My Favorite Fantasy Creature Horror

Death of Unicorn opens this weekend and reminds me that there are dozens of great horror movies about fantastical creatures from our most beloved children’s tales. These movies aren’t just fractured fairy tales, no, some of these are gruesome horror gems, worthy of an ogre’s eye.

Most supernatural creautures have the ability to disconcern bad people from the good people in ways we wish we could (it would be so useful these days). Supernatural justice is swift, decisive, and irreversible. In most cases, 1000% deserving. It’s perhaps the whole reason why some of us love horror movies.

Warning for jump scare junkies, my list runs the gambit of horror subgenres, so grab the popcorn, turn out the lights, and forget what the Grimm Brothers taught you about mythical beings.

The Company of Wolves – A dark provocative, twisted retelling of Red Riding Hood with werewolves, set in 18th century. This is British goth horror at its finest, directed by the legendary Neil Jordan and starring Angela Lansbury as grandma, of course! One of my all-time faves!

The Ritual – Probably the best true horror film on this list. Four college grads still mourning the tragic loss of their friend, head out to hike the Scandinavian wild in search of inner peace and find ancient evil instead. I’m not going to give away the mythological creature cuz it’s so good when you figure it out.

Spring – One of best rom-horror ever made. It’s suprisingly tender story of a young man who finds love with a mysterious woman in Italy while mourning the recent loss of his mother. This sweet romantic tale starring Lou Taylor Pucci and Nadia Hilker, sometimes makes you forget you’re watching a scary film.

Pan’s Labyrinth – Guillermo Del Toro’s
magnum opus features classic elements of horror, war drama, and fairy tales. Del Toro himself considers it a parable. Set in Francoist Spain, the story of young girl who falls into a dark labyrinth filled with terrifying magical creatures is the greatest example of dark fantasy/horror and an absolute must watch movie.

Gretel & Hansel – This might be the scariest retelling of the classic children’s tale ever produced. Directed by Osgood Perkins, the movie is heavy on atmosphere and mood, rather than action (at least until the end) and focuses on the untapped power of Gretel battling the evil witch, who is seriously got to be one of the scariest witches of all time on film.

Antlers – An original story about a troubled little boy harboring a dark secret and the sad ordinary people trying to help before finding themselves sucked into deadly world of a wendigo. Everyday man Jesse Plemons leads an all-star cast in this underrated horror gem, produced by Guillermo Del Toro and David S. Goyer. Acting, production quality, story, and scares are top notch. I believe the wendigo is one of the scariest mythical creatures and have longed for a good adaptation of the folklore. This is the best so far.

Troll Hunter – Norweigan horror film about a group of college students who set out to do a documentary of a legendary bear hunter Hans. After an attack, Hans is forced to reveal the truth that he’s not actually out looking for bears, he’s hunting trolls! This thoroughly original mockumentary style horror is utterly brilliant in the way it brings the fictional creature to life with such seriousness, I now wonder what’s out there in the deep dark woods.

The Hallow – Dark fantasy horror about a conservationist who travels to remote Ireland with his wife and baby, only to meet hostile locals who warn the man about the region’s Hallow, fairies, banshees, and baby-stealing fae. It doesn’t take long before the couple are battling the Hallow’s underworld to save their child. Out of all mythical beings, fairies are the most ambiguous. Some are good, some are bad, some are mischievous. Corin Hardy’s directorial debut is one of best and scariest fantasy horrors depicting bad fairies.

The Lure – Insanely odd Polish fantasy film about two mermaids who crawl out of the ocean to join a rock band in a club during the 1980s. It might be light on scares, but the cringe factor is a ten and it’s total trip.

Leprechaun – This is best of 90s campy slasher horror starring pre-Friends ingenue Jennifer Aniston and Warwick Davis having ridiculous fun portraying the devilishly witty leprechaun who doesn’t let any humans get in his way while chasing his gold. Anything that can launch an 8 film franchise, whether they’re good or not, is gold in my book!

Best Victorian Horror Movies

On this last day in January, I thought I’d post a movie list as cold and bleak as a winter day.

I recently saw Robert Egger’s retelling of Nosferatu in the theaters. Anyone familiar with Eggers work, in particular 2015’s The VVitch, knows that the director pays meticulous attention to detail and pulls no punches in getting his period films to look, sound and feel authentic to period of time the story is set in. I highly recommend Nosferatu for anyone into gothic victorian horror and lovers of the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker.

Victorian Horror films are some of my favorite types of horror because the atmosphere is filled with such dark despair, viewers want to wrap themselves in a blanket just to watch the movie. This is in no means a comprehensive list, but it’s a darn good start!

Poe Sundays – House of Usher

Every Sunday in October is Poe Sunday, the day we celebrate the Master of Macabre, Edgar Allan Poe. This year, I’ll suggest the best movie adaptations of Poe’s work.

Atmospheric and spooky, House of Usher may be the best most faithful Poe story adaption that director Roger Corman ever created. Vincent Price, Mark Damon, and Myrna Fahey, earnestly chew through Richard Matheson’s screenplay so well, gothic drama oozing out of their pores in every scene, until that thrilling legendary cinematic end.

Tuesday Terror – The Pit and the Pendulum

The Pit and the Pendulum (1961)
No one shall ever enter this room again.

pit-and-the-pendulum-1961-movie-barbara-steele-iron-maiden — © Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc.

Pit and the Pendulum was a film of many seconds for director Roger Corman. It was the second film adapted from an Edgar Allan Poe story, written by author and screenwriter Richard Matheson, who penned such successful novels such as I am Legend and the Incredible Shrinking Man. It was second big hit for distributor American International Pictures, grossing over $2 million USD from a measly $300,000 budget. It was also the second time that Corman would work with Vincent Price and Barbara Steele, each of whom would go on to become horror icons based on their work in numerous horror films.

pitpaint — © Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc.

Loosely based on Edgar Allan Poe of the same name, the story revolves around a tenacious Englishman Francis Barnard who goes to foreboding castle in Spain, after hearing word that his sister Elizabeth has died. He confronts his brother-in-law Don Nicholas Medina, demanding to know how she died. While there, Barnard finds the grieving don is slowly losing his mind, convinced that his late wife is haunting the castle, a site once used in the Spanish Inquisition. The don’s sister and personal physician try to sooth Barnard’s suspicions that Nicholas had anything to do with the sister’s death by revealing the tragic childhood trauma (shown in color-tinted vignette style flashbacks) that inflicts the don, but as the dark night drags by, it becomes apparent that a more sinister plot is afoot.

pitbro — © Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc.

Richard Matheson creates magic here by fleshing out the Poe’s torture chamber story bringing in the doomed Don Nicholas Medina, who already believes he’s cursed with same madness that drove his father to inflict unspeakable horror on the Spanish population, as well as his own family. In some ways, Matheson’s story is better than Poe’s gothic tale, giving audiences a backstory into understanding the horror the Poe wrote about.

The Merchant of Menace, Vincent Price, is at his best here, playing both a grieving man losing his sanity and his sinister father in flashbacks. His acting is somewhat melodramatic but entirely encouraged by dark dreamy orchestral score by Les Baxter. The always beautiful and haunting bright eyes of Barbara Steele turn in another wicked performance, cementing her legacy as a horror vixen, and John Kerr, Luana Anders and Antony Carbone also give strong memorable performances.

Despite the low-budget, Corman’s gothic adaption looked like million dollar film, with its vibrant color, gorgeous costuming, intricate set design, and carefully planned wide-angle shots by Floyd Crosby, the lusciously filmed Pit and the Pendulum only took 15 days to film. Shot entirely on a sound stages in California, Corman’s meticulous pre-production with his team, in particular, set designer, Daniel Haller, who created a real pendulum for the movie’s nightmarish ending sequence. The imposing pendulum was 18-feet long, weighed over 2,000 lbs and hoisted thirty-five feet in the air at the top of the sound stage above the actors. The blade was made of rubber, but a real metal blade covered in steel paint was switched out for the close shots, giving John Kerr some serious anxiety, which shows in his perspiring face during the final scenes.

pitmad — © Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc.

This is my favorite Roger Corman and Vincent Price collaboration. It’s the scariest and best overall production, an absolute epitome of gothic horror, inspiring dozens of other filmmakers, from Hollywood to the Italian gallo films of the 60s. Horror at that time was changing in a way that the scares were no longer implied. Horror master Stephen King remembers the Pit and the Pendulum scene which Price’s don Medina finds the decayed corpse of his dead wife, as having changed the horror landscape, King says “the most important moment in the post-1960 horror film, signaling a return to an all-out effort to terrify the audience…and a willingness to sue any means at hand to do it.”