https://www.getalternative.com/2015113hardware-1990
Sci-Fi: Hardware (1990) dir. Richard Stanley
Sci-Fi and Horror are no strangers. Something about space and technology just terrifies us, and not without good reason. As such, there’s an endless list of Sci-Fi/Horror to choose from. While films like Alien or Terminator may be more well known, I’ve decided to highlight something from off the beaten path.
Hardware is set in an apocalyptic America ravaged by nuclear war and suffering from social collapse. When a scavenger (Carl McCoy) unearths the carcass of a mysterious robot, an ex-soldier (Dylan McDermot) buys it to take home to his metal-sculptor girlfriend, Jill (Stacey Travis), thinking it would make for a decent apology gift.
We learn that the twisted chassis is a MARK-13, a combat droid with one mission programmed into its titanium skull, to kill. Not only that, but the machine is self-repairing too. Trapped in her hi-tech security apartment, Jill is forced to defend herself against the machinations of the psycho android. It’s a trippy, visceral horror film with more than enough creativity and energy for its modest budget.
Standout Moment: When the robot gains control of the apartment’s system functions and uses the blast door to chop the poor security guard in half.
https://mubi.com/en/gb/films/ravenous
Western: Ravenous (1999) dir. Antonia Bird
Films that mix the Western setting with Horror are a rare breed. Westerns may often turn up the grit, the violence, and the misery, but to go for full horror requires a careful balance that very few have been able to successfully pull off.
Ravenous stands tall as a creative film with a bone chilling premise. At the edge of the frontier, a military outpost investigates a band of settlers stranded somewhere in the Sierra-Nevada mountains. One survivor (Robert Carlisle) admits that in order to keep going, the travellers were forced to feast on each other’s flesh. Suddenly the rescue campaign is thrown into peril when they realise that the survivor leading them has been seized by a wendigo curse for the crime of cannibalism, and is deliberately leading them to a nasty end.
The film is at once frontier epic and cannibal slasher film, with both halves playing off each other brilliantly.
Standout Moment: Robbie Coltrane’s Wendigo returns to the outpost, posing as Colonel Ives, as Protagonist Captain John Boyd (Guy Pearce) realises he is completely powerless to reveal the monster’s true identity.
https://www.gbhbl.com/horror-movie-review-deathwatch-2002
War: Deathwatch (2002) dir. M. J. Basset
War is hell, as they say. So it’s surprising that War films and Horror films generally aren’t seen together. Deathwatch is a fantastic example of how much potential there is when you combine the horrors of war with the horrors of the unexplained.
The film follows a squad of British soldiers in WW1 as they push into no man’s land with the objective of taking a German bunker. After stumbling through the fog of war, they find it abandoned, with only a couple of fearful German troops nearby, fleeing the bunker. It’s our first hint that there’s something not right with this place.
That’s right, haunted trenches. What follows is a nightmare as the troops struggle against the vengeful ditch, growing paranoid of invading troops and possible treachery by their comrades. The film is as gritty as it gets, following the viciousness of a malevolent spirit that tortures its inhabitants at the centre of a nasty landscape of mud and barbed wire. We’re forced to ask the question, should our heroes manage to escape the clutches of the supernatural, would their chances on the battlefield be much better?
Standout Moment: Andy Serkis’s mad-dog Quinn’s reign of terror brought to an end by sentient barbed wire.
https://cinemafromthespectrum.com/2016/11/02/the-cabin-in-the-woods-review
Comedy: The Cabin in the Woods (2011) dir. Drew Goddard
Comedy/Horror is not an uncommon combination, however what is rare is seeing one that prioritises the fear factor ahead of the laughs. The most famous of the genre have a great time parodying the tropes and familiar cliches, but none of these films are ever as scary as the stuff they satirise. Cabin in the Woods is such a cleverly conceived parody of the slasher film that it doesn’t lose any of its edge even as it pokes fun at the horror tropes we know and love.
A twist on the familiar story, Cabin in the Woods follows a group of students out on a secluded overnight trip in the wilds. After reading from a creepy journal that chronicles the tragic lives of a pioneer family and their murder at the hands of an abusive patriarch, the mummified remains of the settlers emerge from beneath the ground to slaughter the teens one by one.
Except things are still not as they seem, because this seemingly cliché story has, in fact, been engineered by a mysterious hi-tech corporation filled with scientists and engineers, all tasked with seeing the butchery through to its conclusion.
With a rock-solid concept and plenty of wit, this satirical horror/comedy refuses to blunt its slasher edge even with an outlandish and self aware premise.
Standout Moment: The moment the elevator doors open and an army of assorted slasher villains are unleashed on a helpless team of special forces.
https://mubi.com/en/notebook/posts/writing-s-on-the-wall-close-up-on-andrzej-zulawski-s-possession
Romance: Possession (1981) dir. Andrzej Żuławski
A ‘Will they? Won’t they?’ story that will warm your heart and chill your blood. Possession follows Mark (Sam Neil), a spy returning home from unexplained field work, to the news that his wife, Anna (Isabelle Adjani) wants a divorce. She insists that the decision is not because she has met someone else but Mark’s intuition tells him otherwise. The story follows his efforts to investigate the increasingly disturbing behaviour of his now ex-wife as the two of them begin to lose their grip on their sanity.
It becomes clear pretty early on that Anna is up to something. Something that’s… wrong. A bizarre series of grotesque discoveries only pull Mark deeper into the mystery and pretty soon, both husband and wife are drawn to commit acts of savagery that shear away what little remains of their souls.
Helmed by unforgettable performances from its two leads, Possession is an exploration of hysteria. It’s a maddening, frightening film that grips the audience from the get go. Unflinching in its portrayal of a paranoid descent into madness with images, so unsettling that they will stick with you long after the film’s over.
Standout Moment: Isabelle Adjani going beast mode in the subway tunnel. That, or The Doppelganger’s silhouette seen through the frosted glass.
https://around80s.blubrry.net/2020/12/25/the-hidden-1987-jack-sholder
Detective: The Hidden (1987) dir. Jack Sholder
Se7en (1995) and True Detective (2014) might show us how horrifying the life of a fictional detective can be, but can the detective genre blend with a full blown alien invasion movie? It turns out it most certainly can.
The Hidden sees a straight-laced FBI agent (Kyle MacLachlan) and a gruff LA cop (Michael Nouri) investigate the culprit(s) of a series of unexplained crimes. It seems that regular citizens with no criminal past are suddenly committing grand scale crimes without any logical motivation. They soon discover that this is all the work of a parasitic alien capable of hopping between humans, though its violent motivations remain unclear.
Watching regular cops go up against a sinister, Thing-like entity is a blast and the cat and mouse chase only becomes more intense as we watch one hapless victim after another fall prey to, and become, the parasitic squid as it jumps from one host body to the next, constantly evading capture by hollowing out its victims and assuming their identities.
Standout Moment: When we finally see the slug-like alien monster transfer from one person to another and we get a good look at its horrible insect pincers.
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