻 SHUDDER Blues 🎃 @frownt.bsky.social · 8h

I bet there was a version that could have been cut together where it wasn't so obvious, or at least a draft of the screenplay where it wasn't, but they decided they wanted to market it on seeing Pacino as the devil. Probably the right choice from a box office standpoint.

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👻 SHUDDER Blues 🎃 @frownt.bsky.social · 1d

33. Bug (2006) - A fleabag motel drenched in blacklight is the setting for a romance, paranoia, horror hybrid from William Friedkin. Michael Shannon and Ashley Judd are two troubled souls who meet, fall in love, and proceed to tear their bodies apart searching for bugs. Underrated and darkly funny.

The wounds and horror increase as the movie goes on.

Believe it or not, he's just getting started with the bug hunt.

Harry Connick Jr shows up to menace Ashley Judd's character and challenge Michael Shannon's weirdness.

Almost the entire movie takes place in a one room in this motel.

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👻 SHUDDER Blues 🎃 @frownt.bsky.social · 1d

32. The Devil's Advocate (1997) - High budget satanic thriller written by Tony Gilroy. Defense lawyer Keanu Reeves, doing his best accent work since Dracula, is hired by a NYC firm run by Al Pacino (satan) to help everyone from voodoo priests to Coach as Donald Trump get away with evil. Fun stuff.

Pacino maintains a harem of demon babes.

Pacino's subtle performance is one of the big draws here.

Like AHM just a simple country lawyer, dude.

The demons torment Charlize Theron (Keanu's wife) trying to drive her crazy, mostly by criticizing her decorating decisions.

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👻 SHUDDER Blues 🎃 @frownt.bsky.social · 9h

So yes, it's intimidating and protects their identities from reprisal, but it also endangers them because all empathy will be directed at their victims.

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👻 SHUDDER Blues 🎃 @frownt.bsky.social · 9h

The thing about wearing a mask and brutalizing people is that the mask obviates the observer's human instinct for empathy. They are dehumanizing themselves into devices of cruelty. Automatons of oppression. And there's a reason nobody gives a shit when 100 storm troopers get lasered in star wars.

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👻 SHUDDER Blues 🎃 @frownt.bsky.social · 11h

38. Shrunken Heads (1994) - Feels like Peewee was allowed to be the Cryptkeeper. Set in either 1950 or 1994, three troublemaking kids are executed by a mob hit and their heads are reanimated by their friendly neighborhood Haitian voodoo priest to seek revenge. But it's weirder than that sounds.

These three decide to go up against the mob and lose, but then in the end they win... I guess???? They're still dead.

Here are the three kids coming back as shrunken heads that can fly, one has vampire fangs, the other electrocutes people, and the third one just holds a switchblade in his mouth and cuts throats. This is an R-rated movie BTW.

The person hold the gun is Meg Foster who they dressed like a man and had wear brown contacts when she's famous for having bright blue eyes.

Mr. Sumatra the voodoo priest constantly talks about being in the Tonton Macoute and living in a condominium.

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👻 SHUDDER Blues 🎃 @frownt.bsky.social · 11h

The fact that the Matrix seems like somebody watched this and decided to make an action scifi version of it AND THEN USED THE SETS FROM DARK CITY IN THEIR MOVIE is wild. And don't get me wrong, I like the Matrix, but this is a better movie.

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👻 SHUDDER Blues 🎃 @frownt.bsky.social · 12h

37. November (2017) - Estonian folk horror fable with the most astonishing cold open I've ever seen. It portrays pagan magic as a part of daily life while bland Christian ritual struggles to take hold. Bizarre, haunting, hilarious. Shot in places with infrared cameras to great otherworldly effect.

These two are fighting for the love of a dumbass named Hans.

This movie's satanic animal stuff is like the Harlem Globetrotters to the VVitch's Washington Generals. It's Black Phillip Vs the Plague Pig, goats, wolves, snowmen, ghost parades, giant chickens, and multiple Kratts. Also Satan appears repeatedly as a sort of bloody mouthed screaming wildman Santa.

You get a lot more of this sort of weirdness than you'd think. It's a possessed crude machine called a Kratt where you get sell your soul to the devil and he brings one to life and they are such a topic of folklore in Estonia that they call an AI a Kratt for all that means. Even their AI legislation is the Kratt law. Which is badass.

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👻 SHUDDER Blues 🎃 @frownt.bsky.social · 12h

36. Dark City (1998) - This noir horror scifi mystery is one of my favorites! Arrow just released a 4K so I figured it was time for a rewatch. The breakneck pacing of the first 20 minutes or so are great. Incredible cast, most of the FX hold up, insane sets, and I love a big swing with zero irony.

An automat and Jennifer Connelly in the same frame? Be still my heart!

The strangers are the ultimate goths and we love them.

In a stacked cast somehow Richard O'Brien is the most amazing casting of all.

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👻 SHUDDER Blues 🎃 @frownt.bsky.social · 12h

35. Isle of the Dead (1945) - Opens with a Greek general played by Boris Karloff pressuring a disgraced subordinate into suicide, turns into a haunted journey with an American by his side to the Isle of the Dead. When a plague breaks, Boris quarantines everyone there. Murder ensues. Slow but creepy.

1 1 2

👻 SHUDDER Blues 🎃 @frownt.bsky.social · 12h

34. Night of the Living Dead (1990) - A faithful remake of Romero's Night with an updated script and directed by Savini. The acting is much better, the zombie FX are much better, and the extended ending is great. I like Savini's changes but it does lose a haunting quality with the modern upgrade.

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👻 SHUDDER Blues 🎃 @frownt.bsky.social · 22h

Good monster in this one too! Original!

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👻 SHUDDER Blues 🎃 @frownt.bsky.social · 1d

31. Over the Garden Wall (2014) - A nice cozy chaser to wash away the acrid flavor of Salo. A perfect fall fairytale with stakes more profound and monsters more terrifying than most horror movies on this list. I loved it. Funny, endearing, spooky, and I get why some people make it a yearly watch.

Just one of several horrifying monsters.

Greg and his name-changing frog are the MVPs of the story.

If you don't love it by the time episode two with the pumpkin town rolls around then just give up on the series because you are immune to halloween magic.

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👻 SHUDDER Blues 🎃 @frownt.bsky.social · 1d

30. Salo (1975) - Pasolini's infamously disgusting and brutal critique of fascism seems, uh, somehow relevant as if we are ruled by a cabal of degenerate, violent freaks who prey on children. It's horrific and, yes, gross, and thank goodness I live in America where such a thing could never happen.

Nothing untoward happening here, I promise!

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👻 SHUDDER Blues 🎃 @frownt.bsky.social · 1d

29. Au secours! (1924) - A horror comedy short from Abel Gance featuring a wager: stay in a haunted house for an hour. Sound easy? The hero endures tigers, giant skeletons, alligators, gun slingers, and an executioner, but (spoilers) finally cracks when his wife is threatened over the phone.

Lots of 1924 special effects in this one.

Probably could have skipped all the skeletons and tigers if the plan all along was to just threaten the wife and call him.

The guy (revealed to be a mask) who threatens the wife.

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👻 SHUDDER Blues 🎃 @frownt.bsky.social · 2d

25. What Lies Beneath (2000) - Pottery Barn bathroom ghost version of Rear Window with a clearly huge budget, Michelle Pfeiffer, Harrison Ford, Zemeckis, and a ponderous mystery that reaches a wildly harrowing and satisfying climax. Zemeckis was with obsessed with mirror camera tricks in this one.

A ouija board in a bathroom? Of course! We love our little wicker trash basket and our towel table.

Harrison Ford the one actor we know for a fact could renovate a bathroom.

One of the most intense moments in the film is a woman taking a long bath.

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👻 SHUDDER Blues 🎃 @frownt.bsky.social · 3d

24. Castle Freak (1993) - After over a decade of listening to @flophousepodcast.com I finally heeded Stuart Wellington's advice and watched the dick-ripping, box-gnawing Stuart Gordon classic Castle Freak. Is it as good as From Beyond or Re-Animator? No. But that is a high bar to clear. Good stuff.

Uhhhh you dropped something buddy. (It's his wiener)

Most of the movie the titular castle freak flaps around the castle wearing this nasty sheet.

Her blindness definitely does not improve her sense of hearing or sense of smell since the castle freak is frequently hollering at the top of his lungs and covered in blood and rotting and nobody hears or smells anything.

Bad drunk dad/husband Jeffrey Combs brings a prostitute back to his freaked castle, which is when things start really going wrong for him and his family.

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👻 SHUDDER Blues 🎃 @frownt.bsky.social · 3d

23. The Bat People (1974) - A bat specialist on his honeymoon takes his new wife into a cave and gets bit by a bat and turned into a vampire bat person. He begins murdering and gets pursued by a sheriff who is immediately suspicious of him. The first feature film for Stan Winston. Stupidly fun.

The bat person's craving for human blood causes a lot of trouble for nurses throughout the film.

I would say a full 10% of this movie is this guy screaming in a bed being bat sick.

He goes through several levels of transformation into bat person, this being probably the best.

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👻 SHUDDER Blues 🎃 @frownt.bsky.social · 1d

33. Bug (2006) - A fleabag motel drenched in blacklight is the setting for a romance, paranoia, horror hybrid from William Friedkin. Michael Shannon and Ashley Judd are two troubled souls who meet, fall in love, and proceed to tear their bodies apart searching for bugs. Underrated and darkly funny.

1 1 7

👻 SHUDDER Blues 🎃 @frownt.bsky.social · 1d

32. The Devil's Advocate (1997) - High budget satanic thriller written by Tony Gilroy. Defense lawyer Keanu Reeves, doing his best accent work since Dracula, is hired by a NYC firm run by Al Pacino (satan) to help everyone from voodoo priests to Coach as Donald Trump get away with evil. Fun stuff.

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Josh @notablecowboy.bsky.social · 2d

I still hold out hope that the surviving California Raisins will put aside their differences and reunite before time runs out.

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