31 Days of Horror V

31 Days of Horror V

Features / 29 September 2008

Years ago, on a rainy October night in upstate New York, an eerie haze dulling the light from the streetlamps, a group of five teenaged boys entered their beloved local video store and headed straight for the horror section. Far from a mere aisle, the horror section at this particular store was an entire room—the outer wall of which resembled a rotting porch, with an evil-looking skeleton in a creaky rocking chair greeting all comers. Inside, each wall was filled floor to ceiling with hundreds of tapes, many sporting gloriously oversized boxes, the most alluring of which were faced out to display their garish contents to greatest effect—the demented oldsters adorning Rabid Grannies, the irresistible lure of Suzanne Somers’ cleavage on Ants, the terrifying possibilities of Headless Eyes. The boys scattered and began to search, shouting to each other when something particularly appealing was stumbled upon: “It’s Not Human, and It’s Got an Axe!” “This one’s about killer elevators!” “Nudity on the cover!” In the days before cult film websites, the decision to rent one obscure horror flick over another was informed by box covers alone: the allure of a promising title, a bit of irresistible art, or an extravagant and enticing tagline.

Sometimes, the film would turn out to be a genuine horror classic, worthy of multiple rentals as the years went on. But even if the choice turned out to be a stinker – sometimes so bad as to prompt a second walk to Video King to rent something better – no one was ever truly disappointed. For the fun lay in the hunt—reading the taglines to each other, drooling over the cover art, suggesting potential rentals just for the sheer thrill of pronouncing the lurid titles aloud.

In the ensuing years, as such beloved video stores sold off their stock and eventually closed their doors for good, this devotion to obscure horror has engendered a collection of hundreds of horror films, all of them on VHS, most of which were purchased for a fraction of their original cost and with absolutely no familiarity with the cast or crew. For our fifth annual month of horror, we have opted to use this collection as the basis of this year’s slate of reviews.

More significantly, we have attempted to emulate the wonderful experience of browsing for unknown horror, albeit without the unparalleled glory of actually going to a video store. We devised an interactive database of horror films for our writers to sift though—a database of several hundred, mostly unknown and unheralded titles containing information available only on the boxes of the original VHS tapes, along with scans of both the front and back covers. The selections vary greatly in their countries of origin, run times, and ratings, but all are classifiably horror, and not one was made in the past decade. We asked our writers to browse the database as they would the shelves of a video store, refraining from employing any outside research, basing their selections on only what is on the sleeve. The end result is an attempt to reprise the now outmoded practice of browsing—to select without the burden of information, to watch with little knowledge of what you’re going to see, and to ensure the potential for discovery. Over the course of the month you’ll be able to share in the results of our experiment.

31 Days of Horror V begins September 30th at Midnight.

Introduction by Thomas Scalzo

Date/Title

VHS Distributor

Year
1 The Dead Don’t Die Worldvision Home Video Inc. 1975
2 The Brides Wore Blood Regal Video 1972
3 Alligator Lightning Video 1980
4 Girl in Room 2A Prism Entertainment 1973
5 Zombie High Cinema Group Home Video 1987
6 Deathdream Gorgon Video 1974
7 Link HBO Cannon Video 1986
8 The Witching Paragon Video Productions 1972
9 Nude For Satan Image Entertainment (Redemption) 1974
10 Rock ‘n’ Roll Nightmare Academy Home Entertainment 1987
11 The Strangeness Trans World Entertainment 1985
12 Brides of the Beast Regal Video 1968
13 Seven Deaths in the Cat’s Eye Prism Entertainment 1973
14 The Curse of Bigfoot Star Classics 1976
15 Dark Night of the Scarecrow Key Video 1981
16 Chopping Mall Lightning Video 1986
17 The Jar Magnum Entertainment 1984
18 Killer Workout Academy Entertainment 1986
19 Moon in Scorpio Trans World Entertainment 1987
20 The Legend of Hell House CBS FOX Video 1973
21 Cronos Vidmark Entertainment 1993
22 Black Christmas Warner Home Video 1974
23 Grave of the Vampire Unicorn Video, Inc. 1974
24 Rana: The Legend of Shadow Lake Active Home Video 1975
25 Blood Voyage After Hours 1976
26 Fiend Force Video 1981
27 Anguish Key Video 1987
28 The Chilling Coyote Home Video 1989
29 Attach of the Beast Creatures World Video Pictures 1985
30 Humanoids from the Deep Warner Home Video 1980
31 Superlatives

Reviews

Rumsey Taylor, Cullen Gallagher, Katherine Follett, Victoria Large, Megan Weireter, Matt Bailey, Leo Goldsmith, Thomas Scalzo, Eva Holland, David Carter, Chiranjit Goswami, Jenny Jediny, Teddy Blanks, Adam Balz, Stephen Snart, and Simon Augustine  /  © 2008 NotComing.com

Credits

Feature by
Rumsey Taylor, Cullen Gallagher, Katherine Follett, Victoria Large, Megan Weireter, Matt Bailey, Leo Goldsmith, Thomas Scalzo, Eva Holland, David Carter, Chiranjit Goswami, Jenny Jediny, Teddy Blanks, Adam Balz, Stephen Snart, and Simon Augustine

Posted on
29 September 2008

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Features 31 Days of Horror 1–4

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  1. marky on 29 September 2008 at 5:14 PM

    This is what I wait for all year long. I’m thrilled that you’ve changed the format somewhat and remember those days fondly when my picks were based on the cover-art alone. I find myself running to IMDB too often for further description and scores that may have ruined many a viewing experience. Good vintage horror is mostly in the eye of the beholder. Let the mayhem begin.

  2. Chiranjit on 30 September 2008 at 10:01 AM Website

    I find it eerie that the local rental store that I browsed through during my childhood was also called Video King.

  3. Nate Yapp on 30 September 2008 at 11:55 PM Website

    What a brilliant way to select the films for this year’s marathon. It’s both forward-thinking (a database of only enticements) and utterly nostalgic. I look forward to the reviews that come from it!

  4. emcflat on 6 October 2008 at 3:24 PM

    Features like this are the reason I’m fairly sure this is the greatest and most consistently awesome film review site on the web. Not Coming.. y’all are g*ddamned geniuses.

  5. B on 29 September 2009 at 7:52 PM

    Can’t wait for “31 Days of Horror VI” to start…

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