Halloween Horror Edition: A Few Great Scares, Pt. 1 — The New Cult Film Classics

The air is crisp, the leaves are turning brown, and liquor stores are stocking up on Pumpkin Ale.

People, it’s officially October!

As such, we here at Meets Obsession are obsessed with all things October, including horror movies!

So for the rest of the month we’ll be exploring and recommending some overlooked and underrated horror movies that may have passed under your radar, and must be seen!

Tucker and Dale vs. Evil (2011)

Premise: In the 70’s, films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Deliverance taught us why we should be scared shitless of people from the backwoods. Chainsaw-wielding, cannibalistic maniacs, and relentless, toothless, savage “simpletons” who just want to makes us “squeal like a pig” were the stereotype of country folk these films produced. However, Eli Craig's brilliant genre-satire Tucker and Dale vs. Evil addresses that stereotype as the film’s titular heroes, a couple of humble, good-natured hillbillies, are mistaken for maniacal psycho killers by ignorant college kids on a spring break camping trip in the West Virginian backwoods.

When Tucker (Alan Tudyk) and Dale (Tyler Labine) venture out to their newly-purchased vacation home (a ramshackle cabin in the woods), they soon discover they’re not alone. A group of snotty college kids have set up camp just across the way. At night, Tucker and Dale go fishing, only to discover the college kids swimming just across the lake. They end up rescuing one of them, Alison (Katrina Bowden), after she falls off a rock and nearly drowns.

Panicked, the rest of the group assumes they’ve captured her and taken her back to their cabin to torture and murder her. The college kids decide to take matters into their own hands and go after the timid duo. The misunderstanding escalates as the college kids accidentally kill themselves, one-by-one, in attempts to rescue Alison from the genuinely well-meaning and frighteningly baffled Tucker and Dale.  Hilarity and gore ensues.

Best Scare: Early in the film, Craig teases us with a shot of a woodchipper, blatantly foreshadowing the gore to come. Still, as much as Craig gives us the “saw it coming from a mile away” moment in the scene the woodchipper is used, it still manages to be one of the film’s funniest and goriest scenes.

Why We’re Obsessed: Taking its shots at the cliches of formidable slasher films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the Friday the 13th series, and even backwoods thrillers like Deliverance, the genre-bending horror/comedy hybrid Tucker and Dale vs. Evil does what Shaun of the Dead did for the zombie genre by offering a clever, original, and self-aware parody. Combined with the magnificent and palpable comedic talents of Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine, Eli Craig’s film is sure to become a staple of midnight movie classics.

Best Quotes:

“Oh hidy ho officer! We've had a doozy of a day. There we were minding our own business, just doing chores around the house, when kids started killing themselves all over my property!”

“I should have known if a guy like me talked to a girl like you, somebody would end up dead.”

Tucker and Dale vs. Evil is currently playing in select theaters and Video on Demand, click here for theaters and showtimes.

Slither (2006)

Premise: In the sleepy small, southern town of Woodsville, a meteor crashes in the woods at the same time that local big shot, Grant Grant (Michael Rooker, and yes that’s his character’s actual name) and his mistress, Brenda sneak off into the woods for some good ‘ol fashion adultery. Unbeknownst to them, a repulsive slug-like creature emerges from the meteor that crashed yards away from them. The creature attacks Grant, takes over his body like a parasite and then impregnates Brenda.

Afterwards, strange things begin happening around Woodsville--there are strange sightings and pets disappearing. As Grant slowly begins transforming into a grotesque slug-like creature, his wife Starla (Elizabeth Banks), and the town Sheriff, Bill Pardy (Nathan Fillion) gather up a group of locals to hunt down Grant only to discover that he’s kept Brenda, now a human blimp pregnant with alien creatures, locked up in a farm.

When they find her, she explodes with thousands of little slithering creatures that begin to take over Woodsville, turning all of its inhabitants into a zombie-like state of consciousness all under the control of the now-fully mutated Grant. It’s up to Bill, Starla, and the rest of the uninfected town to stop Grant before it’s too late.

Best Scare: The film’s penultimate showdown between Sheriff Bill, Starla and Grant, who by the end has transformed into a massive, grotesque monster far more revolting the anything I can describe in this sentence.

Why We’re Obsessed: Slither, the debut of writer/director James Gunn borrows a lot from horror and sci-fi films of the 80’s, particularly in the way that Gunn opted to use a makeup and handmade creature effects rather then CGI. The result is a lot of great, gross-effects that maintains the sensibility and schlock of cheesy, 80’s B-movies.

Gunn, who started his career working with notoriously schlocky B-movie studio Troma films, has his tongue firmly in his cheek with Slither. A great homage to the heydey of schlock and cheese cinema of the 80’s (especially the film Night of the Creeps), Gunn’s screenplay is sharp, clever, and at times, flat out hilarious.

Additionally, Gunn composed a great cast of recognizable B-movie actors (who would later rise to mainstream notoriety), including cult heroes like Nathan Fillion, Michael Rooker, and Jenna Fischer, perfectly cast to the strengths of acting abilities.

Any Firefly /Serenity fans will be delighted to see Nathan Fillion playing the cocky, sarcastic leading man role he was born to play. Seriously, someone give that guy an award or something.

Best Quotes:

“My easy-going nature is gettin' sorely fuckin' tested.”

“If I weren't about to shit in my pants right now, I'd be fuckin' fascinated.”

“Like finding a needle in a fuck-stack.”

Hatchet (2006)

Premise: A group of tourists in New Orleans during Mardi Gras sign up for a haunted swamp boat tour. The gimmicky tour guide attempts to spook the cynical group of tourists by telling them the story of local legend Victor Crowley, a disfigured resident of the swamp who, as a kid, was tormented by the local boys and supposedly burned to death in the secluded cabin in the swamp he lived in with his father. According to legend, Victor Crowley returned and subsequently butchered most of the locals with a hatchet.

However, after the boat breaks down and the group finds themselves stranded in the swamp with no communication, or way out, they soon find out that the legend of Victor Crowley is no legend-- he’s real and he’s pissed off. It’s a fight for survival as the group must find a way out of the swamp before Victor Crowley picks them off, one by one.

Best Scare: By far the best scare comes when the first person of the group is slain by Victor Crowley. He appears in a truly effective jump-out-of-your-seat moment and subsequently slices a man in half with his hatchet. It’s both completely frightening and magnificently gory; establishing the sadistic and cheesy tone of the film quite effectively.

Why We’re Obsessed: Boasting the tagline “Old School American Horror”, writer/director Adam Green's Hatchet is just that. Paying clear homage to slasher films of the 70’s and 80’s, it’s like a film misplaced in time.

With Hatchet, Green knew exactly what he was trying to achieve and exactly how to achieve it. With a classic villain comparable to Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, or Freddy Krueger, Green’s film combines the perfect amount of cinematic sleaze, cheese, and over-the-top violence and gore to create an iconic cult film series for a new generation.

Furthermore, Green takes the level of blatant iconography to a new high, featuring cameos by horror legends Robert Englund (Freddy Krueger) and Kane Hodder (Jason Voorhees). Well played Mr. Green, very well played.

Best Quotes:

“But you only shot him once, right? Maybe you gotta shoot him more times. Like four- or six- maybe you gotta shoot him six times?”

“I can't believe I am out here in a swamp. I bet Julia Roberts didn't have to go through this before she got Mystic Pizza.”