Stefan shares a list of great spooky films to check out!
I grew up in a household of five kids, including myself. I am the oldest of a set of triplets, with an older brother and sister. We were a strong knitted group of siblings that let each other hang out with them and their friends, but also left each other to their own devices.
Which also stretched over to our parents, who we, looking back, took advantage of this to watch things much earlier than would be considered the norm. This is because my mom was a librarian and didn’t bother examining what films my brother was renting and letting me see. At around the age of five I started to see films like Reanimator, The Thing, and whatever slasher of the time.
All of this led me to liking the horror genre from an early age, but I didn’t really start to appreciate it until about ten years ago. As a kid my brain couldn’t understand Ridley Scott’s Alien was commenting on sexual assault, but ten years ago I could wrap my head around that It Follows is commenting on sexually transmitted diseases.
It Follows was the film that I first saw that made me realize the layers of commentary prevalent in horror. Before I was just seeing the veneer of blood and gore over allegory. When I was able to look at the substance within I became obsessed with the genre.
Here are just a few films I’ve discovered recently that are for those like me, who appreciate these themes.
Sundelbolong
Available on Shudder with English Subtitles
A 1981 film from Indonesia starring Suzzanna concerns a newly married, former prostitute named Alisa, who is raped by her previous employers. When she goes to the authorities her allegations are dismissed due to her previous line of work. Alisa, due to how marriage is looked upon, is forced into shame and commits suicide. Returning as a ghost she sets about seeking revenge on those who wronged her. It’s a powerful feminist narrative that never crosses into the territory of exploitative or glorified. The rape scene is done with no nudity and mostly off screen, men listening through a door; all the men in the film are either inept or sexist, usually both, with not even Alisa’s perfect husband escaping this.
The Long Walk
Available on Shudder and Tubi with English Subtitles
Set in the near future, The Long Walk is a science-fiction horror film from the country of Laos. It tells the story of an old hermit who, as a kid befriended a dying teenage girl. Fifty years later and her ghost has remained by his side, able to teleport him back and forth between time, in the hope of circumventing his mother’s death. The consequences are devastating, creating a suspenseful and emotionally charged film that draws comparisons to the likes of The Sixth Sense, Looper, and Frailty. I may definitely have shed some tears at the final five seconds of The Long Walk.
Not to be confused with The Long Walk from this year.
The Devil’s Bath
Available on Shudder with English Subtitles
A historical horror drama set in 1750s Austria that reaccounts the events that led a woman, who hated her life and marriage so much, the only option she felt she had was to commit suicide by proxy. In the era of the Holy Roman Empire, acts of suicide by proxy, became a real endemic. Such “suicides” were when somebody purposefuly commited a crime that would result in their execution, an execution that would occur after they confessed their sin and be allowed into heaven upon their death. It didn’t matter the deed of the crime, as confession was enough to qualify. The beginning of the film sets the tone in a way that makes you think such an act is all upon the women forced to make that choice, but ends with an act even more horrifying but one we can now understand, due to a brutally-taxing atmosphere and events that any fan of Ari Aster film will love. As it stands I can’t decide what is my favorite horror film of all time: Hereditary or The Devil’s Bath.
This piece is a part of SideQuesting’s Spooky Theme Week! Join us and see what scares us!
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