Amazon Screams: 20 Streaming Halloween Terror Treats

            It does pain me to see Halloween irrevocably neutered by the pandemic. But that doesn’t mean we should give up scary movies. If anything, horror films have a way of being cathartic during trying times. Talk about getting you out of your own doldrums. Especially when you’re watching a fright film with hands over your eyes. I’ve found that Amazon Prime has a more eclectic selection than Netflix so I’ve chosen some more offbeat treats to stream on All Hallows Eve. (Click on the title for a link to the film on Amazon Prime).

            The Loved Ones. Sean Byrne’s terrific Australian thriller is about a deranged father (John Brumpton), who brutally kidnaps a hapless young man (frighteningly cute Xavier Samuel) to be his psychotic daughter Lola’s (aka “Princess”) (Robin McLeavy) unwitting prom date. The abducted teen, dressed in a tux is nailed to the floor under a revolving disco ball in this outlandish, sardonic shocker.

            Creep. Franka Potente (Run Lola Run) plays a young woman who gets locked in a London subway at night and is pursued by a shadowy, deadly figure in the bowls of the underground. One fondly remembers movies like Raw Meat with a similar plotline, but this movie is taut, suspenseful, violent and stars Franka Potente. What the hell are you waiting for?

            I See You. This starts out a typical suburban drama with tension between a wife (Helen Hunt) and her detective husband (Jon Tenney) having a detrimental effect on their kids. An investigation into a series of mysterious child killings is happening at the same time. And there are all sorts of weird occurrences going on in their house. Prepare to have the rug repeatedly pulled out from under you in this fiendishly clever thriller directed by Adam Randall.

            He’s Out There. A mom (Yvonne Strahovski) travels to her lake house with her kids. The dad has promised to follow later that night. But while they are there at their remote woodland sanctuary, a creepy masked figure comes after them. I’ll admit this is a familiar scenario but director Quinn Lasher makes this work- it’s scary as shit.

            Parents. Bob Balaban’s highly stylized, criminally underrated black comedy about a (on the surface) perfect, prosperous middle class 1950s mom and dad (Mary Beth Hurt & Randy Quaid), who are secretly cannibals, forcing their son to eat his meat at the dinner table and not bother with the body parts hanging on hooks in the basement.

            Opera. Italian horror director Dario Argento’s macabre tale of a young singer thrust into the main role of the opera Macbeth while a maniac slays those around her, even tying her up and taping pins under her eyes forcing her to watch the kills. One of Argento’s darker tales but visually ravishing. You have to admire a film where a raven solves the mystery. One of my personal favorites.

            Eaten Alive. Director Tobe Hooper’s 1976 deranged follow-up to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre with an amazing performance by Neville Brand as a crazed, long-haired proprietor of a Louisiana hotel killing his patrons with a scythe and feeding them to his pet alligator. All done on sets, which creates an alternate universe feel, and with another incredible electronic soundtrack, the film really feels like some crackpot, bad dream. “Final girl” from Texas Chainsaw, Marilyn Burns, returns to work with Tobe Hooper and screams her damn head off in this underrated, wonderfully warped, horror film.

            Alice, Sweet Alice. Alfred Sole’s provocatively perverse 1976 thriller is set in Paterson, New Jersey in the 1960s. A young girl (Brooke Shields) is murdered at her Catholic communion and all eyes fall on her hateful, jealous sister Alice (amazing Paula Sheppard). A mysterious little figure wielding a knife in a yellow rain slicker and a transparent little-girl-mask haunts the film. A stylish, creepy, terrific film with all sorts of wonderfully (lapsed Catholic) sardonic touches. 

            Messiah of Evil. Two UCLA students- William Huyck and Gloria Katz– made this eerie, amazing film about a young woman (Marianna Hill) who travels to the sleepy, seaside town of Point Dune searching for her father (after receiving disturbing letters) and discovers that the townspeople have been transformed into bloodthirsty ghouls. There’s definitely a Lovecraft feel to this moody, strange, haunting horror film. Future director Walter Hill (The Warriors) gets his throat slit at the beginning of the film. (If you can track down the gorgeous Code Red Blu-ray it’s the best way to see this film- the quality on Prime is like a bad VHS).

            Teeth. A fiendishly funny, feminist, horror/comedy about a teenage girl who discovers her vagina has teeth. Writer/director Mitchell Lichtenstein does a wonderfully comic balancing act concerning the grotesque vagina dentata premise and the coming-of-age tale of virginal Dawn (Jess Weixler), who promotes abstinence in school until her hormonal urges leads her to the terrifying realization of her mutant genitalia. Jess Weixler is utterly delightful in the lead, with her eye-popping sweetness eventually morphing into an avenging angel. John Hensley is a riot as her punked-out, psycho, stepbrother.

            Dear Mr. Gacy. A deeply disturbing film about a morbidly obsessed college student (Jesse Moss), who contacts jailed serial killer John Wayne Gacy (William Forsythe) in order to help him with a thesis. He enters into a correspondence and then begins to visit Gacy in prison. That’s when things get hairy in this chillingly effective Canadian film based on a true story. Forsythe is really frightening, manipulating the boy in the similar manner in which Gacy probably lured his doomed victims. 

            Come to Daddy. In director Ant Timpson’s violent, darkly funny film, Elijah Wood plays Norval, who receives a letter from his father- a man who walked out of his life when he was five and he has never seen since. Norval treks to a remote seaside house (that resembles a flying saucer overlooking the sea) only to confront his dad (Stephen McHattie), a grouchy alcoholic, who doesn’t seem at all happy to see him. Things go south from there, but in ways you’ll never expect. The eventual bloodbath that follows is so unexpected and gonzo your jaw will unhinge. 

            Bone Tomahawk. Kurt Russell plays a sheriff in a remote western town who organizes a ragtag posse of men to rescue a rancher’s wife from a tribe of fearsome savages who live up in the mountains. It turns into a perilous, frightening journey. The dialogue crackles with deadpan wit, the cast (including Patrick Wilson, Matthew Fox and Richard Jenkins) are all sensational and the finale includes one of the most hair-raising sequences I’ve seen in some time. 

            The Stuff. Larry Cohen was a unique New York director, with horror hits like It’s Alive and oddball classics like God Told Me To and Q: the Winged Serpent. But I got a real kick out of this paranoid sci-fi film about a weird white substance found bubbling out of the ground that becomes a popular (and highly addictive) ice cream treat. A little boy (Scott Bloom) sees that the substance is alive and how it dangerously alters his family into a zombie-like state. Michael Moriarty plays an FBI investigator trying to blow the whistle on this mind-altering treat. Satiric and indescribably delicious.

            Deranged. Fictional portrait of notorious killer and grave robber Ed Gein (played with deadpan authenticity by Roberts Blossom). Gein was the basis for Robert Bloch’s novel Psycho. In this film he’s called Ezra Cobb, a mild-mannered, painfully shy Wisconsin farmer who lives with his domineering mother. After her death, Ezra digs up her body and brings it home. Eventually his rural farmhouse becomes a living nightmare with exhumed bodies transformed into bone furniture and skin sculputures. The mater-of-fact way the story is told makes it even more unsettling.

            Frightmare. British director Pete Walker did a series of films in the 1970s that were ferociously brilliant. This is one of my favorites, about a devoted daughter- Jackie (Deborah Fairfax), whose parents (Sheila Keith and Rupert Davies) have just been released from prison for a cannibalistic murder but still haven’t given up their craving for snacking on human flesh. Walker used the actress Sheila Keith in many of his films and she is always amazing, but here she is just terrifying. The sight of her using her tarot readings to lull her victims into a false sense of security, and then dispatching them with fire pokers, electric drills and pitchforks, still chills the blood.

            City of the Living Dead. What’s Halloween without a grisly treat from Italian director Lucio Fulci? This was made during his golden period when he turned out a series of gothic horror greats. It’s set in Dunwich, where a priest’s suicide by hanging himself in a graveyard opens up the gates of hell. Before long the dead are rising up and taking revenge on the living. If you’re looking for logical narrative- you’re out of luck. But if you crave scene after scene of outrageously gory set pieces you will not be disappointed with this outlandish, surreal scare-fest.

            Climax. “The Ultimate Bad Trip” is how the ad should read for Gaspar Noe’s harrowing, hallucinatory nightmare of a rave that goes disastrously wrong. A multi-ethnic dance company rehearses their new piece in a remote warehouse-like structure. Afterwards there’s an after-party, with a DJ and bowls of sangria. Unfortunately, someone’s dosed the punch with some bad acid and the party nightmarishly turns deadly. All of Noe’s usual tropes are applied- the end credits run at the beginning, the camera dizzyingly follows behind dancers as they freak out and the camera often tilts upsides down- but these devices work spectacularly well in this case- they really dramatize the vertiginous, scary, surreal elements of a bad trip. 

            The Church. Michele Soavi’s (Cemetery Man) gothic shocker about a church built over a burial ground of witches. Tomas Arana plays a librarian who accidentally breaks open the seal protecting the world from an invasion of demons. A young Asia Argento stars as a girl who sneaks out of church at night to party, and there’s a gruesome, wild, ending with people trapped inside the cathedral transforming into hideous demons. 

            Vampire Circus. Now I always need a shot of Hammer horror movies around this time of year, and this is a fun late entry from the British horror studio that frightened us with Christopher Lee’s snarling fangs in Horror of Dracula. A traveling circus in the 19th century stops in a European town and astounds audiences with a man who changes into a panther, a tiger woman, and twin aerialists who turn into actual bats. (Yes, true acrobats). Then suddenly there’s an outbreak of vampire killings that ties back to the fiendish Cirque du Sodeadly.