halloween movie marathon 2025

Tales of Halloween (2015)

Posted on October 31, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

Tales of Halloween is a horror anthology from 2015, with segments that interlocks with each other. And all happening around Halloween, of course! And there sure are a good mix of treats here, with a total of 10 different segments spanning over a watch time of 1 hour and 32 minutes. This means these are more or less a collection of slightly intertwined shorts, so let’s start with breaking them down:

The first segment is called Sweet Tooth, written and directed by Dave Parker. Mikey, a kid who has just finished trick or treating, comes home to find that his parents are away, and the babysitter Lizzy and her boyfriend Kyle are there and watches a horror movie. While Mikey enjoys his treats, they start telling him about the legend of “Sweet Tooth“, which is an urban legend about a boy named Timothy Blake who had parents that never allowed him to eat candy. I guess you can have an idea how this one goes…it’s okay to tone down on the sugar intake for your kiddies, but be reasonable and let them enjoy some treats every now and then, too! Otherwise…things can go bad.

Then we get to watch The Night Billy Raised Hell, directed by Darren Lynn Bousman and written by Clint Sears. Billy Thompson, ready for some trick or treating, has dressed up as a red devil and is accompanied by his older sister Britney and her boyfriend Todd. They trick him into throwing an egg at Mr Abbadon’s house because he never gives out candy. Unfortunately, this seems to awaken the Halloween spirit in the old man, and he forces Billy to join him around the neighborhood and plays twisted tricks on people.

We’re far from done with tricks as the next segment is called Trick, directed by Adam Gierasch and written by Greg Commons. The friends Nelson, Maria, James and Caitlyn are smoking pot and handing out candy to the trick or treaters, while watching Night of the Living Dead. Sounds like a cozy Halloween evening. This takes an unexpected turn when one of the trick or treaters, a little girl dressed up as a witch, stabs Nelson in the stomach when he opens the door. More kids in Halloween costumes seem to be hellbent on taking these people out…but what could be the reason? Hmmm…

Then we head over to the segment called The Weak and the Wicked, directed by Paul Solet and written by Molly Millions. There we meet Alice, a sociopathic pyromaniac and her lackeys who is after some guy dressed up as a cowboy. Before they can do him much harm, they get interrupted by an other guy who is dressed up as some kind of demon and seems to on a quest for revenge. Don’t we all love seeing the bullies get their comeuppance?

Next up is Grim Grinning Ghost (no, not the Haunted Mansion kind), written and directed by Axelle Carolyn. Lynn is attending the Halloween party at her mother’s house (the mother played by a familiar face in the horror movie genre: Lin Shaye). Her mother tells her the story of Mary Bailey, a disfigured girl who was mocked all her life for her appearance. After she died, it is said that her ghost comes back every Halloween to laugh at how people look behind their backs, and steal their eyes if they turn around to look at her. So, this one’s easy-peasy: just don’t turn around and look if you hear someone laughing behind your back! Or…that would be too easy, of course.

In Ding Dong, written and directed by Lucky McKee, we meet a married coupled named Jack and Bobbie. Bobbie is totally distraught over not having any children of her own, and is treating her husband in rather disturbing ways…and if angered enough she transforms into her true self, which is a rage-filled red-skinned demon who could’ve been Lipstick-Face Demon’s younger sister. Yeah…I don’t think motherhood is the right thing for her, and it seems her husband also secretly agrees. Obviously a bit of a metaphor-segment, this one.

Up next is This Means War, written and directed by Andrew Kasch and John Skipp. Boris, who proudly decorates his house and lawn for Halloween each year with lots of great props and even an animatronic skeleton, is facing some serious trouble when the neighbors over the street scare the kids away by blasting some loud punk rock music. Neither of these rivals wants to back down, ending in a duel between them.

And then…ooooh boy…comes the segment called Friday the 31st, directed by Mike Mendez, written by Mendez and Dave Parker. Already from the title and start you see this is a Friday the 13th parody as a teenage girl is running through the woods, trying to escape some deformed and deranged Jason Voorhees-like killer. As cheesy as this setup is, just wait, as you’ve seen nothing yet. He manages to kill the girl, and then…a UFO appears overhead, where the cutest little claymation/stop-motion alien wants to Twick or Tweet! He holds up his little trick or treat bag, constantly repeating “twick or tweet, twick or tweet“, until the killer becomes frustrated and stomps on the alien. Ooops…shouldn’t have done that! This segment is probably the craziest, goriest and, somewhat ironically, cutest of them all.

Next is The Ransom of Rusty Rex, written and directed by Ryan Schifrin. Two criminals decide to kidnap the son of millionaire Jebediah Rex, and hold the kid for ransom. The kidnapping itself is a piece of cake, but when they call his father, they don’t get the response they expected. And they soon find out that they’ve made the worst mistake of their lives. The child in this segment was played by Ben Woolf, and this was his final film. The movie is dedicated to him.

The final segment is called Bad Seed, written and directed by Neil Marshall. Ray is carving pumpkins in the kitchen while his wife Ellen applauds his work. The pumpkin seems to be a harsher critic, though, as it bites Ray’s head off before scurrying away on spider-like root legs and heads out the back door. A murder spree is starting, all because of a literal killer pumpkin!

And that’s the playlist of sorts for this anthology horror movie, and if you haven’t already guessed, this one shouldn’t be taken seriously for a single second. Compared to Trick ‘r Treat from 2007 which has a far more serious vibe, this one ventures more into pure gorefest and campy schlock material. There are some fun practical effects in several of the segments, which gives everything a needed additional charm. Sure, the shorts are kind of a mixed bag, but the short playtime for each makes sure that none of your least favorite ones will outstay their welcome. Like many anthologies, including the aforementioned Trick’ r Treat but also other fun ones like Tales From the Hood (1995) and Mortuary Collection (2019) which have stories that are tied together, this one kind of tries to pull off something similar by making it all happen on Halloween, and (so it appears) around the same neighborhood. They aren’t really interlocked in the same way as the other anthologies, but taken into consideration how different each segment here really is they still managed to pull it off rather well.

Tales of Halloween is a fun collection of horror shorts, filled with gore and lots of crazy, hilarious stuff, sure to bring some treats to everyone. Happy Halloween!

Directors: Darren Lynn Bousman, Axelle Carolyn, Adam Gierasch, Andrew Kasch, Neil Marshall, Lucky McKee, Mike Mendez, Dave Parker, Ryan Schifrin, John Skipp, Paul Solet

Writers: Axelle Carolyn, Dave Parker, Clint Sears, Greg Commons, Lucky McKee, Molly Millions, Billy Jackson, John Skipp, Andrew Kasch, Mike Mendez, Ryan Schifrin, Neil Marshall

Country & year: USA, 2015
Actors: A whole bunch
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4163020/

Return to Oz (1985)

Posted on October 30, 2025October 30, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

– Look, Billina, these ones have lost their heads!

– Now, that’s what I call just plain carelessness.

So… after the young kiddies of the 80s were probably still disturbed by Mr. Dark and the wicked things from his carnival three years earlier, there was no question if Return to Oz, the next colorful big summer blockbuster from Walt Disney Studios, would finally be the antidote so that the parents finally didn’t have to constantly change the soaked-wet bedsheets. Right? Right..??

Hahahahahaha, oOOof…

The Japanese distributors knew exactly what kind of film this was by looking at that poster. I also find it funny that they did their best to obscure the Disney logo to make it look like a pure fantasy horror flick. Not so far from it though…

It’s only gone six months after Dorothy Gale (played by an 11-year-old Fairuza Balk) sang and danced through the mystical and colorful land of Oz together with Scarecrow, Tin Man, The Cowardly Lion and her dog Toto to meet the wonderful wizard. And who would forget such an experience, even though the wizard was as fake as a politician? Not Dorothy. Because the witch was at least real. And that keeps her up at night, to her Aunt and Uncle’s frustration. It’s the beginning of the year 1900, the times is harder than ever and the last thing they wanna hear about is her deluded fairytales talking about scarecrows, witches and flying monkeys.

Her Aunt and Uncle also have some bigger plans for her which they have used all their savings on, and that is to send her to a psychiatric clinic to meet Dr. Worley and his witchy assistant Wilson. Dr. Worley proudly shows off his little monstrosity of an electroshock device, because, as he enthusiastically says: It’s the 20th Century! The age of electricity! Uh-oh… yeah, fuck this boolshit, we know where this is going. It’s time for Aunt Em to grab poor Dorothy, take a U-turn and rather encourage her niece to use her crazy imagination to write a series of fantasy novels, or something.

Dorothy spends the night in a room in the cellar, sitting on a bed with an empty and hopeless stare in the air as the disturbing screams of the other mental patients can be heard in the distance. And yes, this is still a film made for the whole family and not some alternative version of Jacob’s Ladder. Dr. Wilson, the witchy assistant, comes in to get Dorothy tightly strapped on a stretcher as if she was Jack Nicholson after trying to strangle nurse Ratched. Just when Dr. Worley is ready to zap Dorothy’s brain, a thunderstorm hits that causes a blackout. As she gets left alone, strapped in the bed, a mysterious girl pops up, unties her and together they escape. As they get chased by Wilson, they stumble and roll into a river where Dorothy floats into the moonlight in a chicken coop.

And the next day, she wakes up in the land of Oz where the river has transformed into a puddle. Somewhere along the ride she’s gotten herself a new companion; the talking chicken Billina. After some brief open world exploring, she sees that the yellow brick road has been destroyed, and discovers that the entire Emerald City has been turned into an apocalyptic wasteland by the evil wizard Nome King (Nicol Williamson). The people are turned to stone, several of whose heads are missing. Beware the wheelers are tagged on the walls. Who the hell are the wheelers, you ask? They’re freaks on… wheels, who looks like former band members of Siouxsie and the Banshees. Something from your worst childhood nightmares, plain and simple. And we can only imagine, in a banned X-rated version, what they would do to little girls if they actually had hands. Ugh.

Dorothy is soon to be captured by the wicked witch Mombi, who lives in the only remaining tower in Emerald City. And haven’t we already seen her before as the witchy assistant at the clinic, just without the sprayed 80s hair? Hmmm… She’s played by Jean March, by the way, who is probably most known for the evil Queen Bawmorda in Willow three years later. She died earlier this year at age 90. RIP. Mombi also has an impressive collection of heads, where the parents now probably reached the final straw and switched over to Mr. Rogers or CNN. Makes me wonder if the writers of Dexter: New Blood took some inspiration from a certain set-piece here. Then we have the variations of the Nome King and his demons made by a mix of stop-and claymation. Pure 1980s magic at its very finest and just top notch production value. Anyway; Dorothy manages to escape the tower on a flying couch, attached and steered by a moose head called Gump. She, and a couple of new friends, the gangling Jack Pumpkinhead and the round mechanic soldier Tik-Tok (the only good TikTok) flies across the deadly desert to visit the Nome King and break the curse that lies over Em City.

In stark contrast to the cheerful, bright and upbeat vibe of the musical The Wizard of Oz (1939), writer and director Walter Murch wiped the rainbow black in one big stroke to take a much darker and psychotic wild-ride approach to L. Frank Baum’s books (you don’t say) . And so he sure did. But already a week into the shooting, the producers started to sweat, and decided to give Walter Murch the boot. Why? Because Disney. Or maybe they had already snorted all the cocaine. As new producers came into the picture, they cut down the budget and got rid of several set-pieces. So who took over the directing job? Thanks to some powerful Soprano friends in showbiz like Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola, the studio got pushed into a corner to hire Walter back again. The rats at Disney did what they could to sabotage the film and the career of the fresh first-time director by having almost no promotion for its theatrical release. And they succeeded as the film flopped and didn’t even earn half of the $28 million budget.

The critics weren’t impressed either by how dark and bleak it was, especially the two clowns Siskel and Ebert, who saw Tik-Tok as a R2-D2 ripoff. But yeah, going into this film completely blind and expecting the musical all over again, well… life’s not always fair. There’s no room for humor here and the somber/melancholic tone is pretty much already set in stone (no pun intended) from the first frame, where we see a depressed Dorothy lying in bed and staring at the starry night as she’s thinking about her friends over the faded rainbow. I also have a very weak spot for the score by David Shire. The closest to humor is through some dry, sarcastic lines from the talking chicken, and from a more adult perspective, The Wheelers, because, well, just look at them. All that said: the doom n’ gloom, the dead seriousness, and the constant underlying menacing tension, that get turned up to 666 by the intimidating echoing voice of the Nome King alone, is what makes this film so damn memorable — and, in the end, to a unique, delightful gateway horror that has aged like a fine green vine (not from Nilbog). Good times.

Director: Walter Murch
Writers: Walter Murch, Gill Dennis
Country & year: USA/UK, 1985
Actors: Fairuza Balk, Nicol Williamson, Jean Marsh, Piper Laurie, Matt Clark, Michael Sundin, Tim Rose, Sean Barrett, Mak Wilson, Denise Bryer, Brian Henson, Emma Ridley
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089908/

Sleepy Hollow (1999)

Posted on October 29, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

The year is 1799, and Ichabod Crane is a New York police constable who has been dispatched to Sleepy Hollow: an upstate Dutch hamlet where there have been a lot of brutal murders involving people getting their heads chopped off. He is welcomed by the town elders, including the wealthy businessman Baltus Van Tassel who has a beautiful young daughter named Katrina, who immediately shows an interest in Ichabod. And vice versa. Once he starts his investigation, he hears the story about what the locals believe to be the cause of all the decapitations: the Headless Horseman, who was once a Hessian mercenary from the American Revolutionary War. Ichabod just scoffs of such superstitious nonsense, but his skepticism is put to the test over and over again as more people keeps dying.

Sleepy Hollow is a dark fantasy horror film from 1999, directed by Tim Burton and loosely based on the 1820’s short story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. It stars Johnny Depp in the role as Ichabod Crane, and Christina Ricci in the role as Katrina. Christopher Lee also has a supporting role here, as the Burgomaster, among some other well-known faces. The development of the movie started in 1993, where Kevin Yagher was originally set to direct the film as some kind of low-budget slasher horror film. There were some disagreements, causing Paramount to demote Yagher to prosthetic makeup designer instead, and Tim Burton was brought on board in 1998.

Originally, the character Ichabod Crane is described as a very unattractive man in the novel, and Johnny Depp offered to wear prosthetics on his face to carry on those appearance traits. Paramount didn’t want any of that, though (hmmm….I wonder why…) so the character is more based on Ichabod’s squeamishness and eccentricity, but turning him into a skeptic. A rather big contrast to the animated Disney film from 1949 where he’s kind of a dick, and superstitious to the core.

The relationship between Ichabod and Katrina is handled in a completely different way here, and the characters are given much more depth and backstory, and we are also getting the backstory of the headless horseman himself. Especially grim is the story of Ichabod’s childhood and his mother’s death, which gives us a very grisly scene involving an iron maiden. Speaking of grisly scenes, there’s actually a fair amount of them so I think they decided to keep a little bit of that slasher flair from the original idea. There’s bloody and visceral decapitation scenes, and one scene where the headless horseman decapitates the parents of a child hiding under the floorboards, where the kid makes eye contact with his dead mother’s head before meeting the same fate himself, is a particularly vicious scene.

Tim Burton also included some scenes which are homages to the animated Disney movie The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad from 1949. This includes the scene where Ichabod crosses the bridge and hears the frogs croaking his name, and the scene with the flaming pumpkin. There’s a mix of fairytale and gothic horror in a perfect balance, where the slumbering and spooky village of Sleepy Hollow consists of beautiful periodic sets with crooked, twisted trees and old buildings which is a mix of Northern European and American colonial architecture. And while most of the movie was filmed in Leavesden and Shepperton studios, they actually built the village at the Hambleden estate at Lime Tree Valley. Compared to the Disney movie which was very colorful, this one is bleak and misty and kicks up the gothic atmosphere to eleven, perfectly complemented by Danny Elfman’s score.

Sleepy Hollow is a fun gothic horror story that oozes Tim Burton from start to finish, and while very much removed from the original Irving classic, it’s an inventive and fun reimagined version of the story. It is peak Tim Burton, and a perfect Halloween watch!

Director: Tim Burton
Writers: Kevin Yagher, Andrew Kevin Walker
Country & year: UK/USA/Germany, 1999
Actors: Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci, Miranda Richardson, Michael Gambon, Casper Van Dien, Jeffrey Jones, Richard Griffiths, Ian McDiarmid, Michael Gough, Christopher Walken, Lisa Marie
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0162661/

The Adventures of Ichabod (1949)

Posted on October 28, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

♫ With a hip-hip and a clippity-clop
He’s out looking for a head to swap
So don’t try to figure out a plan
You can’t reason with a headless man

The year is 1790, and the goofy, scrawny scarecrow-like Ichabod Crane is arriving at Sleepy Hollow. The place is a small picturesque village outside Tarrytown, New York, and Ichabod is going to be the place’s new schoolmaster. Upon arriving, everyone in the small village is curious about this strange fellow with his odd appearance and strange mannerisms. Despite this, he’s able to form good relationships with the women, who loves his singing voice, voiced by crooner Bing Crosby. No wonder the women were swooning. Bing Crosby is actually the narrator and singer for the entire film, making for some unforgettable songs from Disney’s prime time.

Now, as Ichabod Crane settles well into the little sleepy town, he meets the beautiful Katrina, daughter of Van Tassel who is the richest farmer there. A guy named Brom, a typical brutish dude, is Katrina’s fiancé and is not exactly happy about Ichabod’s advances on Katrina. Ichabod’s biggest weakness is how he is extremely superstitious, something Brom decides to take advantage of on Halloween. As they are all at the annual frolic at the Van Tassel house, Brom sings the tale of the Headless Horseman and scares the bejesus out of Ichabod. It is said the spirit is traveling through the woods of Sleepy Hollow every year on Halloween, searching for a new head to replace the one he’s lost. And Ichabod needs to travel back through the woods after the party to get back home…

The Adventures of Ichabod (and Mr. Toad) is an animated Disney movie from 1947. It began development in 1940, and originally was meant to be a feature film based only on The Wind in the Willows. It went through several production delays, until it was cut down to a short film and merged with another short film based on The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, which was also originally meant to be a full length feature. This review will focus on the Sleepy Hollow inspired segment.

Immediately from the opening of the short film, there’s a Halloween atmosphere all over it: the beautifully painted backgrounds which starts with a graveyard just to set the tone right away, deep in a dark forest, until the camera shifts focus out of the gloomy forest scenery and introduces us to Ichabod Crane himself, walking towards the village with his nose (literally) in a book. We see him entering Sleepy Hollow which is filled with beautiful autumnal colors, and in the pure good old-fashioned Disney style, we immediately get a song number once Brom and his other beer-drinking buddies notices him. Yes, this was from the time when Disney still portrayed the use of alcohol and cigars.

Also, like many of the classic Disney movies from their golden era, the songs are catchy and spirited. While the story progresses with some of the familiar good-humored Disney slapstick, the main story is very much about a love triangle of sorts, where Ichabod is craving Katrina’s affection and does everything he can to flirt with her, making her fiancé jealous. Katrina, on the other hand, is obviously enjoying Brom’s jealousy and is only using Ichabod to fuel his anger…“that little coquette Katrina“ isn’t as sweet on the inside as on the outside, it seems. Then again, this isn’t really a story about the sweetest and most sympathetic characters. Ichabod comes off as a selfish, ruthless gold-digger who yearns more for Katrina’s wealth than her, literally daydreaming of when her father will die (!), and Katrina herself only plays along to tease Brom which makes her a bit of an attention-seeking bitch.

The best part of the movie begins, of course, once Brom starts singing one of Disney’s darkest songs: Headless Horseman. This is such a perfect Halloween banger and sets such a dark mood and foreshadowing of what is to come. Which is, of course, Ichabod’s travel back home where he gets to meet the infamous ghost that haunts Sleepy Hollow every Halloween night. Here the animators really excels with use vibrant colors and contrasts to make an eerie and spooky atmosphere!

The Adventures of Ichabod Crane and Mr Toad is a fun double-feature from Disney’s lesser known classics. Both segments are fun, but the Ichabod Crane segment still stands as one of Disney’s darkest, filled with a great autumn and Halloween vibe together with some catchy songs. Another perfect gateway horror film!

Directors: James Algar, Clyde Geronimi, Jack Kinney
Writers: Erdman Penner, Winston Hibler, Joe Rinaldi, Ted Sears, Homer Brightman, Harry Reeves
Country & year: USA, 1949
Voice actor/narrator: Bing Crosby
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041094/

Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983)

Posted on October 27, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

– Funerals, bad marriages, lost loves, lonely beds. That’s our diet. We suck that misery and find it sweet. We search for more, always. ― Mr. Dark

As the 1980s came, The Walt Disney Mouse had reached the puberty/goth phase and wanted to break free from the family-friendly image to focus on more “mature“ films. Mickey pulled pretty much a Miley Cyrus, you might say. The mouse still kept the tongue in its mouth though. And after the mouse dipped its toes into the more dark fantasy territory with The Watcher in the Woods (1980), he decided to take it a step further with Something Wicked This Way Comes, based on the novel by Ray Bradbury. Also, this time, a director with a horror background, Jack Clayton, got hired who directed the box-office success The Innocents back in 1961. Bradbury himself wrote the screenplay.

This was the first and last genuine horror film from Disney, although I’d say that Return to Oz (1985) is pretty close to being in the same category.

Something Wicked This Way Comes starts with a wicked foreshadowing and sinister tone as the title suggests, where we see a locomotive in the dark distance coming towards us during the opening credits, heavily spiced-up with a wicked score by James Horner. Something wicked is on its way, that’s for sure. This was my very first gateway horror, so yeah, that opening scene alone made an impression on my early ghoulish childbrain.

It’s October, the weather is crisp, the year is 1920 and the place is the quiet and peaceful little Green Town in Illinois, shot in the beautiful countryside of Vermont. We meet the two young boys, Will Halloway (Vidal Peterson) and Jim Nightshade (Shawn Carson), who’s been best friends even before they were born. Nothing much happens in the town, until one October night a train can be heard in the distance. But that’s not just a train; it’s the train of Mr. Dark’s Pandemonium carnival. Will and Jim eagerly run after the train, which miraculously has turned into the carnival itself in a matter of some seconds. Uhm…did we miss something? Yes, we actually did, which I’ll come back to. The exploration gets cut short when the boys get spooked away by a big spider in one of the trailers, where also the Dust Witch (Pam Grier) sits in the shadows.

As they return the next day, it all just looks like a plain, ordinary boring carnival. I agree. Cuz where’s the haunted house, The Satan’s Den? There’s a mirror-maze over there. So? I wanna see some ghosts, not a bunch of mirrors! Oh, you will see some spooky shit soon, just you wait. The whole town is there, even Will and Jim’s mousy old teacher Miss Foley. When they sneak into a closed area to discover the classic horse carousel, they get grabbed by Mr. Cooger and handed over to Mr. Dark (Jonathan Pryce) ― a charismatic British magician who fits his name, just like Ritchie Blackmore. If he was a German, his name would be Herr Dunkel! And there’s nothing shady about him. Just look at his kind eyes and the cheerful smirk. Well, he’s kind enough to let them go with a warning and gives them a free ticket to the horses when it gets reopened.

The boys hide to see what’s going on after closing time, and spies on Mr. Dark and Cooger as they do a test run on the horses. And what in the actual tarnation… the carousel goes backwards and reverses Cooger into a little boy that would fit right in with the children of the corn. And, well… this is just a taste of Mr. Dark’s shenanigans. It’s also been ages since I read the book, but I can say that there’s some striking similarities to find in Stephen King’s Needful Things (1993). Townspeople there start to disappear after they’ve made some of their deepest, delusional wishes and unfulfilled desires, buried by time and dust, to come true ― granted by none other than Mr. Dark. And with the wishes comes a price/curse. Old Miss Foley wishes to be young and beautiful again. As she looks in the mirror and transforms into a twenty-five-year-old blonde, she loses her sight where “Looks can be deceiving“ gives a new brutal, ironic twist. And like the hardcore malignant narcissist that Mr. Dark is, who feeds on other people’s suffering, what’s better than to grant someone wishes and, at the same time, make them handicapped to live in a mental prison so they can never enjoy the magical fix? How wicked! A porn-addict would get a collection of all the porn magazines, but have both hands paralyzed so he can’t masturbate. Oof. The ultimate endgame is that it will be a thousand years to next Christmas. Fine with me, as long as we have Halloween.

We also have the son/dad relationship between Will and his dad, Charles (Jason Robards), who’s getting eaten alive by guilt and shame when he couldn’t save his son from drowning in a river when he was little. Instead, Jim’s dad had to step in. An incident that broke him as he talks much about death and dying, and that three AM is The Soul’s Midnight, where many people die. And then he means old people, of course. He’s the town’s librarian and maybe reads a lot of Edgar Allan Poe. Yes, dad is depressed while he smokes cigars like a chimney, has a bad heart, and Will just wishes he could be happy. But the thing is that he’s pretty old, and cutting the cigar and not smoking yourself to emphysema would be a nice start before you say to your son that Just tell me that I will live forever. Then I’ll be happy. But if dad couldn’t save his son back then, he gets a new chance when Will and Jim is getting caught in the web of Mr. Dark.

So, what we have here is a mix different layers like coming-of-age, on both sides, acceptance of mortality, to the bitter and shallow greediness where only thing counts in the end: What’s inside. Too mature for the kids to fully grasp and not so scary for the older audience. Caught between a rock and a hard place. That said, on the surface, there’s a lot to enjoy in Something Wicked. The overall atmosphere reeks of dead leaves where the crisp colorful autumn scenery is like watching a classic oil painting coming to life. Jason Robards, and at the time a relatively unknown Jonathan Pryce as Mr. Dark does a great combo as Good vs Evil, where their scene in the library is pretty intense just on a psychological angle alone. And no one rips books apart in a more classy way than Mr. Dark as each glowing page represents one lost year after the other of Mr. Halloway’s life. It’s also worth mentioning that Stan Winston is an uncredited effect-maker here, where he was behind a memorable scene at the end where Mr. Dark is having an extreme ghoulish makeover. Unfortunately, some of it was cut as it got too realistic. Well, that’s Stan Winston for you. Man, I hope we get to see all these deleted scenes one day, but I think that train has vanished into the lost media realm a long time ago.

Several other scenes that included some of the earliest uses of CGI combined with animation were cut from the film. Such as the scene where Mr. Dark’s carnival train arrives and becomes the carnival as it enfolds and builds itself up while the boys are witnessing the paranormal spectacle. The effects were made by the team who had recently worked on Tron (1982). But since it wasn’t convincing enough, we just have to use the imagination like when one of the boys says but how could it…

And then we have the scene where Mr. Dark uses his magic to make a green-glowing mist follow after the boys. The original idea was to have a big ghostly disembodied hand to reach for the boys inside their house. Since the effect wasn’t realistic enough, there was plan B: Spiders! A lot of spiders. Of course. And there’s no surprise that the two young actors would prefer the ghost hand instead of a chaotic shoot with 200 tarantulas. But like we always say: that’s showbiz.

Speaking of showbiz: Something Wicked This Way Comes was a pretty wicked production filled with bumps, hiccups and fights, that makes for some juicy stuff for the trivia section. Writer Ray Bradbury and director Jack Clayton wanted to stay as faithful to the novel as possible, while Disney wanted a more accessible, family-friendly film. And there you already have the door wide open for conflicts, bullshit and headaches. Jack Clayton was also notoriously hard to work with, and I doubt that working with drunk madman Sam Peckinpah would be much easier, who was considered to direct the film in the 1970s. After a disastrous test-screening, Disney fired the original editor, got rid of the original score by Georges Delerue, amped up the budget of 4 million, spent several months of polishing and hired James Horner to make a new score. A new narration was inserted, and the whole third act was re-shot along with the opening. The original score was scrapped because it was too dark — which is pretty baffling considering that Disney decided to keep the shot where we see one of the boys getting his head chopped off by a guillotine, with blood and all. And what could be too dark when you already have a villain called Mr. Dark? Huh… Disney Mouse was surely in an identity crisis here, but that comes with puberty. While all this sounds just like a normal day at the Marvel Studios (from the last five, six years), these movies from the Disney-after-dark era actually turned up to be surprisingly good that still holds up, despite the behind-the-scenes turmoils and bad box-offices. Bradbury also referred to the film’s final cut as “not a great film, no, but a decently nice one.“

Something Wicked is on Blu-ray, but from I’ve heard, it’s the same quality from the DVD’s, with no bonus content. The film has been a rarity for many years and got just recently its first streaming release on Disney+. Another rarity I have to mention, is the bizarre, zero-budget and somewhat trippy amateur film adaptation from 1972, made by the British underground filmmaker Colin Finbow. Watching this on LSD with headphones is maybe the best way.

Director: Jack Clayton
Writer: Ray Bradbury
Country & year: USA, 1983
Actors: Jonathan Pryce, Jason Robards, Vidal Peterson, Shawn Carson, Royal Dano, Pam Grier, Mary Grace Canfield, Bruce M. Fischer, Richard Davalos, Jake Dengel, Ellen Geer, Diane Ladd
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086336/

Black Phone 2 (2025)

Posted on October 26, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

We’re in the year 1957, at Alpine Lake Camp during the winter. A girl is making a call from a phone booth placed nearby the camp’s frozen lake, a conversation that later proves to be an important part of the movie’s plot. Then we head further ahead in time, to October 1982. It’s now been a while since Finney Blake was able to kill his abductor, the serial killer called the Grabber, and is trying to cope with the trauma in his own ways. Which seems to involve beating the hell out of other students who dares to even glance at him the wrong way, and smoke a ton of pot. It goes without saying that the kid is basically just spiraling further down the darkest misery-filled rabbithole at this point, but I guess he didn’t exactly grow up with the best role models for how to cope with shit in healthy ways as his father kept drowning his sorrows with whiskey and beer, causing him to often be abusive and mean towards his children.

In this movie, however, it is revealed that the father has reached a three year milestone of sobriety, but is still struggling with urges that he determinedly resists. All the power and kudos to him for that. Another character who is struggling is Finney’s sister Gwen, who keeps having strange dreams…all of which lead to a clue about their mother having worked at Alpine Lake Camp. Together with Gwen’s date Ernesto (the brother of Robin Arellano who was one of the Grabber’s victims in the first movie), they travel to the camp which is a Christian youth camp. Upon arrival, a heavy blizzard traps them at the place where there are only a handful of other people, which are only staff. And the phone booth back from 1957? It’s still there, of course, just not in a working order…but we all know that ghosts don’t need things to work in order to make use of them for communication. It doesn’t take long before Finney receives phone calls from the dead, including the Grabber who vows revenge. And it also seems that there were some grisly murders of a group of young boys at the camp sometime back in the day…and their bodies still haven’t been found.

Black Phone 2 is a supernatural horror movie directed by Scott Derrickson, co-written with C. Robert Cargill and produced by Jason Blum. It’s a sequel to Black Phone, and stars several of the actors from the first film reprising their roles. The first movie, which was based on a short story by Joe Hill, became a success and a sequel was soon in the works. Hill mentioned that his inspiration for a sequel was the “iconic imagery“ of the Grabber’s masks. And while Hill didn’t write a story for the film, he did provide the concept for it which was simply put into this sentence: “A phone rings, Finney answers, and it’s The Grabber calling from hell“. Plain and simple.

While the first movie’s plot was primarily about a real and living serial killer, the supernatural aspects were also present as the character Finney was able to communicate with the killer’s earlier victims through a disconnected black phone. In that regard, it’s not much of a surprise that the Grabber has now turned into a vengeful ghost, and the movie doesn’t need to invent some kind of explanation for how it turned into something supernatural. Those themes were already totally present in the first. And while Finney was the protagonist in the first film, this sequel leans its narrative a lot more on Gwen’s character with her nightmares meshed with visions of the past. The siblings both have the gift (or curse, depending on your point of view) of being contacted by the dead, but while Finney’s contact is restricted by phone calls, Gwen gets contacted while she’s asleep, often causing her to sleepwalk while having the nightmares.

And speaking of the nightmares: I really love the grainy look of those scenes, which were primarily shot on 8mm film using a Super-8 camera. Not only does it give the viewer an immediate heads-up when we’re in dreamland, but it also gives those scenes such a haunting vibe. The dreams also don’t work as some kind of tease or false threat like so often in many other horror movies. The threat here is very real once Gwen falls asleep, where the Grabber has become some kind of Freddy Krueger entity that can kill you in your dreams. Hmmm…a camp, and a dead serial killer threatening to kill you while you’re dreaming? Yeah, you don’t really need to be a horror buff to notice the obvious Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street references here. However, that doesn’t mean the film ventures into some kind of rip-off territory, it’s very much its own nightmare set in the coldest, bleakest wintertime, but with some nods and references to horror classics and 80’s horror. Oh, and the ice skating scene? Yup, Derrickson confirmed that this was a nod to Curtains from 1983.

The synthwave-infused music score by Atticus Derrickson (the director’s son) layers the movie with a perfect dreamlike mood, often more calm and brooding than fast-paced and aggressive, which gives it a slightly hypnotic flair. There’s also many effectively creepy scenes, including the vicious killings of the boys from the camp. The winter setting with all the snow and ice helps setting a more isolated and trapped feeling, and there’s even a scene with a snowman that manages to deliver a spooky moment.

Black Phone 2 is a strong sequel filled with supernatural and bloody carnage. It’s a new addition to the formula of serial killers and the dead refusing to stay dead, but a fun and gory one where I wouldn’t really mind if they decide that death won’t be final this time around either. Serial killers rarely stay dead in horror anyway (like Dexter‘s son also realized recently) so perhaps we’ll see a Black Phone 3 sometime in the close future.

Director: Scott Derrickson
Writers: C. Robert Cargill, Scott Derrickson
Country & year: USA, 2025
Actors: Ethan Hawke, Mason Thames, Jeremy Davies, Anna Lore, Madeleine McGraw, Demián Bichir, Arianna Rivas, Miguel Mora, Graham Abbey, Maev Beaty
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt29644189/

Hausu (1977)

Posted on October 25, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

In Tokyo, there lives a teenage girl whose name is Gorgeous. And yes, of course she is beautiful, and of course she’s also got a wealthy father and appears to be living a harmonious life with nothing to complain about. Her life turns upside down when her father, who has been widowed for a time, announces that he’s married a woman named Ryoko Ema. Who seems to be a very nice woman, by the way, ready to be the best stepmother she can. Gorgeous, on the other hand, throws a temper tantrum like a little, spoiled brat and hurries to her room, where she writes a letter to her aunt, whom she has never met, asking to come visit her. Gorgeous receives a letter back almost instantly. Of course lonely, old auntie is ready to welcome her! Gorgeous brings six of her friends along with her: Sweet, who is of course sweet as candy and with a personality as gentle as a lamb, Kung Fu whose specialty is martial arts (who would’ve guessed), Fantasy, who is constantly daydreaming and having her head in the clouds, Melody, who plays the piano like a maestro, Prof, who is an academic and intelligent girl, and Mac, who…loves to eat. And is of course “fat“ (she isn’t, really, but that’s Asian beauty standards for you).

On the way to auntie’s house they bring along a white, fluffy cat, who appears to the aunt’s harbinger of sorts. Prior to getting to the aunt’s cozy country house, they meet a watermelon seller who could’ve more or less been the “don’t go to the house“ kind of guy, but which does the opposite and tells them exactly how to get there. Greeting the girls in a wheelchair, the aunt seems to be very happy to welcome them. The always hungry Mac had of course bought a Watermelon from the seller they met earlier, and brings it as a gift which they leave in a well to keep it cold. And from now on, it doesn’t take long before everything inside the house turns into a spookfest of the purest insanity! It all starts with Mac going out to retrieve the watermelon, and doesn’t return. Worried, Fantasy goes to check on her, only to find Mac’s disembodied head which flies into the air and bites Fantasy in the butt. Nobody believes her, of course, but soon all kinds of supernatural shenanigans are happening all around the house, which is all so gaga loony that nothing can really prepare you for the enchantment of the House and its white fluffy kitty!

House aka Hausu (Japanese: ハウス) is a Japanese comedy horror film from 1977, directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi.

Toho Studios contacted Obayashi because they wanted to make a movie like Jaws and needed ideas. Okey-dokey then. If Obayashi was an Italian he would probably gone ahead and urged Toho to make a shark film and call it Jaws 2, but we’re in Japan, where the craziest ideas are allowed to take form! So he went to his pre-teen daughter Chigumi for ideas, under the presumption that adults only think about things they understand, so everything stays on a boring human level while children can come up with the strangest things that defy explanation. Thus, sharks and beaches were replaced with a fluffy white cat and a spooky country house that eat girls. Obayashi also used some of his childhood as inspiration for some of the key elements in the movie. He was born in Hiroshima, and during the atomic bombings he lost all his childhood friends. He decided to use these themes into the plot of the film, by creating a plot element of a woman’s ghost waiting for her love to return back home from World War II, a wait that lasted forever since her lover died, and this turned her into an evil spirit. The ideas were given to Chiho Katsura, who then wrote the script for the film.

Now that the big cooking pot had boiled and simmered into this psychedelic brew, the project was green-lit. Except…it had to be put on hold for two years, because no one at Toho wanted to direct it as they all thought it would be a disaster that would ruin their career. Obayashi himself originally proposed to direct it, but he was turned down since he wasn’t amongst the staff at Toho. He kept promoting the film until the studio finally caved in and said “alright then, since we can’t get anyone else to touch this thing with a 10-foot pole, go ahead and do your thing.“ And together with a bunch of amateur actors and a lot of pep, history was made.

If Toho Studios hoped for a critically acclaimed hit like Jaws, they were in for a nosedive on House. It mostly received negative reviews, but despite this, it ended up becoming a box office hit in Japan. Ironically, when the movie got a wider release in North America in 2009 and 2010, it was met with a much more favorable response and it was from here on that it gained a cult following.

Obayashi had, prior to this film, mostly worked in commercials and independent films, so the majority of the cast in House were not established actors. It was a mix of people he had worked with before, and some friends and family. His daughter even has a small role as the little girl in a shoemaker’s shop, and the shoemaker himself was played by the production designer. While being filmed in one of Toho’s largest sets, Obayashi made sure to have a playful attitude which caused everyone to have fun. The Toho crew felt the film was utter nonsense, but let’s be honest…it kind of is. But it’s the good kind of nonsense! The overall mix of complete nonsense, childish and upbeat tone with the horror elements reminiscent of the nightmare logic of a 5-year old, is what makes this movie such a unique experience, accompanied with a fitting score which was performed by a rock band called Godiego.

Visually, the movie leans towards a little kitsch and European fairytale vibe. There’s a lot of experimentation with practical effects, and insane imagery. There isn’t a single frame that looks uninspired or boring. The visuals fit so well together with all the spooky things happening all the time, as the girls are attacked by all kinds of things in the house: flaming logs, mattresses, and a finger-hungry piano…and something about a guy turning into a bunch of bananas. Because why not.

Nothing can really prepare you for the childish and golden insanity of House. Just sit back and enjoy the trip!

Director: Nobuhiko Ôbayashi
Writers: Chiho Katsura, Nobuhiko Ôbayashi
Country & year: Japan, 1977
Actors: Kimiko Ikegami, Miki Jinbo, Kumiko Ôba, Ai Matsubara, Mieko Satô, Eriko Tanaka, Masayo Miyako, Kiyohiko Ozaki, Saho Sasazawa, a white fluffy persian cat
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076162/

Ghoulies II (1987)

Posted on October 24, 2025October 24, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

This time, you better flush twice!

Moon’s fuller than usual tonight, says the old alcoholic uncle Ned, as he and his nephew Larry are driving the big Satan’s Den truck to a carnival. The same night, we also see a man running through the woods from a group of Satanic cult members with three ghoulies trapped in a sack bag. He hides in an empty gas station where he dumps the ghoulies in a gallon of toxic waste. The man falls down into the waste himself when he suddenly gets attacked by a bat ghoulie. Not only one or two, but FOUR ghoulies rise from the toxic waste, just because, to make sure that we’ll have a fun, cheesy and entertaining sequel for the whole family. And the kids should know by now that there are no monsters in the toilet, unless you happen to live in Australia. We also get introduced to a new type of ghoulie here, the Toad Ghoulie. Uncle Ned and Larry stop by the station where the little rascals hide in the truck, and something wicked this way comes to a carnival not so far away.

The carnival is an economic crisis, and all the attractions that don’t make any profit during the upcoming weekend will be closed down. And all of us ghouls can agree that a carnival without a haunted house is not a carnival. And if The Satan’s Den goes, it will be replaced with a ladies’ mud wrestling tent. Meh. The young and smug businessman, Philip Hardin, who owns the carnival with his company and thinks he’s Tom Cruise from Risky Business, will make sure of that. The trio who runs the haunted house, Uncle Ned, Larry and the littleman Sir Nigel, has a lot of work to do. Well, that goes for Larry and Nigel, as Uncle Ned is drunk all the time and believes everything will be solved by magic. Try black magic instead. Oops, someone already did. And that leads us to the ghoulies who are hiding somewhere in the Den, waiting eagerly for the audience to show up so they can have some kill counts.

Ghoulies II is this time directed by Albert Band, the dad of Charles and composer Richard, and this is probably the most polished film in the franchise. There’s also a couple of known faces here like veteran Royal Dano as drunk Ned, and Phil Fondacaro as Nigel, who looks like a shrunken Frank Miller in his older years. Even though the acting here is better than the first one, the rest of the cast are NPC’s, and the romance sideplots are just dead meat to flush down the toilet for the sewer rats. The good news is that the ghoulies themselves have far more screentime here both in form of puppetry and stop-motion by David Allen. The tone is also way more consistent with its blend of comedy and light-hearted silly horror where the carnival-setting amps up the fun-factor and some extra cozy/charming nostalgic atmosphere.

The film also works fine as an isolated watch as it has no connections with the first. The same can be said about Ghoulies III: Ghoulies Go to College. And that one is actually what it sounds like: the ghoulies gets drunk on a college campus, filled with cringe humor and as little horror elements as possible where the only one missing is Pauly Shore. Haven’t seen the fourth one yet.

Director: Albert Band
Writers: Danny Bilson, Dennis Paoli
Country & year: USA, 1987
Actors: Damon Martin, Royal Dano, Phil Fondacaro, J. Downing, Kerry Remsen, Dale Wyatt, Jon Pennell, Sasha Jenson, Starr Andreeff, William Butler, Donnie Jeffcoat, Christopher Burton
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093091/

Ghoulies (1984)

Posted on October 23, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

Let’s get high, have some good laughs, and unleash the Ghoulies!

This 1980s nonsensical and messy chees-o-rama fest from none other than Charles Band’s Empire Pictures starts pretty much how you’d expect, or maybe not: with a bizarre Satanic Illuminati-like ritual in Rob Zombie’s Halloween-basement dungeon where the baby boy, John, is ready to be sacrificed. The baby gets put on an altar where a demonic-looking dude with green-glowing eyes, Malcolm Grave, is about to kill the baby with a dagger. Among the small group of cult members, we also have the small grotesque troublemakers that are the Ghoulies who seem to enjoy the show. The ritual gets stopped by his wife because it turns out that the boy is actually their child. Ok, that’s some fucking dark shit! Whore! He’s mine, he says. A talisman is put around the boy’s neck so he can’t be touched by evil. Now that the baby is useless, it gets taken away and saved by Wolfgang, one of the cult members. Malcolm instead sacrifices the wife with his Satanic powers by bursting her chest open, off-screen, of course. And for what purpose? Who knows.

Then we jump to many years later where John has grown up, and has inherited his father’s mansion with his girlfriend Rebecca. And he was, of course, too young to remember what once happened in the basement. But one who clearly does is Wolfgang, who raised him and now works as a traumatized caretaker. Nothing much has been done with the place as it’s filled with rats and cobwebs. Down in the basement which the caretaker Wolfgang should have been clever enough to seal off already a long time ago, John finds the old ritual outfit of his dad and a Satanic diary. Nothing bad can happen now, nothing at all.

John and Rebecca are supposed to be in their college year, yet they look to be in their mid 30s. Rebecca wants to throw a party where we meet a bunch of goofy characters. The ones who stick out are the two stoned nutbrains, who must have been completely strung out for real during the making of this schlockfest. Can’t blame them. After some breakdancing and retarded pickup lines such as They call me…DICK! But you can call me…DICK! (go and fuck a cactus, dick, without rubber). John has an idea: Let’s do a ritual. But you, unfortunately, have to wait a little longer for the Ghoulies to show up, because… well, I guess he has to grow his Satanic powers up a few levels.

The original story for the Ghoulies was supposed to be very different from the final product, with a much darker and serious tone. But when director Luca Bercovici first saw the ghoulies in motion, he spat out his red wine, laughed and said: this movie should be a comedy! John Carl Buechler, who designed the cute little monsters, actually took offense. Because how dare you call these monster creatures, which I’ve worked so hard on, funny?! So, the script got rewritten to a comedy, a script that looks like it was made up as they went along while the cocaine floated in the air, and actors were recast. So yeah, it’s no surprise that the tone is all over the place at most times. In the midst of filming, the production got sued when some illiterate at Warner Bros claimed that the title Ghoulies was too like Gremlins, which was in production at the same time as Ghoulies. WB, of course, lost. The messy and bumpy history behind the film is enough to fill a whole book.

And if you’re expecting something like the aforementioned Gremlins or maybe Critters, you’d be disappointed. The ghoulies themselves are more of a sideshow here that pops up now and then just to show off some decent old-school puppetry effects. Here we have Clown Doll Ghoulie, the Fish Ghoulie (aka the Toilet Ghoulie), Bat Ghoulie, Rat Ghoulie, and then we have our personal favorite: the adorable Cat Ghoulie (heart emoji). The few scenes we have with the ghoulies are fun enough, and we get to see more of them in the sequel. Because here we also have to make room for… a dwarf warrior couple, from Nelwyn, I guess, because the script just said so. Malcolm the dead Satanist, who’s the main villain, rises from his grave outside the mansion. He then shapeshifts into a blonde milf to seduce Dick and strangle him with her tongue. No blowjob for Mr. Dick. The film finally gets flushed straight down the toilet by a bullshit ending that would fit more in a filler episode of Goosebumps. Not that it would make more sense, but still.

And speaking of toilets: the poster, which is way more iconic than the film itself, and had the first tagline They’ll Eat Your Ass!, caused some uproar when it scared the kids from using the toilet. Jaws made people afraid of swimming, Psycho made people afraid of showers, and Ghoulies made kids shit in buckets and stink out the whole neighborhood instead of sitting on the toilet. A mob of angry parents wrote letters to Charles Band’s office to let them know, in the middle of the Satanic Panic storm and all. Priceless! All these letters should have been added in the ending credits just to put the icing on the cake.

Director: Luca Bercovici
Writers: Luca Bercovici, Jefery Levy
Country & year: USA, 1984
Actors: Peter Liapis, Lisa Pelikan, Michael Des Barres, Jack Nance, Peter Risch, Tamara De Treaux, Scott Thomson, Ralph Seymour, Mariska Hargitay, Mariska Hargitay, Keith Joe Dick, David Dayan
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089200/

Dr Jekyll & Sister Hyde (1971)

Posted on October 22, 2025October 22, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

Dr. Henry Jekyll is a man who has decided to dedicate his life to curing all illnesses, but he’s about to lose a bit of his determination after his a-hole friend, Professor Robertson, remarks that his experiments are taking such a long time that he will end up dead before he manages to achieve anything of importance. Ouch. Thanks for the encouragement, buddy. Jekyll lets this remark get to his head, and he starts to obsess over the thought of some kind of elixir of life. He ends up using female hormones which he takes from fresh cadavers supplied to him by the duo Burke and Hare (obviously not caring too much about how they got their hands on these corpses in the first place). He reasons that since women, at least traditionally, lives longer than men, this will help him prolong his own life.

Above his apartment, there lives a family consisting of an elderly mother, her son Howard and daughter Susan. And Susan is head over heels attracted to Jekyll, who returns her affections in somewhat awkward ways. Too bad he’s so obsessed with work that there’s no time for romance…he’s too busy making his life-extending serum, and once he’s ready to take a sip and test it, he finds that it’s got a peculiar side effect: it changes him into a woman. And he seems to become quite fond of his female alter ego, which he calls Mrs. Edwina Hyde and claims she is his sister. While Jekyll is getting more and more in touch with his feminine side (literally), Susan becomes jealous of the mysterious woman in Jekyll’s apartment (at least until learning that she’s his “sister“), and Howard starts lusting after her. And there’s a big problem for Jekyll: in order to keep making more of the serum, he needs a steady supply of female hormones…and when his suppliers Burke and Hare are lynched by a mob once people find out what they’ve been doing, Jekyll must take matters in his own hands…with the help of Sister Hyde, who is taking over both his body and mind gradually.

Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde is a British Hammer horror film from 1971, directed by Roy Ward Baker and based on the 1886 novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. It’s notable for having a female version of Hyde, and also for implementing several historical incidents like Jack the Ripper and the Burke and Hare cases. There have been numerous adaptions of the well-known novella, including the 1931 film Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. And while both the original novella and many of its adaptation are often allegories for alcoholism/drug dependency, this is the only one I’ve seen thus far that gives it a gender-bending theme.

Through modern eyes I guess it’s easy to see it as an allegory for being trans. In the first transformation scene, where Jekyll (Ralph Bates) transforms into Hyde (Martine Beswick), the reaction is one of near euphoria where the initial moment of surprise quickly transcends into one of pure joy and relief, where she touches herself and examines her new body. The Hyde persona easily becomes the most dominant, where they both try to fight for control. Just like in the original story, where Dr. Jekyll could have just stopped taking the serum and be rid of Hyde, he becomes dependent on it and just can’t stop. Martine Beswick, who earlier played a role in two James Bond movies (From Russia With Love from 1963 and Thunderball from 1965) first laughed at the premise of the film when being offered the role, but after thinking it over a bit she found the idea of a male/female inside the same person as an interesting theme to explore.

Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde is a stylish Hammer horror film, where the scenery and sets create a convincing Victorian London era, with a misty, gloomy and gothic atmosphere. Totally Hammer-style, for sure, with it’s blood and boobs formula which where their forte at the time.

In 1995, a remake of the film was released under the title Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde, which received a Razzie Award for Worst Remake/Rip-Off. And the trailer for that one pretty much speaks for itself.

Director: Roy Ward Baker
Writer: Brian Clemens
Country & year: UK, 1971
Actors: Ralph Bates, Martine Beswick, Gerald Sim, Lewis Fiander, Dorothy Alison, Neil Wilson, Ivor Dean, Paul Whitsun-Jones, Philip Madoc, Tony Calvin
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068502/