Hellraiser III: Hell On Earth (1992)

As much as I hate ’90s horror, here is Hellraiser III almost making me nostalgic for it. Shot like a grunge-era MTV music video with a cast of stereotypical yuppies and gorgeous pseudo-freaks that appear borrowed from a network TV drama from the same period, this movie is a fucking time capsule.

The Witch Who Came From The Sea (1976)

“I’ve got friends that nobody else’s got.”

It’s hard to ascertain whether the awkward performances and unnatural dialogue in this strange indie are deliberate, but they certainly serve to establish an unsettling, hallucinatory vibe.

Dune (1984)

The biggest knock against Dune, perennial punching bag that it is, has always been that it doesn’t make any goddamn sense. And it’s not true. In fact, one of Dune’s biggest weaknesses is that it tries to wrangle the unwieldy narrative of the complicated Frank Herbert novel into place by employing clunky exposition, gratuitous voiceover narration, and sudden time jumps. It is actually one of David Lynch’s more coherent works. For better or worse.

In The Mouth Of Madness (1994)

John Carpenter’s post-80s output is spotty at best, but this schlocky big-budget horror is the best of the bunch. In the Mouth of Madness stars Sam Neill as a very successful insurance investigator looking into the case of missing pulp horror writer Sutter Cane (played, with an unforgettable haircut, by Jurgen Prochnow). Cane is a Stephen King-esque figure, but somehow even more popular – and, unfortunately, his new book also seems to spread homicidal insanity.

Venom (1981)

Amazon’s plot summary tells you almost everything you need to know: “A sexy maid, a psychotic chauffeur and an international terrorist kidnap a wealthy ten-year old boy from his London townhouse. But they didn’t count on one very unexpected houseguest: a furious Black Mamba, the most lethal and aggressive snake known.” Plot twist: despite this ludicrous, bottom of the barrel B-movie plot, Venom actually stars well-known and respected actors like Sterling Hayden, Oliver Reed, and Sarah Miles, plus the reliably bizarre Klaus Kinski.

Deadbeat At Dawn (1988)

Imagine The Warriors, minus most of the plot and budget, and inexplicably transported to Dayton, Ohio. Well, that’s Deadbeat at Dawn, Jim Van Bebber’s trashy DIY cult classic. Aside from writing and directing duties, Van Bebber also stars as Goose, a wayward teen caught up in a turf battle between two warring gangs. What Van Bebber’s debut lacks in polish, he makes up for with audacious insanity (and lots of gruesome violence, drugs, sexual assault, occultism, and general depravity).

Halloween III: Season Of The Witch (1982)

Much like A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2, this curious film was reviled by fans upon its release but has become a sort of cult classic in the years following. In this case, what angered moviegoers about Halloween III: Season of the Witch is pretty glaring – this is not a true Halloween sequel and, in fact, really has nothing to do with the franchise with which it shares its name.

Creepshow (1982)

As fitting a tribute to the gleefully sadistic EC Comics as the beloved HBO series Tales from the Crypt, Creepshow is a fun bit of breezy dumb horror from director George Romero and screenwriter Stephen King. Like nearly any anthology, it’s a bit of a mixed bag – though, thankfully, none of the vignettes sink as low as the disastrous prologue/epilogue in which King’s real-life son makes every other child actor in history look like Daniel Day-Lewis. But Creepshow boasts more successes than failures, with Romero occasionally dialing up atmospheric scares that harken back to his best films.

The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs (2018)

This uneven, but worthwhile Western anthology from the Coens offers six stories that range widely in tone from irreverent farce to pitch black existentialism. Beyond the genre trappings, the connecting tissue for these small works is their depiction of our morally askew world as a capricious and frightening place in which the meek are punished as mercilessly as the wicked

The Clovehitch Killer (2018)

Although it doesn’t quite stick the landing, this thriller about a teen boy who suspects that his square, upstanding father may be their small town’s legendary serial killer is better than you’d have any right to expect. After all, serial killers are usual fodder for bottom-of-the-barrel genre movies, artlessly manufactured bits of gratuitous schlock delivered off an unending conveyor belt of cheap, morbid cash-ins loosely based on real tragedies. Thankfully, The Clovehitch Killer almost immediately reveals itself to be more thoughtful than most of its peers.