A few months back, as part of my apparent attempt to write thirty consecutive articles about Boris Karloff, I did a lovely little piece about the horror films available on the Criterion Collection. You remember, the premium format DVD/Blu-Ray releases of critically-beloved movies? The ones that you can watch any time on demand using your Hulu Plus account? The ones that will only be available there until November 2016? Yes, those! I hope you watched all the ones I told you to watch last time, because I’ve got some more for you and time is running out.
Corridors of Blood (1959)
Oh, hey, it’s Boris Karloff. Dirge doesn’t cover his life and career enough, if you ask me. Here, Karloff plays Dr. Thomas Bolton, a pioneering anesthetist who finds his life and career in ruin after one of his patients wakes up mid-surgery. Bolton succumbs to a life of addiction and crime, personified in the sinister figure of Resurrection Joe. Aside from boasting a pretty gnarly, Mad Max-sounding name, Joe is also notable for being portrayed by Christopher Lee, the ersatz Karloff of the Hammer horror cycle.
The Uninvited (1944)
There’s two kinds of haunted house movies: the kind where Vincent Price tries to scare people out of their inheritance or whatever using spring-loaded skeletons, and the kind where the idea of a haunting is treated with deadly seriousness. I prefer the former, but this is a marvelous example of the latter. Ray Milland and Ruth Hussey play a pair of siblings forced to contend not only with ghosts, but a slightly icky love triangle. Think of it as an early version of Crimson Peak (2015) with way more atmosphere and way less Tom Hiddleston butt.
The Innocents (1961)
The Guillermo Del Toro inspiration train chugs on with this foreboding tale about orphans and possession. Deborah Kerr plays the governess hired to care for a pair of disconcertingly mature children, and she comes to believe that the spirits of the dead are to blame for their behavior. If you’re a fan of psychological horror of the Val Lewton school, you’d do well to watch this.
Night of the Hunter (1955)
Charles Laughton only directed one film, but he made it count. Night of the Hunter is a genre-defying blend of film noir, religious horror, and psychological thriller. Reverend Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum) is an itinerant preacher who is also an avaricious con man and a violent misogynist; the trope of LOVE/HATE knuckle tattoos can be traced to him. Creepily enough, he’s based on a real guy, a lonely heart killer out of Depression-era West Virginia.
Fiend Without a Face (1958)
How about a classic slice of 1950s sci-fi paranoia? When a series of mysterious deaths strikes a Canadian farming community, suspicion begins to fall on a nearby U.S. Air Force radar base. The Air Force has its own suspect, though, in a retired British scientist interested in the development of telekinesis. Ultimately everyone’s fears turn out to be well-founded, as invisible brain monsters start throttling folks with their dangling spinal cords. In this film, the military-industrial complex isn’t quite the self-correcting engine of progress you’ll see in most ‘50s sci-fi.
Onibaba (1964)
Onibaba — literally “Demon Hag” — is a story of murder, desperation, and sexual jealousy set in 14th century Japan. A young woman (Jitsuko Yoshimura) and her mother-in-law (Nobuko Otowa) eke out a meager existence by murdering lost soldiers and selling their weapons and armor. When a neighbor returns from the war, he joins them in their dark business — and the younger woman in bed. Increasingly lonely and desperate, the mother-in-law attempts to drive them apart with a demonic mask that may or may not literally house evil spirits.
