Yes, Virginia, There Are Other Halloween Time Horror Movies
Every October, my Letterboxd stream gets flooded with the same movies: Trick r Treat, Hocus Pocus, all the Halloween movies...I could go on and on. Traditions are all well and good, but I’m here to offer up some options for folks to mix it up a bit more every year.
Primal Rage (1988)
Directed by Vittorio Rambaldi
The plot of Primal Rage may sound familiar: a monkey infected with “rage” escapes a lab, but not before infecting a student on campus. Soon the “zombie rage” is spreading and mayhem ensues. But like many things, an Italian did it better. And set it during Halloween.
Great gore and effects (by director Vittorio’s father, Carlo Rambaldi), great costumes, frat bros smashing beers, and that wonderful lack of logic that happens in so many Italian horror movies make this a must-watch during October.
There’s an out-of-print blu-ray from Dark Sky, so for now you can watch it on YouTube
Slugs (1988)
Directed by J.P. Simon
From the director of one of the greatest slashers of all time, Pieces, Slugs is packed to the brim with slimy gore and is tons of fun. Toxic waste has caused slugs to crave meat (that would be you) and one kill after the other pushes the boundaries of what can be defined as goopy.
For no reason at all, it takes place on Halloween, though it definitely lacks in the Halloween spirit. There’s a Halloween party in the woods with a bunch of teenagers and NONE OF THEM DRESSED UP!?! There are a few passing mentions of this party, townsfolk wishing others a Happy Halloween, and some jack-o-lanterns, but that’s about it. Let’s call this Halloween-lite.
The Midnight Hour (1985)
Directed by Jack Bender
If you’re looking for something more family or kid-friendly, this TV movie packs in everything Halloween to its brim: parties, costumes, trick-or-treating, reading an ancient scroll in a cemetery, resurrected corpses, small-town curses, Kurtwood Smith sarcastically saying “Halloween, my favorite time of year,” and Wolfman Jack. Like Primal Rage, one of the best parts about seeing all the costumes is that they all exude FUN, versus costumes today that seem to rely on only sex or puns. To top it all off, the movie has a soundtrack including In The Midnight Hour (duh), How Soon is Now, and Bad Moon Rising. Out of any movie on this list, this one can easily make it onto your annual October watchlist.
Available to watch on YouTube
Flesheater: Revenge of the Living Dead (1988)
Directed by Bill Hinzman
The zombie in the opening sequence of Romero’s Night of the Living Dead went on to make his very own zombie movie. He was certainly taking notes during his time with Romero because Flesheater does not skimp on the gore. It opens with a group of teens taking a hayride into the forest to camp, a perfect Halloween time activity, and from there it’s one person after the other getting eviscerated, chomped, or hacked.
Hinzman died of cancer in 2012, but not without his sense of humor. He asked to be cremated and joked that if he wasn’t, that he might come back as a zombie.
Available to watch on YouTube
Cemetery of Terror (1985)
Directed by Rubén Galindo Jr.
I’ll admit, I’ve pulled a few pranks in my life, but I’ve never stolen a body from the morgue. And I certainly wouldn’t take it to a cemetery on Halloween and recite something from an old book, resulting in all the surrounding corpses rising from their graves. But if I did, I would definitely call in Hugo Stiglitz to help tackle the problem.
Blu-ray available from Vinegar Syndrome
Erica is the co-host of the Unsung Horrors podcast along with Lance Schibi. When the world is not on fire, you can find them weekly at Austin Alamo Drafthouse’s Terror Tuesdays. In the meantime, you can listen to their reviews of underseen horror movies here.