If 31 days of horror films haven’t quite desensitised you to blood, gore, guts, violence, sex, nudity, profanity, vulgarity and downright depravity, then here’s a few more for you…
These are my honourable mentions, films worthy of a viewing that either didn’t quite make it into the list or they are films that I’ve discovered just after the list was finalised and the work had begun. Too eager to share than savour them for next year (not another 31 blogs I hear you cry!), here they are. No reviews – just a poster, synopsis, my incisive insight and the trailer courtesy of Youtube.
1. Switchblade Romance (Haute Tension) (2003)
Plot According to Google: A beautiful young Frenchwoman, Alex, travels out to the country to visit her family and brings along her friend Marie. Soon after they get settled in the secluded home, Alex’s parents are brutally attached by a psychotic truck driver who proceeds to stalk the two women as well. When the killer kidnaps Alex in his truck, Marie hides in the back to try and rescue her, but the bloodshed is far from over.
Inertia’s Incisive Insight: A worthy New French Extremity addition from Aja, the superb psychological twist at the end is just as jarring as the violent roller-coaster the film has taken you on.
2. Ratter (2015)
Plot According to Google: Emma, a graduate student living alone in New York City, is watched by a stalker on all of her technological devices. Eventually, the video feeds are not enough and he goes from a virtual to a physical stalker.
Inertia’s Incisive Insight: An interesting found footage addition that adds a creepy, goosebump-inducing angle on where most of the footage is coming from, with a terrifyingly real ending.
3. The Omen (1976)
Plot According to Google: American diplomat Robert adopts Damien when his wife, Katherine, delivers a stillborn child. After Damien’s first nanny hangs herself, Father Brennan warns Robert that Damien will kill Katherine’s unborn child. Shortly thereafter, Brennan dies and Katherine miscarries when Damien pushes her off a balcony. As more people around Damien die, Robert investigates Damien’s background and realises his adopted son may be the Antichrist.
Inertia’s Incisive Insight: The film that made children terrifying – a superbly crafted horror.
4. Horns (2013)
Plot According to Google: Blamed for the murder of his girlfriend, a man awakes one morning to find he has grown a pair of horns. Armed, now, with supernatural powers, he sets out to find the killer.
Inertia’s Incisive Insight: An impeccable performance from Radcliffe that finally sheds the Harry Potter image, Horns is a funny, tragic and visually exquisite film.
5. The Ring (2002)
Plot According to Google: It sounds like just another urban legend – a videotape filled with nightmarish images leads to a phone call foretelling the viewer’s death in exactly seven days. Newspaper reporter Rachel Keller is skeptical of the story until four teenagers all die mysteriously exactly one week after watching just such a tape. Allowing her investigative curiosity to get the better of her, Rachel tracks down the video and watches it. Now she has just seven days to unravel the mystery.
Inertia’s Incisive Insight: A worthy remake of the original J-Horror Ringu, sparking and reinvigorating interest in urban legends.
6. The Thing (1982)
Plot According to Google: In remote Antarctica, a group of American research scientists are disturbed at their base camp by a helicopter shooting at a sled dog. When they take in the dog, it brutally attacks both human beings and canines in the camp and they discover that the beast can assume the shape of its victims. A resourceful helicopter pilot and the camp doctor lead the camp crew in a desperate, gory battle against the vicious creature before it picks them all off, one by one.
Inertia’s Incisive Insight: John Carpenter at his absolute best, The Thing is a dreary, miserable, visually effective timeless horror.
7. The Blair Witch Project (1999)
Plot According to Google: Found footage tells the tale of three film students who have traveled to a small town to collect documentary footage about the Blair Witch, a legendary local murderer. Over the course of several days, the students interview townspeople and gather clues to support the tale’s veracity. But the project takes a frightening turn when the students lose their way in the woods and begin hearing horrific noises.
Inertia’s Incisive Insight: The Founding Father of the found footage sub-genre, a truly terrifying masterpiece in horror filmmaking.
8. The Mind’s Eye (2015)
Plot According to Google: A man and his girlfriend become the prisoners of a deranged doctor who wants to harvest their telekenetic powers.
Inertia’s Incisive Insight: A steroid-induced R-rated X-Men. Just phenomenal.
9. Bite (2015)
Plot According to Google: A seemingly harmless bite transforms a young woman into an insect-like creature that needs human flesh for her eggs.
Inertia’s Incisive Insight: Cronenberg re-born, Bite is a tour-de-force in FX and make-up – it’s The Fly of the noughties.
10. Nurse (2013)
Plot According to Google: A young nurse begins to suspect that a sexy colleague is responsible for murdering a string of unfaithful men.
Inertia’s Incisive Insight: An insanely sexy, bloody, gory and downright entertaining schlock-style B-pic.
Inertia Pictures 