The major cinephiles among you are surely familiar with the Criterion Collection, but for the uninitiated, it’s a carefully curated set of classic films, restored and released on home video with scads of special features, essays, and commentary tracks. They’re premium releases geared to film buffs, but pricy DVD/Blu-Ray sets aren’t the only way to enjoy the Criterion Collection. For the time being (until November of 2016 for those of you reading this from the future), most of these films are available to stream with a Hulu Plus subscription. It may interest you, Dirgeketeers, that the Criterion Collection features over 50 films with horrific elements. While I can’t spotlight them all, I can highlight some of my favorites, and urge the Hulu subscribers among you to check them out while you still can.
Gojira, (1954)
If you’ve only seen the latter, uh, 26 Godzilla films, you’ll be shocked by the bleak tone of this one. Made less than ten years after a significant fraction of Japan was actually consumed by nuclear holocaust, this film invites Japan to relive its collective national nightmare of apocalypse. There’s no goofy saurian heroics here, only a bleak and numbing terror that pervades every frame of film. Personally, I enjoy the goofiness, but there’s probably a good reason that no one ranks Godzilla vs. Megalon (1973) alongside the works of Fellini and Truffaut. Unfortunately, only the American version of the film is currently available on Hulu; the Japanese original is far superior.
Häxan, (1922)
Danish director Benjamin Christensen presents this as a documentary about the history of witchcraft, but that’s not strictly what it is. The film has documentary elements, sure, but also uses the historical treatment of witches to comment upon then-current treatment of mental illness. Christensen also dramatizes several “case studies” as horrific short subjects, including an unforgettable sequence where the director himself appears as a perverse, snaky-tongued Satan.
The Blob, (1958)
The brainchild of the improbably-named Shorty Yeaworth, The Blob is a creepy story of a small town under siege from an alien organism. Steve McQueen stars as a heroic 35 year-old teenager who must bridge the gap of trust between his peers and the town’s police before The Blob consumes them all. It’s a perfect piece of 1950s Americana, a Norman Rockwell fever dream.
Carnival of Souls, (1962)
Educational filmmaker Herk Harvey made this atmospheric thriller for only $33,000, but its craftsmanship belies the meager budget. The story concerns a young woman (Candace Hilligoss) who miraculously survives a car wreck. In the aftermath, she’s stalked by a mysterious figure (director Harvey) and experiences visions of a foreboding carnival pavilion. In style and execution, it’s a lot like a feature-length episode of The Twilight Zone.
Vampyr, (1932)
Sheridan La Fanu’s lesbian vampire epic Carmilla forms the basis for this strange, disorienting experimental film. It tells the story of an occult researcher (Julian West) who attempts to free a village from the grip of a vampire, only to become trapped himself. Panned by contemporary critics for its dizzying visual style, it’s now recognized as a brilliant attempt to reconstruct the woozy half-reality of a nightmare.
Island of Lost Souls, (1932)
Released just after the seminal 1931 versions of Dracula, Frankenstein, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, this H.G. Wells adaptation is a worthy companion to that trilogy of terror. Dr. Moreau (Charles Laughton) is more affable than his mad scientific peers, but his obsession with mating man with beast rather makes Dr. Frankenstein look like Dr. Oz. Bela Lugosi is also on hand as the incomparably articulate (and hirsute) Sayer of the Law.
The Haunted Strangler, (1958)
That old Bedlamite Boris Karloff stars in this, another one of his late-career classics. In a rare protagonist role, Karloff plays a novelist determined to clear the name of a long-dead accused murderer. At first, he does well in his quest to exonerate the Haymarket Strangler. Unfortunately, as he digs deeper into the case, the killer seems to return from the dead to pick up right where he left off.
M, (1931)
An impossibly baby-faced Peter Lorre stars in this German film about the search for a child murderer. Although M has elements of crime drama and police procedural, Lorre’s Hans Beckert is chilling as one of the screen’s first realistic serial killers. Director Fritz Lang considered this his best film, and one with a vitally important message: the killer is a monster, a real one, and one that will appear again and again with new faces.
Diabolique, (1955)
This tale of murder and paranoia comes courtesy of Henri-Georges Clouzot, the so-called Gallic Hitchcock. The wife and mistress of a tyrannical schoolmaster join forces to rid themselves of him and make it look like an accident. The plot thickens from there, as disappearing bodies, unreliable witnesses, and retired detectives heighten the suspense. The film’s unforgettable climax features a twist ending to put Rod Serling and M. Night Shyamalan to shame.
