10 '90s Horror Movies You Probably Haven’t Seen

In the 1990s, neo-noir aficionado Abel Ferrara was best known for his big, moody star-driven pieces like King of New York and Bad Lieutenant, working frequently with Christopher Walken and Harvey Keitel, but that didn't mean he was against making something low budget and low-key. Indeed, although The Addiction is his 11th film, it has not just the budget but the style, energy and strong thematic sensibilities of an earlier work.

Shot very much at ground-level in black and white, the film takes place in a New York City where the streets and the alleys bleed into the universities and the high-rises. After being dragged into the shadows and bitten by a vicious stranger, philosophy postgrad Kathleen Conklin (Lili Taylor) is infected with a deep and abiding addiction for, amongst other things, human blood. Her change comes on quickly, and she struggles to reconcile her doctoral dissertation and the reality of her lived experience, while sinking into a primal, drug-fuelled underworld.

A short, sharp reimagining of the vampire legend for the grunge generation, The Addiction is an essential part of the horror cinema canon, and yet it remains widely unregarded. That it only opened in 14 movie theatres in the mid-'90s, didn't hit VHS until three years later, and didn't get a DVD release during the 2000s in North America have a lot to do with this. But, while a recent 4K restoration has given a small boost to the film's presence, it still remains a largely undiscovered horror gem.