Last Updated on October 6, 2021 by
There is one thing and another that you can say about big films. But despite being scary, they attract a large audience.
In this article, we have listed some great movies you may have forgotten about and which are not mentioned too often in film history, possibly mainly because they are overshadowed by another closely related work by the same filmmaker, a more recognized predecessor or a significantly more difficult remake? Either way – here are five forgotten horror movies you must watch:
1) Psycho II (1983)
Directed by: Richard Franklin. Perhaps the most overlooked sequel to movie history? Probably because at first glance it seems like a crazy project to follow up on Hitchcock’s undisputed super classics, but Psycho II is something as unusual as a surprisingly good sequel, 22 years later. Norman Bates has been dismissed from the elevator and is to be re-aligned in society. Of course, it almost immediately begins to go to hell with bestial murders as a result – but is it Norman himself behind all the bloodshed, or are the nasty powers in the act trying to reach him?
Psycho II completely reverses expectations, offering a first-class horror drama with a real thrill and a quirky cat-and-rat game with the spectator. Although it holds great reverence for Hitchcock’s original work (and succeeds – as before – using brilliant spaces and passages brilliantly), it remains very stable on its own legs. Anthony Perkins is absolutely phenomenal just as before – but the film is also rich in other colorful characters. Psycho II deserves to be called horror classics, the one with. Curiosity: Quentin Tarantino himself holds this movie higher than the original.
2) The Funhouse (1981)
Directed by: Tobe Hooper. Despite Hollywood laying its feet after the success of the chainsaw massacre, Hooper continued to deliver dark and narrow films at times, but with a psychological depth that drilled in. His truly forgotten masterpiece is The Funhouse – a seemingly relatively straightforward slasher role that, on the surface, offers the old usual: festive, horny youngsters spend the night in a cozy amusement park after closing and are consequently chased by a malformed killer.
Strange characters, sounds, and colors gradually whip up the mood – here too, the surroundings are effectively blended into the film language. The killer is also not the rare, invulnerable killer machine we are accustomed to – but rather (like the predecessor Leatherface from the chainsaw massacre) he is endowed with human weaknesses such as mental disabilities, extravagance, a lack of impulse control and to top it all off a true tyrant – which makes him even more tragic but also really intimidating. The opening scene of The Funhouse gives a loving glimpse of Hooper to Psycho (the original) as well as Halloween.
3) The Tenant (1973)
Directed by Roman Polanskic. One thing that can be said about the less remembered French masterpiece Le locataire is that Polanski did in exile from Hollywood.
A very own, oddly cast horror film about a sympathetic and timid official (Polanski himself in his only leading role) who comes across a Paris apartment whose former tenant committed suicide by throwing himself out the window. After he has made himself at home gradually, strange things start to happen in the house – are the neighbors really who they claim to be? Le locataire was perfectly executed by the critics when it arrived but has since become something of a cult classic. It’s not hard to understand the delights – a suggestive soundtrack, almost perfect photo by Bergman photographer Sven Nyqvist, constantly amusing absurdist humor and hallucinogenic horror that reminds us that traditional films are so painfully realistic nowadays. In the film, Polanski’s character goes to the cinema and sees a Bruce Lee movie – in reality, Polanski and Lee were friends.
4) The Vanishing – Spoorloos (1988)
Directed by George Sluizer. Stanley Kubrick saw Spoorloos three times, immediately called Dutch director George Sluizer and announced that it was “the scariest movie I’ve ever seen”. Sluizer asked; “Even scarier than The Shining?” Kubrick replied that he thought it was, after which they both began discussing film editing.
Spoorloos is about a young Dutchman whose girlfriend disappears under mysterious circumstances at a French gas station during a vacation trip. He begins to be tormented more and more by the incident and eventually becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to her. The search begins to take over his life, and three years later the perpetrator contacts him with an offer to know all about what happened. In terms of form, Spoorloos is even unique – the perpetrator’s identity is revealed almost immediately in the act, and proves unlikely to be a French chemistry teacher with a loving – and unknowing – family.
The film is interspersed with flashbacks about how the deed is planned in detail, and the kidnapper in question is provided with human and everyday features – he is physically inferior, quite unassuming and lost – just like an ordinary person. Under the surface, however, Spoorloos is a psychologically disturbing tragedy on different sides of male vanity, and a skewed film that it is not really possible to paste a simple label.
5) Creep Show (1982)
Directed by: George A Romero. George A Romero – the inventor of the entire zombie movie genre as well as Godfather – also tickled on in 2017. Throughout his career, almost all the way to the last, he produced numerous zombie films of varying quality (at least towards the end).
With Creepshow, the “horror master” Romero did something completely different – an episode film set in something as unusual as a horror magazine from the 1950s. Stephen King stands for the stories in the “magazine” that have the theme of revenge as a red thread, and which are (as is usual with Stephen King) of varying quality: The first two are certainly entertaining but somewhat dated and puffy, but the three concluding witnesses about really cast filmmaking, loaded with impressive imagery and strong performances in unexpected roles, such as Leslie “The Naked Gun” Nielsen as a nasty sadist. In particular, the concluding part where tens of thousands of – real – cockroaches invade a sterile future home occupied by a bitter disorder with insect phobia stands in a class of its own. However, there are plenty of other memorable moments even until this happens. Curiosity: King himself makes a cameo role in the second episode as a casualty village villain.