New month, new horror recommendations from Deep Cuts Rising. This installment features five selections reflecting the month of August 2024.
Regardless of how they came to be here, or what they’re about, these past movies can generally be considered overlooked, forgotten or unknown.
This month’s offerings include a horror take on a classic fairy tale, a creature-feature, and more.
Dead Kids (1981)
Dead Kids a.k.a. Strange Behavior (1981)
Directed by Michael Laughlin.
While College Colors Day (August 30) is a time to be proud of your alma mater, the students and faculty of Galesburg University likely feel less spirited after the events of Dead Kids. In this sci-fi/horror chiller, college experiments on a Midwestern community’s young people result in murder. Several, in fact. The guinea pigs’ homicidal impulses amount to a few rather creepy sequences in this “bad science” slasher.
Dead Kids, also known as Strange Behavior, is brought up in talks about Disturbing Behavior (1998), on account of their similar setups. However, the follow-throughs are like night and day. This movie has also a splendid score by Tangerine Dream.
If you can’t score it on Blu-ray, stream Dead Kids on Midnight Pulp.
The Kiss (1988)
The Kiss (1988)
Directed by Pen Densham.
It’s gonna be International Cat Day again (August 8), so here’s a horror movie about a unique feline foe. In this script by Stephen Volk (Ghostwatch) and Tom Ropelewski — with considerable revisions by the director — a teenager (Meredith Salenger) is mourning her recently departed mother, who died in a freak car accident some months earlier. Now the main character and her father have taken in the girl’s estranged and very odd aunt (Joanna Pacula).
Acting a bit like a supernatural twist on The Stepfather, The Kiss is not an unpredictable movie. Nevertheless, it has plenty of entertainment value. And a cat creature.
The Kiss isn’t easy to find (for cheap) on DVD, but digitizations are available online until this movie finds its way to streaming or Blu-ray.
Mansquito (2005)
Mansquito a.k.a. Mosquito Man (2005)
Directed by Tibor Takács.
World Mosquito Day (August 20) celebrates Sir Ronald Ross’s discovery about mosquitoes — female mosquitoes transmit malaria between humans — rather than these annoying bloodsuckers themselves. And if a regular-sized skeeter’s bite isn’t bad enough, then imagine just how painful the sting of Mansquito is! In this made-for-Syfy monster movie, one from the director of The Gate, scientists’ pursuit to cure West Nile virus ends with horrifying human-mosquito hybrids.
Mansquito (also known as Mosquito Man) has nothing on David Cronenberg’s The Fly, but fans of body horror, practical effects, and actors in creature suits should, at the very least, enjoy those aspects here.
You can stream Mansquito on Prime Video as well as other streaming sites like Roku.
The Red Shoes (2005)
The Red Shoes (2005)
Directed by Kim Yong-gyun.
The namesake of The Red Shoes (Bunhongshin) makes it a perfect fit for National Secondhand Wardrobe Day (August 25). This entry from South Korea’s period of “cursed objects” horror movies is a loose adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s original story. The shoes aren’t even red.
In this heady and visually engaging movie, the protagonist (Kim Hye-soo) leaves her cheating husband behind and then tries to make a life for herself and her young daughter. In the meantime, she finds an entrancing pair of bright pink pumps on the subway. As her obsession with the shoes grows, so does the curse it brings to every new wearer. For an even darker movie, the hard-to-find director’s cut pulls no punches.
The Red Shoes is currently streaming on Hoopla, Kanopy, and Vudu.
Wither (2012)
Wither a.k.a. Vittra (2012)
Directed by Sonny Laguna & Tommy Wiklund.
While you could watch Wither (Vittra) for Relaxation Day (August 15), this movie is anything but relaxing. No, Sweden’s first cinema-released zombie flick is gory, grimy, and bleak. Here we have young Swedes looking for R&R and instead encounter an entity from folklore known as a vittra.
This Swedish homage to Evil Dead doesn’t win points for originality, and the characters don’t leave a great impression, yet overall the movie is a nasty good time.
Wither is currently available on Tubi.
No genre is as prolific as horror, so it’s understandable that movies fall through the cracks all the time. That is where this recurring column, Deep Cuts Rising, comes in. Each installment of this series will spotlight several unsung or obscure movies from the past — some from way back when, and others from not so long ago — that could use more attention.
The post 5 Deep Cut Horror Movies to Seek Out in August 2024 appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.