Customer Reviews

Fangoria's 101 Best Horror Movies You've Never Seen: A Celebration of the World's Most Unheralded Fright Flicks

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Adam Lukeman's 101 BEST HORROR MOVIES YOU'VE NEVER SEEN: A CELEBRATION OF THE WORLD'S MOST UNHERALDED FRIGHT FLICKS is a great resource for fans of the horror genre, and younger fans or those new to the genre--that is, those who don't have the time or resources to go back and check out every obscure horror flick of the past--might especially find it helpful.

Of course, hard-core genre fans are sure to find some entries in the book with which they are very familiar (probably even some cherished favorites). GINGER SNAPS (2001), EXORCIST III (1990), and George Romero's DAY OF THE DEAD (1985) are a few notable examples. I am a life-long horror fan, however--one who is now staring the age of 50 damn near straight in the eyes--and I am not the least bit ashamed to report that this book spurred me to check out at least a dozen great flicks that, for various reasons, I might otherwise have forever passed over. For example, I've been a longtime admirer of auteur Frank Henenlotter's quirkily campy classic BASKET CASE (1982) and his 1990 Frankenstein send-up FRANKENHOOKER, but I'd never heard of his even better sci-fi satire BRAIN DAMAGE (1988) until I picked up a copy of Lukeman's tome. And though I'd heard a bit of buzz about maverick independent director Larry Fessenden, I'd never been motivated to actively seek out any of his movies until I read Lukeman's review of Fessenden's 2001 opus WENDIGO. The review intrigued me so much that I secured a copy of WENDIGO on DVD and immediately gave it a serious screening. I loved that flick so much that I went through a lot of trouble to get copies of Fessenden's two earlier flicks NO TELLING (1991) and HABIT (1997)--both of which were well worth to effort to locate--and he has since become my all-time favorite indie director.

No doubt many longtime genre fans will disagree with some of the reviews in this book. In fact, some will argue that a few entries are downright dogs that don't even belong in the book at all. But it's unlikely that Lukeman or the FANGORIA editors expect every serious genre fan to see eye-to-eye with them on every film mentioned. Instead, Lukeman and his cohorts simply hope to expose fans to some good--and, in some cases, really great--horror flicks that have been panned by fans and critics in the past.

And isn't that the point? I don't know about other horror fans, but I read the articles and reviews in FANGORIA and other horror magazines and web sites to help me weed out some of the genuine stinkers at the box office and the home-video store. I mean, I just don't have the time and money to watch everything offered up in the name of horror. But realistically, I know that every once in a while, a good flick falls through the cracks and doesn't get a fair shake. With Lukeman's 101 BEST HORROR MOVIES YOU'VE NEVER SEEN: A CELEBRATION OF THE WORLD'S MOST UNHERALDED FRIGHT FLICKS, some of those deserving flicks will get a second chance at life...and death!

It seems like many of the reviewers are looking down their noses at this book since they'd seen all the movies (then why buy it?) or think that the reviews are too short. For my purposes, however, it's been a godsend. Having really gotten into horror movies the past few years, I was running out of movies to rent at the video store. This book really provided me with a whole host of movies to check out and explore, in a wide range horror genres - monster, slasher, zombie, vampires...you name it. The only downside may be that some of these may be hard to come by on video or DVD these days.

This book is such a fantastic resource, and I either take it with me or skim through it every time I head out to the video store. If you're a horror fan and are looking for some movies that you may have overlooked or weren't sure were worth renting, then check this out.

Solid good informative book on more obscure horror films. I watch a lot of horror and out of the 100 mentioned I only saw about 25-30. The rest were obscure yet interesting films worth checking out. I would name them all here but that would take the fun out of reading the book. The book contains more than just the names, it gives descriptions, what sub-genre they're classified in such as ''slasher'', ''supernatural, etc.. it also gives the actors in the film, a brief description of the plot plus cool pictures from the films.

Here's some of the more common ones in the book you might have seen already, especially if you are a big horror/suspense fan.
The Changeling
Maniac
Last House on the Left
When A Stranger Calls
Pumpkinhead
Stir Of Echoes
Exorcist 3

Then some more obscure ones ive never heard of until I read the book such as..
Funny Games- I just purchased this one and all i can say is wow, i wouldve never found this one if it werent this book most likely. ''An Austrian Horror Film''
Cherry Falls- a lower budget film with some of todays young stars
Luther the Geek
Christmas Evil and tons more

This book covers all kinds of suspense/horror films from all different countries. In this book you will find some foreign gems and underappreciated works. Highly Recommended. Enjoy.

i am a big horror buff and i have a hard time finding out about good and obscure horrors that i haven't seen yet. i was wary picking up this book because i figured i had probably already seen most of them. but i was pleasantly surprised. i hadn't heard of about 70% of the movies in here. it's a really good guide. it's given me 6 months worth of movies i can check out. and i like the way they laid it out--it's easy to read, and it's got a lot of good pieces of facts and trivia. i also like all the pictures. definitely a great investment

Adam Lukeman, Fangoria's 101 Best Horror Movies You've Never Seen (Three Rivers Press, 2003)

The main criticism of this book is that, well, the target audience for this book is going to have seen a lot of these movies. Like every other reviewer I've read on this topic, I've seen the majority of them as well. But it's still refreshing to see some of these movies ending up on SOMEONE'S 101-best list, as they're entirely underrated (Wendigo, for example, or Day of the Dead) or suffered from little or no American distribution (Cronos, A Chinese Ghost Story, etc.).

Rather than a definitive compendium, look upon this book as a checklist of all those movies you saw once, liked, and forgot to re-rent, or the ones you forgot about. And if you want to keep true to the title, give your copy to one of your non-horror-loving friends with a list of where to start. (Start someone out with some of the movies in here and they'll never watch another horror flick again...) And then go write up your own list of the 101 best horror films no one has seen. We need more of them. *** ½

I'm not a big horror fan by any stretch, but I've seen a bunch of these. They probably included some as "must see" films. I like the fact that they include some foreign films or foreign directors. Most reviews are two pages, include a summary of the movie, something about the actors' other work, trivia about the movie and a black and white picture. Definitely worth the money.

I find it difficult to find lists of obscure horror films that I haven't seen, and this book give me 96 that I haven't seen (though many of the 96 I have heard of.) While I do not agree with every review (I am generally not a fan of Italian gore) I have already discovered 2 gems (Christmas Evil and The Dentist) that I would have passed over many times before. All and all a great effort for gore hounds.

The book is an excellent resource for Cult film fans through the latter 20th century. Some of the movies referenced are good examples of true grindhouse horror fare.

Hey guys, it's a good thing to find a rollicking discussion of horror movies, anywhere you find it. I haven't seen Fangoria's book yet, but I took advantage of the "Look Inside" feature to page through the Table of Contents and get the rundown on exactly which 101 films we're talkin' about. I was impressed, I suppose, that they'd come up with 41 that I hadn't seen--some of which I'd heard of, but I lumped all the hadn't-seen's in the same pile of 41. So I've watched 60 of them. Jeez, do I waste my time with quality material, or what? <evil grin>

No seriously, at least a couple dozen of the titles look very interesting. What I'm not sure of, is what I would get, by buying the book, that I don't already have, with the list itself. Trivia? Photographs? Is it a fun toy? I'm always up for more fun toys about horror movies. The writing doesn't have to be good. I don't expect it to be, after what's been said already. But is it fun to look at?

Just a few comments on the titles they picked, given
that I don't know squat about 41 of them:

--> why so few with overt humor and/or camp? granted, they don't need to tell us about DEAD-ALIVE (BRAINDEAD) or EVIL DEAD 2 (duh), but what about more obscure gems like the hilarious INTRUDER or CURDLED?

--> it's cool to see my main man Stephen K. so well-represented: who woulda thunk it that a list of 101 "unheralded" films would include *two* stories written by King: NIGHT FLIER and APT PUPIL? As it happens, SK has made a definitive list of his top 10 favorite adaptations of his fiction, and APT PUPIL is Numero Uno. I can believe it. NIGHT FLIER is also superb: Miguel Ferrer fans: you *do* want to see this one.

--> it's curious how a lot of the most interesting films you find, are follow-throughs from other films by the same filmmaker, or with the same actor, or from a story by the same author--like what Michael Gates was saying in his review about going from film to film made by Henenlotter and Fessenden--and I notice some of that in the Fangoria list: SESSION 9 (made by Brad Anderson, whom I first encountered in THE MACHINIST, which is much better than SESSION 9, actually, and if anything, darker--and it's Christian Bale being freaky and emaciated--like *that* never happens), and RABID (which anyone w/ even a half-hearted Cronenberg fixation has found already), and PUMPKINHEAD (which *might* be a rare gem but it stars highly visible, endlessly lust-worthy--what? I can't be XX in this forum?--Lance Henriksen, in one of the few, if not the only, roles he's had, that does justice...etc, so of course it's never going to get obscure--and all of that w/o even mentioning that Stan Winston made the durn thing, and made the *creature*--I mean, when Stan Winston makes a creature, I get in line to see it--it's not "unheralded" to me!), and even something so deliciously bizarro as SANTE SANGRO is still easy to think of, if you're the sort of warped individual who not only *enjoyed* EL TOPO, without wincing even (!), but went looking for more stuff by Jodorowski (too bad he didn't get to make DUNE, after all <sniff>).

Anyway, you get my point: I always look for a list like this to give me some titles that have no connection, no 7-degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon-in-A-Stir-of-Echoes with anything else I've ever seen--which is well-nigh impossible, I suppose, but still it keeps happening.

For example, a few nights ago they showed on the SciFi channel an unbelievably good little monster movie called SPLINTER. I just about got down on my knees in front of the tube and prayed to do something worthy for this great benison that hath been bestoweth upon me, that's how UN-expectedly terrific it was. I just love a surprise. So...I hope the 41 remaining films I haven't seen surprise me!

Howzabout we all throw out our TEN (no more) non-obvious faves that *didn't* make the Fangoria list--like, what would be really unique about your list, what particular films would make it special? These do NOT need to be really *good* horror movies, just really *interesting* ones that are going unheralded, in your opinion.

Here are mine:

TITUS (it's all about the visuals--no more, no less)
BABY CART AT THE RIVER STYX (trippy, operatic)
THE WILD BUNCH (recent director's cut)(yes, it's horror, from the bugs at the beginning to the awe-inspiring climax)
INTRUDER (the store! great splatter tableaux)
SARS WARS: BANGKOK ZOMBIE CRISIS (camp done Thai)
THE MACHINIST (astonishingly red blood, dark gorgeous machines, the brain a malfunctioning machine; far & away the most intellectually challenging title on this list)
THE UNTOLD STORY (lots of alternate titles)(Anthony Wong, ever intriguing, is simply *harrowing*)
AT MIDNIGHT I'LL TAKE YOUR SOUL AWAY (forget plot, character, everything, just pay attention to the crazy man: what he say, what he do)
KONTROLL (Budapest subway netherworld; dark heroics)
THE COOK, THE THIEF, HIS WIFE AND HER LOVER
(if you don't think it's horror, watch it,keeping in mind that the emotion of horror is terror plus disgust, AKA fear and loathing,then come back and tell me why you still don't think it's horror, 'cause I'm actually curious to know)

Maybe some of those are just peculiar... I do like
visuals... and I left off the good one about the women who eat fetus dumplings to get younger... oh, you know about that one already...

--Fiona Webster
fi@oceanstar.com

P.S. You may be wondering why I gave the book 3 stars when I'm openly admitting that all I've read of it is the Table of Contents: it's because they won't post a review until you give the book a rating. I tried. I really did. <sigh>

As a long time horror fan I was happy to find a list of lesser-known films to help me compile a bill of fare for movie nights. A couple of times a year I like to gather a group of friends and stay up until the wee hours hopped up on caffeine and cheez covered snacks for a night of fright and delight. The listings in this book will definitely help me keep the selections fresh and interesting.

I have to admit, I was familiar with at least ninety percent of the films listed in here, but had written off a good number of them as dreck. Looking through the reviews and trivia peaked my interest enough for me to drop a few bucks here on Amazon to get some used copies for under the price of a movie ticket. I've watched a couple of the flicks and was pleasantly surprised by them. I honestly didn't know that there were so many movies out there based (albeit loosely in some cases) on the writings of HP Lovecraft.

The one complaint I have is in the actual mechanics of the writing. I first looked through the book fairly late at night, pretty much just glancing over the reviews, looking for a couple of flicks to try out. I found some that looked interesting and folded the pages over to order them the next day. Last night I was flipping through those listings and reading some of the passages to my wife to try and persuade her to give some of the new movies a shot this weekend. Reading some of the passages aloud actually made her laugh at the clunky writing style and fact that the prose was littered with sentence fragments and run ons that made me have to pause awkwardly to breathe.

There is a lot of interesting information here, but whoever edited this book should have gotten a good night's sleep and made one more pass before sending it off to the publisher.