10 Great Horrors with TERRIBLE Premises
Awful idea. Perfect execution.
Some of the best horror films ever made also happen to be the most straightforward. Halloween is about serial a killer who goes on a murder spree in a small town. The Exorcist centres around a girl possessed by a demon. Alien - unsurprisingly - revolves around an alien.
However, there are storylines that, on paper anyway, aren't just simplistic, but flat-out atrocious. Although fans of the genre probably aren't expecting Oscar-worthy writing from an indie slasher or a sci-fi flick, certain premises are too dumb to take seriously. When a horror movie centres around an evil mirror, space vampires, or the alien devil, it appears to be pretty unsalvageable. Upon hearing these absurd ideas, moviegoers have to wonder how these projects managed to get greenlit in the first place.
But what's more unbelievable is how such films can turn out brilliantly, despite their preposterous premise. Not only did they turn out better than anyone expected, some have become cult-classics, launched careers, and spawned franchises.
It's not a good sign when a horror movie has a bad plot, but the entries on this list prove it's not necessarily a receipt for disaster.
10. Lifeforce
Tobe Hooper's underrated B-movie opens with astronauts discovering vampiric extra-terrestrials inside a spaceship. After awakening them, the energy-sucking aliens prepare to conquer Earth.
Now, the idea of space vampires is obviously out-there. In fact, the original title was The Space Vampires, but the director was smart enough to change it to something less ridiculous.
But after watching Lifeforce for a few minutes, it's clear that each person involved in the production poured their heart and soul into it. Every elaborate set, puppet, prosthetic, animatronic, visual effect, and stop-motion effect has been designed so well, it's criminal this film doesn't get enough credit. Although certain monsters and special effects only appear for a second or two, there's no question the crew put as much care into them as the primary visuals.
The plot is all over the place but it's not really a hindrance, since Lifeforce is never derivative or predictable. One minute, everything is normal, the next, blood is draining from Patrick Stewart's face to form an exploding succubus. (Great scene, by the way.)
Poltergeist and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre may be Tobe Hooper's best work, but Lifeforce still deserves a bit of love.