MikeyB's Movie Night Halloween Horror Picks: Lesser Known Fright Flicks

MikeyB's Movie Night Halloween Horror Picks: Lesser Known Fright Flicks

Writer: MikeyB

Editor: Pajan

 Every year when October rolls around it means one thing to me: Horror Movie Marathon. I look forward to this year-round and try to cram as many films into the month as possible. Over the next few weeks I'm going to give you a few film suggestions for my favorite movie viewing season. This week's theme is: Lesser Known Fright Flicks. We are going to overview three films you may not have seen or even heard of, so lets get to it.

Near Dark (1987) - Directed by: Kathryn Bigelow

 Before Kathryn Bigelow won an Oscar for directing The Hurt Locker, even before she made the Keanu Reeves / Partick Swazye surfing bank robbers v.s. FBI action classic Point Break, she made a little Vampire flick entitled "Near Dark" which I consider to be one of the best films in the sub-genre. It focuses on a farm boy named Caleb who ends up meeting a mysterious girl named Mae one night in town. Mae is of course a vampire who lives with an eclectic group of blood suckers that travel the country to avoid being caught. She ends up "turning" Caleb and he goes to the group to help him. They take him along as part of the "family" and attempt to teach him how to live as one of them. Caleb's father calls the police believing he has been kidnapped and tries to track him down as Caleb starts to have second thoughts about his new lifestyle. Near Dark was made seventeen years before the “teenage vampire love story” became vogue thanks to the blight on the face of film and literature that is the “Twilight” series, but unlike Twilight it features fantastic performances, great effects, and brilliant writing. Go track this one down a discover one of the best unseen gems of the vampire genre. 

 A Fun Fact from IMDB for Near Dark:

 This film marked Kathryn Bigelow's first solo directorial effort and the film's producer,Edward S. Feldman told her that if she couldn't handle or didn't know what she was doing while filming after five days, she would be replaced. She kept the job.

Dog Soldiers (2002) - Directed by: Neil Marshall 

 Neil Marshall's (The Descent) directorial debut can best be described as Predator with werewolves; and really do you need more than that to want to see it? If not take heart that it features great characters and some of the coolest Werewolf costumes in the genre. The film follows a group of british commandos out in the woods of rural England participating in some "war games" who come across a pack of Werewolves and have to fight tooth and nail to survive.

 A Fun Fact from IMDB for Dog Soldiers:

 There is very little CGI used in the movie because the people involved in the filming believed that CGI was being over-used at the time and that it would take viewers out of the movie because they would be focused on how the special effects looked rather than the story, thus the werewolves are animatronics and body suits with stilts.

Session 9 (2001) - Directed by: Brad Anderson

  Our last film tonight is one of my favorite Horror films of all time. It follows a group of "Haz-Mat" workers contracted to clean out an old insane asylum. Strange things begin to occur and one of the workers goes missing. Is it the vengeful spirits of past inmates, or is it the boss who has been growing increasingly distant and angry the cause? What follows is a genuinely unnerving and creepy study about madness and the place's that it inhabits.

  A Fun Fact from IMDB for Session 9:

 Only 3 rooms had additions outside of the natural setting for atmosphere, the kitchen had meat hooks hung, the tunnel had plastic surgical gloves hung up, and the hydrotherapy room had a metal tub added. Almost everything else related to the asylum setting was found on site as the crew scoured the building for set dressing to keep things authentic.