HORROR FILMS: EXTREME AND ENVELOPE-PUSHING

With Halloween Month rolling along, Balladeer’s Blog presents a list of some horror films that are extreme with their graphic gore or their envelope-pushing themes.

RABID GRANNIES (UNCUT VERSION) (1988) – We’ll start with the mildest one on this list. Yes, even in its original, uncut and graphically violent form it’s mild for this list. Those darn Belgians produced this Evil Dead-inspired movie which featured a pair of nonagenarian aunts being sent a birthday gift by their Satanist nephew.

When the gift is opened that night, it transforms the pair into hideously ugly demonoids who prey upon all of the relatives gathered to celebrate their birthday at their remote mansion home. Not even children are exempt from getting killed as the ever-mutating “grannies” slaughter the family members. 

What the two demonoids do to the priest in the family is very, very dark. FOR MY FULL-LENGTH REVIEW CLICK HERE.

NOTE: The movies below this point tend to be very distressing for people with more conventional tastes in horror films. Turn back NOW if you do not like extreme violence and/or extreme themes.

HEADLESS (2015) – This gore-drenched production was filmed as if it was a “lost” movie from 1978 and slavishly imitated the movies of the time period in a Grindhouse manner. Shane Beasley stars as the skull-masked decapitation killer who gratifies himself with the skulls of some of his victims. 

The serial killer has sexual fantasies about an eyeless female mutant and dreams of a world where eyeballs grow on trees and can be plucked and eaten like fruit. The crazed main character’s deranged mother and sister are depicted as well. 

All that plus the never-to-be-forgotten Skull Boy. FOR MY FULL-LENGTH REVIEW CLICK HERE.

MALEFICIA (1998) – This French movie may be set in 1860 but its sex, violence and taboo religious presentations make it beyond the pale to many film reviewers.

Bizarre cultists in France conduct a blood-soaked and blasphemous ritual that conjures up a horde of zombies which besiege our main characters in the castle they have just inherited. Among the many horrors which lurk inside are vampires, setting up a zombies vs vampires clash at one point.

The 1860 setting makes for a nice change of pace as the usual zombie flick set pieces play out. FOR MY FULL-LENGTH REVIEW CLICK HERE.

PSYCHO GOTHIC LOLITA (2010) – Made in Japan, this example of J-Horror at its weirdest is from the same director that brought the world Geisha Assassin. The supernatural protagonist patterns her wardrobe on Japan’s Goth and Lolita subcultures.

While preying on her victims, the title figure clashes with other demonic beings whose powers and depravity rival her own. The stakes and the powers of her opponents increase with each blood-drenched encounter all the way up to the finale.

The origin story of the Psycho Gothic Lolita is revealed gradually through flashbacks and contains a nice twist. FOR MY FULL-LENGTH REVIEW CLICK HERE.

FATHER’S DAY (2011) – It’s not just another movie imitating the faux-1970s Grindhouse approach to horror. It enjoys the best of both worlds by using the grindhouse atmosphere combined with more graphic violence, gore and sexuality than any 70s flick would have gotten away with.

The Father’s Day Killer rapes and kills fathers – both biological AND priestly – every Father’s Day. Some close associates of assorted victims wind up working together to take down this monstrous murderer and uncover the Satanic forces backing him.

The film’s hero Ahab has always gotten my vote as the potential successor to Evil Dead‘s Ash Williams as the most royally screwed hero in horror history. FOR MY FULL-LENGTH REVIEW CLICK HERE.

DR. CALIGARI (1989) – Not so much outright horror as a horror art film. I often call this movie “The Rocky Horror Picture Show meets Eraserhead“.

The latest doctor in the Caligari family line is the granddaughter of the one from the 1919 silent film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. She runs an insane asylum in which she secretly conducts inhuman experiments on her more hopeless patients.

Concepts of madness, chemical treatments, gender and identity are unleashed amid the dark-humored and black-hearted farce that plays out. WARNING: This has the lowest body count of any movie on this list. FOR MY FULL-LENGTH REVIEW CLICK HERE.

FOR MY LOOK AT THE MOVIES OF JORG BUTTGEREIT (Nekromantik, The Death King, Nekromantik 2 and Schramm) CLICK HERE.