Lesser known, however no less scary

So, it’s Halloween again, and for many of us, that means an excuse to watch all manner of horror movies, good and bad. But, for those of you who have seen “The Exorcist” and “Halloween” too many times, you might be looking for something a little different to pop into the VCR/DVD player after trick-or-treating. Thus, MUSE presents a list of some good, lesser-seen horror movies. No, it’s not a definitive list of anything, and no, there aren’t 13 of them, but it might get your mind jogging when it comes time to hit the video store…

BLACK CHRISTMAS (1974) Yes, it takes place around Christmas, but this is still one of the best horror movies of its type. The original “Halloween” may represent the pinnacle of the slasher flick, but this one is just as creepy, and it predates John Carpenter’s classic by four years. You’ve got your spooky phone calls. You’ve got your screaming sorority girls. You’ve got your deranged killer. You’ve got your morbid death scenes. And best of all: it’s suitable viewing for two different holidays!

CEMETERY MAN (1993) Much like Peter Jackson’s early work (“Dead Alive,” “Bad Taste”), “Cemetery Man” is an absurd and highly entertaining blend of gross-out horror and black humor. A pre-fame Rupert Everett is Francesco Dellamorte, who has the unenviable task of making sure the dead in the local cemetery stay dead. With his strange, amusing sidekick Gnaghi at his side, Francesco must dispatch the zombies in various gruesome ways. It’s really odd, really gory and funny as hell. Perfect for Halloween.

THE CHANGELING (1980) After seeing his family killed in a car accident, music professor George C. Scott moves into a spooky old house that, of course, is haunted. So, naturally, it’s up to him to uncover this old secret … you know the drill. What makes “The Changeling” unique is its heavy reliance on silence and suggestion over cheap thrills and violence. Haunted house movies are a dime a dozen, but this is one of the few (along with the 1963 version of “The Haunting”) that knows that fear is a product of the imagination, and not of cats jumping out from behind bushes.

GINGER SNAPS (2000) This movie has been compared to “Carrie,” since both are horror films that use their respective conceits as a metaphor for female puberty. Shortly after 16-year-old Ginger has her first period, she is attacked by a wolf-like creature and soon after finds herself undergoing some strange changes and getting into trouble as a result. Perhaps using lycanthropy as a symbol for sexual anxiety sounds stupid or heavy-handed, but the movie is sufficiently strange and clever enough to get past that. It’s one of the more unique horror movies to come out in the past couple years.

HƒXAN: WITCHCRAFT THROUGH THE AGES (1922) And now for something completely different. An 80-year-old semi-documentary about witchcraft made in Denmark? The lines between fiction and nonfiction are constantly blurred, and what we get is as much a history lesson on the origins and practices of witchcraft as a darkly comic narrative poking fun at religion. A lot of the dramatizations contain surreal effects that are both disturbing and entertaining to watch. The new Criterion Collection DVD features multiple versions of the film, including one from 1967 featuring narration by William S. Burroughs and a jazz soundtrack. As if things couldn’t get any weirder.

HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER (1986) Based on the life of serial killer Henry Lee Lucas, this movie has been the cause of controversy since its release. As it happens, “Henry” includes some of the most disturbing scenes of violence ever filmed, but not because of any gratuitous gore. What sets this film apart is how real much of the violence seems; it’s not trivialized or glossed over, as it is in so many bloodier horror movies. Knowing it’s based on actual events only makes it harder to watch. “Henry” is a chilling reminder that, in reality, horror doesn’t take the form of vampires or ghosts, but of an ordinary-looking guy in a mall parking lot.

REPULSION (1965) When the words “Roman Polanski” and “horror” are used together, most people immediately think of “Rosemary’s Baby.” But this earlier effort is less widely embraced and, in many ways, even creepier than the 1968 classic. Catherine Deneuve is Carol, a Belgian girl living in London who goes through life looking near catatonic. She is withdrawn and repulsed by men and sex (hence the title), and before long goes off the deep end. This isn’t a typical horror film but draws its intensity from the way it looks unflinchingly at a character’s descent into madness.

SUSPIRIA (1977) There had to be a place for Dario Argento on this list, and “Suspiria” is as good a place as any to start with Argento or the Italian giallos. The slasher movies of the 80s owe a debt to this heavily stylized film, which uses plot merely as an excuse to throw a series of bizarre and shocking images at the audience. But Argento manages to go beyond camp and create something genuinely disturbing. Like most of his films, “Suspiria” is almost an exercise in sadism, in how Argento treats both his characters and the audience.

THE TINGLER (1959) Picking one Vincent Price entry for any list of horror movies is impossible, but this one is also of note for being one of director/producer William Castle’s “gimmick” movies. In the case of “The Tingler,” theater seats were wired to give audience members a small shock at appropriate moments in the film, a gimmick called “percepto.” The plot isn’t much more intelligent: the “tingler” of the title is a parasite on the human spine that feeds on our fear and can kill us if we don’t scream our fear away. So, near the end, you have the screen going black as Vincent Price yells “Scream! Scream for your lives!” It’s at this moment that the seat buzzers were supposed to go off, filling the theater with screams. For those of you watching at home, take this opportunity to jolt the person next to you with a stun gun.

THE WICKER MAN (1973) Another movie that isn’t strictly horror, “The Wicker Man” is nonetheless a haunting film, and co-star Christopher Lee, himself an icon of horror, reportedly called it the best he’d ever been in. The plot concerns a British policeman who investigates a young girl’s disappearance on the Scottish island of Summerisle, and discovers that its citizens have rejected Christianity in favor of the pagan traditions of the past. As he gets further involved in the mystery, the film throws surprise after surprise at the audience, and in the end, it is as intellectually stimulating as it is horrifying.