15 Obscure Horror Films You Need To See
Frights off the beaten track.
What makes a movie obscure? Being subject to a limited release? Only available in a province of South Korea on an iffy region 3 VHS? Being banned beyond availability to even the shadiest of peddlers?
None of the above, actually. What gives a film this label is quite simply a general under appreciation; not enough people know about them, so not many people have seen them.
These films are celebrated only in web forums or on posters in Kim Newman's spare room. Of course, the smug sorts who deem a film to be of this ilk have usually seen them (a lot) and, though incensed by the film's obscurity, it's almost better that their favourites are left unheralded. The horror, the fanboy conundrum.
Pretensions aside, the archives have been trawled and those horror hits that have lingered in the shadows for too long do deserve to be reappraised. These are the quite fantastic, frightening movies that deserve to be given a popularity transfusion and wouldn't be harmed by a little bit more love. We're all horror fans here, after all.
So brace yourselves to have you eyes prised open by some sleeper flicks, all of which you are going to want to see and be terrified by in equal measure.
15. Society
For just over an hour, Society is an oddity; a low budget creep fest, which is essentially build up - but to what? It's safe to say audiences that watched this curiosity in 1989 had no idea what the film's final third beheld. Probably for the best.
Even for those in the know about this cult classic, the finale is a shocker, where an Invasion Of The Body Snatchers plot explodes into a grim body horror orgy, a writhing mess of heads emerging from asses and hands tearing through bodies like they are two week-old jello. Dubbed the "shunting," this beauty of a scene ranks up there with one of the most shocking ever committed to celluloid, without the need of spilling any blood. Figure that out.
Director Brian Yuzna would go on to voice regret that his debut tanked stateside, but thanks to a decent run in the UK, the film has hovered on horror fans' radars and continues to grow in relevance as the decades pass.