20 Horror Films For The Weekend (10/3/25)

Posted on October 3, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Horrorthon! Here’s 20 films to help get you into that October mood!

The Dreams of Jean Rollin

I have been a fan of the French director Jean Rollin ever since I first watched Night of the Hunted on one rainy night. His dream-like film were often both frightening and, in their way, rather touching. At heart, Rollin was a poet and a romantic, along with being a cinematic rebel. This October is the perfect time to get caught up on Rollin.

The Nude Vampire (1970) opens at night, with a woman wearing an orange nightgown being chased down a street by three men wearing bird-like masks. The woman runs into a man named Pierre. Pierre watches as the woman is shot in the back and then carried into what appears to be a secret club. Pierre follows and soon finds himself in the middle of a surreal world featuring cults, vampires, and one of Rollin’s trademark trips to the beach. This was Rollin’s second film. It’s surreal trip into an undergouns world and it owes more than a little to the serials that Rollin enjoyed as a young man. The Nude Vampire can be viewed on Shudder.

The Shiver of the Vampires (1971) is Rollin’s tribute to the old Universal haunted house films. A newlywed couple visits a castle that was owned by the wife’s cousins. Upon arriving, they are told that the cousins are dead and the house is now occupied by two mysterious young women. Over the course of the night, the couple discovers that the castle is also home to vampire named Isolde. This atmospheric film is best-remembered the scene with Isolde emerges from a grandfather clock. It was an image that Rollin liked so much that he reused it in several later films. Shiver of the Vampires can be viewed on Tubi.

Requiem for a Vampire (1971) tells the story of two young girls who, having committed some sort of crime while wearing clown makeup, wander through the French countryside until they come across a castle that is occupied by a sickly vampire and his servants. Atmospheric, dream-like, and sexually-charged, Requiem for a Vampire is a mix of horror, crime, and melodrama. “Let’s go to the cemetery!” Requiem for a Vampire is available on Shudder.

Lips of Blood (1975) mixes two of Rollin’s favorite themes: vampires and memory. A man sees a picture of a ruined seaside castle and becomes convinced that he’s visited it in the past. His search for castle leads not just to vampires but also a meditation on the act of remembering and how people are always trying to recapture an idealized moment of time. A truly beautiful film, Lips of Blood can be found on Shudder.

The Living Dead Girl (1981) is one of Rollin’s best films. A toxic spill brings a young woman back to life. She has only vague memories of her past life but she also has an insatiable need for blood. When her childhood friend discovers that the woman has come back to life, she tries to keep her fed. It soon becomes clear that, even though the title character would rather be allowed to return to the peace of death, her friend is determined to keep her alive. This film is a bloody, gory, and ultimately very moving examination of love and friendship. How far would you go? The Living Dead Girl can be found on Tubi.

Hacking Away At October

Graduation Day (1981) is one of my favorite of the early 80s slasher, an entertainingly lowbrow film about a killer who is seeking revenge on the high school track and field team. Christopher George is the hard-pushing coach. Michael Pataki is the ineffective principal. Linnea Quigley, who was reportedly cast as the last minute after one of the actresses walked off the set, is the closest thing the film has to a likable character. Vanna White is a high school student. The music is incredible! Felony performs a 10-minute version of Gangsters of Rock. Graduation Day can be viewed on Tubi.

If you enjoyed Christopher George in Graduation Day, you’ll definitely want to follow up with Mortuary (1983), in which he plays the creepy owner of a funeral home. When he’s not embalming, he’s yelling at his socially awkward son (Bill Paxton). Someone is committing murder in the suburbs. Could it have something to do with the weird cult that occasionally meets in the mortuary’s back room? Christopher’s wife, Lynda Day George, plays the widow with a secret. Be sure to yell, “We can see you breathing!” during the later embalming scenes. Mortuary can be viewed on Tubi.

Christopher George and Lynda Day George also appear in Pieces (1982), one of the goriest slasher films ever made. The film’s tag line was “You don’t have to go to Texas for a chainsaw massacre” and this film proves it by setting the action in Boston. This film divides it’s time between genuinely disturbing gore and scenes that are so bizarre and misconceived that you can’t help but wonder if the director was trying to satirize the slasher genre. The random kung fu fight is an obvious example, as is the scene where the killer casually steps into an elevator while carrying his chainsaw. The film’s goriest scene is disturbing up until the moment that Lynda Day George starts screaming, “BASTARD!” at the sky. Pieces can be viewed on Tubi.

Hell Night (1981) may not feature Christopher and Lynda Day George but it does feature Linda Blair, Vincent Van Patten, and the absolutely dreamy Peter Barton as part of a group of fraternity and sorority pledges who spend the night in a supposedly haunted house. Uh-oh — it turns out the house really is haunted! Though the plot features the usual slasher hijinks, Hell Night is a well-acted movie that makes good use of its location and which features a few moments of wit to go along with all the death and horror. It can be viewed on Prime.

Even by the standards of director Jim Wynorski, Sorority House Massacre 2 (1990) is a trashy film. Four sorority girls try to clean up their new house, which basically translates to taking showers, wearing lingerie, and playing with a Ouija board. Their creepy neighbor, Orville, tries to warn them that they’ve moved into the old Hockstader Place but he just keeps getting stabbed for his trouble. The film is pure exploitation but it’s also cheerfully self-aware. It’s so shameless and the story plays out with so much energy that it becomes entertaining in its own very stupid way. Gail Harris and Melissa Moore give surprisingly committed performances. Peter Spellos is the neighbor who wants to help but keeps freaking everyone out. The film’s ending is oddly effective. It can be viewed on YouTube.

Supernatural Creeps

Ulli Lommel’s The Boogeyman (1980) has an intriguing premise. What if a mirror stored the evil that it once reflected? It also has a lot of ominous country atmosphere and a good performance from Lommel’s then partner, Suzanna Love. There’s a disturbing dream sequence that still freaks me out whenever I see it. It’s also an often ludicrous film that doesn’t always make a lot of sense but it’s still the best of Lommel’s American films. John Carradine shows up as a psychiatrist. It can be viewed on Tubi.

Burial Ground: Nights of Terror (1981) is an Italian film about what happens when a bunch of decadent, sex-crazed rich people find themselves trapped in a villa by a bunch of zombie. The zombie effects are surprisingly effective. There’s a lot of gore and also a political subtext of sorts. (The dead peasants rise from the dead and use the tools of their life — like scythes — to attack the rich.) That said, most people remember this film for Peter Bark’s bizarre performance of Michael, who is supposed to be a young teenager and who has a taboo scene with his mother (played by Mariangela Giordano) that seems to come out of nowhere. There’s some debate over whether or not Bark was an actual teenager or an elderly little person. I still have to cover my eyes during the finale. It can be viewed on Tubi.

Zombie 5: Killing Birds (1988) is another Italian zombie film. Ignore the “Five” in the title, this film isn’t an actual sequel to anything. A group of college students head to down to steamy bayous and find themselves besieged by the living dread. Birds may or may not be involved. Robert Vaughn hams it up as a blind man. There’s a genuinely frightening nightmare sequence. It can be viewed on Tubi.

Shock Waves (1977) also features zombies. In this case, they’re living underwater, off the coast of Florida for some reason. Shock Waves is a truly scary film. The zombies are relentless and brutal and the scene where they emerge from the water is a 100 times more frightening than it has any right to be. Brooke Adams plays the tourist who screams a lot. Peter Cushing is a mad scientist. John Carradine is a crusty old boat captain. Shock Waves can be viewed on Tubi.

Count Dracula (1970) stars Christopher Lee in a version of the Dracula story that sticks closer to the original Bram Stoker novel than any of the Hammer films. This version was directed by Jess Franco and features none other than Klaus Kinski as Renfield. Lee’s refined, aristocratic Dracula is quite a contrast to the feral version of the character that he often played for Hammer. Lee always cited this as the only Dracula film that he took pride in. It can be viewed on Tubi.

They’re Coming To Get You

Chopping Mall (1986) features the latest in mall security. Instead of security guards, the mall will now be patrolled by security robots. It’s all good and well until the robots malfunction and start chasing down the hot young employees who foolishly decided to spend the night in their store. Directed by Jim Wynorski and featuring Kelli Maroney, Russell Todd, Gerrit Graham, Barbara Crampton, and Dick Miller, Chopping Mall is a lot of fun. I don’t know if Wynorski has ever topped the exploding head scene. The film can be viewed on Tubi.

Hellmaster (1992) features John Saxon as a crazed and apparently immortal professor-turned-cult-leader who injects his followers with drugs that turn them into mindless zombies. David Emge, who was in Dawn of the Dead, plays the reporter who is haunted by Saxon’s crimes. Saxon is certainly intent on turning people into zombies but the film never really explains why. Still, the film has an intensity to it that I appreciate. John Saxon makes for a strong villain. The film can be viewed on Tubi.

Something Weird (1967) tells the story of Mitch. He gets electrocuted, which leaves him both psychic and disfigured. While his best friend wants to Mitch’s psychic abilities to defeat the communists, Mitch instead accepts a deal with a witch. She takes away his disfigurement and soon, Mitch is a celebrity. However, the witch doesn’t do anything for free. Eventually, Mitch takes LSD to try to strengthen his powers. Director Herschell Gordon Lewis was better-known for his gore films but Something Weird lives up to its title. With its mix of witches, ESP, and LSD, it’s a true horror time capsule. The film can be viewed on Tubi.

Terror At London Bridge (1985) features Jack The Ripper time traveling to Arizona. Can David Hasselhoff stop him!? Watch the film on Tubi to find out. The film will probably be best appreciated by David Hasselhoff fans but hey, who isn’t a fan of the Hoff?

Track of the Moon Beast (1976) is a film that is so much a product of the 70s that it deserves to be put in a museum. Come for the story of an innocent man transformed into a monster by a moon rock and stay for the lengthy performance of California Lady. Watch the film on YouTube!

Check out my previous week’s movies by clicking here!

Here’s The Trailer For The Boogeyman!

Posted on January 30, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Another year, another Stephen King adaptation.

The Boogeyman is based on a short story that King wrote in 1973. Obviously, King is a big name in horror but how can any film called Boogeyman hope to top the work of Ulli Lommel?

Here’s the trailer:

Horror Scenes That I Love: Smashing The Mirror in The Boogey Man

Posted on October 21, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Ulli Lommel’s 1980 slasher film The Boogey Man is a pretty silly movie but I do like this scene. The idea of seeing something in the reflection of a mirror that doesn’t appear to actually be in the room is one of my top nightmare fuels.

Plus, after the storms we had last night and the fact that there’s still debris all over the place and just driving from one location to another is kind of a pain in the ass right now, there’s just something satisfying about watching a mirror get destroyed.

Break, baby, break!

Oh my God, Ulli Lommel’s Back and So Is The Boogeyman…

Posted on February 1, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Apparently, Ulli Lommel is taking a break from making low-budget serial killer biopics to make another sequel to his 1980 film, The Boogeyman! This sequel will be titled Boogeyman: Reincarnation, which is an improvement over the previous Boogeyman sequel, Revenge of the Boogeyman.

(As a film blogger writing about Ulli Lommel, I am now contractually obligated to point out that Revenge of the Boogeyman was largely made up of flashbacks to the first Boogeyman film.)

Now, here at the Shattered Lens offices, we have a long-running debate going over whether Ulli Lommel or Uwe Boll is the worst director of all time. Usually, I pick Lommel but let’s give credit where credit is due. Both The Boogeyman and The Devonsville Terror had plenty of spooky atmosphere. They certainly were far better than Curse of the Zodiac or any of Lommel’s more recent films.

(As a film blogger writing about Ulli Lommel, I am now contractually obligated to point out that Curse of the Zodiac is the worst film ever made.)

And the trailer for Boogeyman: Reincarnation may not look great but it doesn’t look as bad as most of Lommel’s films. In fact, I would even say that Boogeyman: Reincarnation looks almost good enough to be mistaken for a Bill Rebane film!

Anyway, here’s the trailer for Boogeyman: Reincarnation, which has no release date but which will probably end up on Netflix at some point in the future.

Horror Film Review: The Boogeyman (dir. by Ulli Lommel)

Posted on October 18, 2011 by Lisa Marie Bowman

So, last night, we finally got a proper storm here in Texas and wow, was I happy! Quite frankly, it’s not October unless you’ve got thunder, lightening, and howling wind. Of course, I also ended up getting caught out in the middle of it all and ended up getting soaked just from running from my car to the front door of my house. Seriously, it’s amazing how quickly your life can turn into a wet t-shirt contest. (Once I got inside, I did what anyone would do and jumped on twitter so I could tell everyone I was soaked. “OMG, I’m so wet!” I tweeted, with the most innocent of intentions.) Anyway, as I dried off, I watched The Boogeyman off of Fearnet. No, I’m not talking about The Boogeyman that starred the oldest son from Seventh Heaven. No, The Boogeyman I watched is a genuinely weird little artifact from 1980 and it was directed by the infamous Ulli Lommel.

A hybrid of Halloween, the Exorcist, and probably every other horror film that had been released up to 1980, The Boogeyman opens up with siblings Willy and Lacey spying on their mother having sex with her creepy boyfriend who is wearing a nylon stocking over his face. So, naturally, Willy grabs a butcher knife and stabs the man to death. This act of violence is reflected in the bedroom mirror and, not surprisingly, this leads to the dead boyfriend’s evil spirit getting trapped in the mirror. Or maybe it’s just the evil of the act itself. Or maybe it’s … well, there’s a lot of possibilities and it’s hard not to consider them all because the film considers none of them, beyond the fact that the dead boyfriend is still in the mirror (which, let’s give credit where credit is due, is actually a pretty neat idea for a horror film).

Anyway, we jump forward 20 years and now, the brother and sister have grown up. They both live on a farm with their judgmental, self-righteous, ballet-hating aunt and uncle. (Okay, I’m projecting a little here because I have relatives who remind me of both of these characters and I always hated having to spend any time with them over the summer because I always knew they’d be all like, “Look at us, we’re farm folk, we’re better than you and who needs books or ballet when you got foul-smelling chickens and cows that’ll kick you in the face just because they feel like it…” Seriously.) Willy (now played by Nicholas Love) has been mute since the day he brutally butchered his mother’s boyfriend and oddly enough, no one seems to be disturbed by the fact that he’s a murderer. (“He’s a good boy,” his uncle says at one point, “I just wish he could talk.”) Lacey (played by Suzanna Love) is married to Jake Scully (Ron James) and they have a son. Judging from the uniform he’s wearing when he’s first introduced, Jake is apparently some sort of law enforcement guy. He’s also a total and complete chauvinistic toadsucker who (though it’s never acknowledged in the film) is pretty much responsible for every terrible thing that’s about to happen.

Lacey is suffering from intense nightmares (the nightmare sequence, by the way, is one of the film’s genuinely disturbing moments) and she keeps waking everyone up at night with her screams. Well, of course, Jake can’t have this because they’re farm folk, after all! So, Jake has to act like a man about it and chastises Lacey for not suppressing her feelings. When that doesn’t work, he drags her off to a therapist. This would seem like a good idea except for the fact that the only therapist in their little rural community appears to be John Carradine. Carradine grimaces through his three scenes, tells Lacey that she should go back to her childhood home and see that it’s just a normal house despite its history of brutal murder, and then leaves to collect his paycheck.

Lacey says she doesn’t want to go back to the house where the most Hellish thing ever occurred. Jake tells her that she’s being silly and that she’s going to go relive the worst event of her life whether she wants to or not. Seriously, Jake sucks.

So, Jake drags Lacey back to her childhood home. The house is now inhabited by two teenage sisters and their obnoxious little brother who spends his time running around and screaming, “Boogeyman!” at random. He’s kind of a brat but don’t worry — he eventually yells “Boogeyman!” one too many times and ends up getting his neck crushed by a falling window. That scene, by the way, genuinely shocked me because you just don’t expect to see little kids dispatched so graphically. But he really kinda deserved it, if just to keep him from growing up to be like Jake.

But before the little boy gets killed, we get to watch Lacey and Jake wander through the house. It turns out that, even though the house has changed owners, the exact same mirror is still hanging in the bedroom. Lacey looks at the mirror, sees her mother’s dead boyfriend’s reflection, and proceeds to shatter the mirror into a hundred pieces. Jake replies that she’s being silly and proceeds to put almost all the broken shards of the evil mirror into a paper bag so he can take them back to the farm with him. Why? Well, because he’s Jake so anything he does must be right…

Of course, by bringing the mirror to the farm (and then deciding to put it back together — really, Jake?), Jake has also brought the evil spirit of the dead boyfriend with him as well. Once again, Jake sucks. Though, in his defense, Lacey was having nightmares and Willy nearly strangled a neighbor girl, before John Carradine even suggested going to the house. And mom’s dead boyfriend liked to wear a stocking over his head but was he really evil? After all, he’s the one who ended up getting stabbed to death…well, regardless, now people start dying and eventually a priest has to come up to the house and try to remember the final scene of the Exorcist. So, thanks a lot, Jake!

The Boogeyman is one of those odd films that always seems to pop up on TV and hidden away in various DVD horror compilations. Through no fault of my own, I’ve actually seen it a handful of times and every time, I’ve discovered something else that doesn’t really work. The last time I watched it, I found myself concentrating on just how unconvincing all the actors (with the exception of Suzanna and Nicholas Love) were.* Slowly but surely, I found myself growing obsessed with actor Ron James, who played Lacey’s husband with all the style and charisma of a cardboard cut-out. (Of course, it doesn’t help that James was playing a character who, to put it charitably, is kind of a sexist pig. “C’mon, Lacey, cheer up!” he says as he forces her to visit the house where the most traumatic event of her childhood occurred.) Whenever the movie hit one of its many slow spots, I asked myself, “I wonder if Ron James gave up during the first day of shooting or the second?”

And yet, oddly, this is a film that’s stuck with me. The film has an effectively Southern gothic atmosphere to it and even the stiff performances and unnatural dialogue help to give the film a certain dream-like atmosphere. I know quite a few people who argue that Ulli Lommel is the worst director of all time** but he actually comes up with some effectively surreal and disturbing images. The sight of the dead boyfriend, with a nylon stocking pulled down of her face, suddenly staring at Lacey from the mirror is genuinely frightening, as is Lacey’s nightmare in which she’s bound and gagged by a knife-wielding assailant. The idea of mirrors storing everything that they witness is an intriguing one and there’s a nicely surreal sequence in which poor, mute Willy paints over every reflective surface he can find. Whether by intentional design or not, these flashes of genuine fright and oddness are all the more effective because they’re surrounded by such mundane material. The end result is a film that’s either brilliant or terrible depending on which point you actually start watching it.

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* Actually, the Loves were pretty bad too.

**By the way, the worst director of all time is Rod “Straw Dogs” Lurie.

6 More Wonderful Trailers

Posted on August 22, 2010 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Here’s the latest installment of my series on some of my favorite grindhouse and exploitation trailers.

1) Death Has Blue Eyes — This is actually a really, really bad Greek movie, a movie that is not only generally incoherent but deadly dull as well. Of course, some of my reaction has to do with the fact that I’ve only seen a scratchy, fuzzy version of it on an imported VHS tape. This film is also known as The Para-Psychics but I think Death Has Blue Eyes sounds so much better, don’t you?

2) Massacre Mafia Style — I haven’t seen this movie and, unlike Death Has Blue Eyes, coming across the trailer didn’t fill me with any real desire to track it down. I really don’t even care much for the trailer but I’m including it here because its just so over-the-top and violent. How many people get killed over the course of this trailer? I lost count.

3) The Boogeyman (1980) — This is actually a pretty good and atmospheric little horror film. Not to be confused with the terrible Barry Watson movie that came out a couple of years ago.

4) The Pack — This trailer once again establishes that I am right to be scared of dogs. According to my paternal grandmother, Joe Don Baker is somehow related to me but I’ve never been sure how. I’ve always been more interested in just how exactly grandma became a Joe Don Baker fan.

5) Switchblade Sisters — One of the ultimate “girl gang” films and a perfect example of how a movie can both be grindhouse and feminist at the same time. I love this movie.

6) Strange Behavior — Finally, let’s wrap up this installment with the trailer for one of the greatest film’s ever made, 1981’s Strange Behavior (a.k.a. Dead Kids).