Horrorbound Halloween 2021 Watch List: Week 3
Welcome back to week 3 of Horrorbound’s Halloween 2021 Watch List where we suggest one movie each day for the month of October that is easily streamable for your enjoyment. There are 7 movies to cover in this week’s article so let’s skip the introductions and get right into it.
Monday October 11th
From Dusk Till Dawn - HBOMax
Director Robert Rodriguez absolutely exploded to the top of the cinema world in the mid-’90s with his shoot ‘em up action flick Desperado. He followed up this blood soaked film with perhaps two of the most underrated horror films of the 1990’s, The Faculty and the absolutely insane vampire flick, From Dusk Till Dawn. Rodriguez pulled the creatures of the night out of their drafty old castles and placed them in a seedy, south of the border strip club called the Titty Twister where they drink the blood of unsuspecting truck drivers. What’s great about this film is before the vampires show their teeth, there is a deeply unsettling portion of the film where Quentin Tarantino plays one of the best on screen psychos in recent memory. Most horror fans have probably seen this film before, but it’s worth a rewatch to catch the Devil’s Rejects vibes that QT gives off.
Tuesday October 12th
The Devil’s Rock - Amazon Prime, TubiTV
When horror fans think of New Zealand more than likely comedy horror and over the top gore comes to mind. After all, this is the country that brought us Braindead (aka Dead Alive) and Deathgasm but 2011’s The Devil’s Rock is as far from a comedy as you can get. The film follows a group of soldiers that head to destroy a secret Nazi base while the rest of the German army is distracted by the events of D-Day. What they find in the base however is more than they expected as the Nazi interest in the occult leads them to capturing a demon. Worst of all, this demon transforms into one of the soldier’s recently deceased wives in order to tempt him to evil. A fantastic little horror film that does a lot with a very limited budget and cast.
Wednesday October 13th
Unfriended - Netflix
Two things are true. Every time I watch this movie I love it more and more. Every time I watch this movie I am confused as to why this film isn’t held in high regard with the rest of the horror community. The entire film is basically a screen capture of a Skype call between a group of friends who find themselves haunted by the ghost of a bullied schoolmate. The film is lightyears ahead of its time as it was released in 2014 and there was not a similar film until 2020’s Host. What makes this film different, and in my opinion, better, is that there is other stuff happening on the main characters screen while the malevolent force grows stronger. It’s these details that happen outside of the actual video call that build character and story depth.
Thursday October 14th
Meatball Machine - TubiTV
People always talk about Plan 9 From Outer Space as a movie with aliens who have a terrible plan for global domination but I don’t think those people have ever watched the Japanese import, Meatball Machine. Let me try to summarize. So aliens come from outer space and drop off these eggs, when the eggs hatch these weird spores take over human beings turning them into half man, half machine, half robot assault weapons who are driven to find other man/machine/robot monsters and fight to the death. The only problem is, the two robots who are supposed to be enemies love each other which makes everything complicated. Turn off your brain and enjoy the gore in this one. A great double header would be the 2015 Joe Begos film The Mind’s Eye which is also about a man turned into a living weapon.
Friday October 15th
Piranha 3DD - TubiTV
Somehow this 3D sequel to the remake of Piranha landed David Hasselhoff, Clu Gulager, Christopher Lloyd, Ving Rhames and Gary Busey. There’s not much to be said about this film. Piranhas get in the sewers and invade a water park on the day it opens, but not just any water park, an adult water park where the majority of people are naked. These piranhas rip all the naked people apart and it’s in 3D. A perfect double header would be the original Piranha which is available on Shudder, TubiTV and Amazon Prime.
Saturday October 16th
Hush - Netflix
Generally, I am not a big fan of Mike Flanagan’s work and that’s mostly because he makes these very complex dramas where he hides a ghost in one dark corner and say “Ohh look! It’s horror!” Now it’s not the complex drama that gets me down about Flanagan, it’s that when he actually does full on horror, like he does in Hush, it’s absolutely incredible. The film is about a woman in a secluded house in the woods who is enjoying her night when a psycho killer appears and tries to murder her, to make matters worse, she is deaf. What a premise! And what excellent execution too as there is not one moment in the film where you want to call BS on the whole thing.
Lucio Fulci’s The Beyond on Tubi and Shudder would be a great double header because the main character is blind or at least she goes blind when she looks into the crystal ball and sees the future where the gates of hell open up.
Sunday October 17th
Big Bad Wolves - Amazon Prime
This Israeli import is unlike anything you have ever seen. A young girl is murdered and dismembered and the suspected killer is let free due to the arresting officer crossing the line during interrogation. The disgraced cop decided to kidnap the suspected murderer and torture him to obtain the truth. The problem is, the girl’s father, a retired soldier, also plans on kidnapping the suspect to torture him to find out what he did with the girl’s head because per their religion she cannot be buried unless she is whole. A little mixup results in both the cop and killer being kidnapped by the father and what follows is an absolutely insane film with tons of gore and emotional moments as the cop, the killer, the father and even the girl’s grandfather fight to find the truth. A fantastic film with a final scene that will rip your heart out and stomp on it.
There is another Israeli film, JeruZalem, about biblical zombies that would be a perfect pair for Big Bad Wolves.
Stay tuned to our YouTube channel for daily recommendations throughout the month of October and come back here next Monday for another week worth of recommendations. Next week’s suggestions include ‘80s teen horror, a bigfoot movie, a Keanu Reeves movie and a movie where an elephant gets murdered.
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