Halloween compels audiences to experiment with horror. They can’t help it.
When every piece of entertainment keeps throwing this genre in your face all month long, what else can you do but surrender to your curiosity? Am I about to recommend some mustsee horror films for you to watch this Halloween season? No!
In fact, it is the opposite. The internet is problematic because it will answer whatever question you ask. And if you request a list of the best horror films to watch on Halloween, or even the best horror films of all time, some of the answers are going to traumatize you, if you don’t know what to expect, or have a weak stomach.
I guess you can describe everything below as an anti-recommendation: films typically mentioned in discussions about the genre, and possibly even held in high regard for one reason or another, but which you should avoid at all costs this Halloween season.
To get the obvious out of the way, The Human Centipede (2011) is precisely as disgusting as that title suggests. If you have somehow gone your entire life without watching so much as a trailer, The Human Centipede features a disturbing experiment where a sadistic individual sews multiple humans together (mouth to bottom), creating a human centipede.
Unfortunately, the grotesque image that paragraph just planted in your head is accurate. For some bizarre reason, they even made a sequel. Anyway, Salo/120 Days of Sodom (1975) is a common topic among art, history, philosophy, and political scholars because of its harsh criticism of capitalism and consumerism.
Why is that a problem? Well, the 1975 French-Italian film explores those themes through the lens of four wealthy Italians who kidnap 18 teenagers and subject them to every form of physical, sexual, and psychological torture imaginable.
The violence and abuse depicted in the film are so severe that Italian prosecutors eventually took Alberto Grimaldi (the director) to court, charging him with ‘Offending Italy’s Sense of Modesty’ by publishing sexually perverted content that centered on subjects below the age of 18.
The film is still banned in numerous countries. Martyrs (2008) sounds fairly tame. The film follows Lucie, who was abducted and tortured during her childhood. Joined in her quest by Anna, another victim of abuse, Lucie is on a mission to punish the people who traumatized her.
If you think Martyrs sounds like every revenge-themed thriller you have come across about a young woman seeking revenge against her abusers, you are only half right. The movie’s proponents have praised its layered characters and the unexpected twists.
There is more going on than the synopsis suggests. However, Pascal Laugier (the director) was caught in a pit of clinical depression when he wrote the film. He was downright suicidal at the time, and his primary objective with Martyrs was to explore pain.
The result was a film so graphic that early screenings included reports of viewers throwing up, walking out, and the like. People often highlight the boos Antichrist (2009) received when it first screened. They tend to ignore the cheers it attracted in equal measure.
William Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg play a husband and wife who flee to a secluded cabin to grieve their infant son’s death. Neither of them anticipates the bizarre visions and sadomasochism that eventually follow. Knowing that Lars Von Trier (the director) was clinically depressed when he wrote the film should give you an idea of what to expect.
Your opinion of Antichrist will depend entirely on how much gore and cruelty you can stomach. That rationale applies to every film on this list. Some of you can watch Cannibal Holocaust and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) back-to-back without blinking, in which case… I don’t understand you. Horror is tricky.
At their most extreme, other genres will sap the life out of you, creating a sense of unease and leaving you mentally or emotionally exhausted. Horror is a different breed.
When I say the wrong horror film can traumatize you, I’m not exaggerating. Be careful, especially if you have younger viewers in the house. The last thing you want is to put images in your head that require months to scrub out.
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