30 Best Hidden Gem Horror Movies Perfect For Halloween

Stuart Gordon is one of the more unsung horror directors of his generation. He managed to turn out films at a steady pace, on impressively low budgets, always with a subversive and unpredictable edge. Re-Animator and From Beyond are regarded as major high points, and Castle Freak makes something of a trio, even sharing genre icons Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton as its leads, H. P. Lovecraft as its source, and Dennis Paoli as co-screenwriter. However, it’s all but forgotten in film circles, though it is just as worthy as those other pictures.

An American family - Combs, Crampton, and their blind daughter, played by Jessica Dollarhide - inherit a decrepit castle in Italy and, without knowing, also a deformed monstrosity that dwells in the vast basement level, a creature looking to wreak havoc and take revenge on those responsible for locking him away for a lifetime. Basically, humankind itself.

Combs is always something special in a genre film, and here, he tones down the trademark zaniness but gives his straight-laced lead an impressively complex quality due to his dark backstory. Crampton and Dollarhide are also fantastic as the other solid points of the ensemble.

And the creature? It’s the stuff of nightmares. You feel a tinge of sympathy for it as its abuse and neglect brought it to this state, yet you’re visually repulsed at the same time. When it arrives on the scene, it fills you with genuine dread and drives several tense, horrifying set pieces in a horror film that deserves better.