It is a truth universally acknowledged that horror nerds sometimes take pride in the dumbest things. It can feel like a race to the bottom for who can champion the most marginal forgotten relics. But rather than gatekeeping the underground like some other fandoms do, most of us are eager to share our underseen faves in hopes of getting them more attention. Using 200 Letterboxd views as a threshold for obscurity, I’m spotlighting, in alphabetical order, some of the most overlooked horror films worth your time.
Good movies can fall off the map for any number of reasons. Sometimes, they lack the budget—or networks—for proper promotion. Sometimes, the timing doesn’t work out. Sometimes, they’re personal projects made without much consideration for courting an audience. But these days, what buries most films is lack of access.
In the 2020s, we tend to limit ourselves to what’s on our streaming services, and even physical media aficionados seem more interested in the newest reissues than digging up hard-to-find films on older formats. But with a bit of legwork—such as utilizing your local library or still-extant mail-rental services like Seattle’s fabulous Scarecrow Video—all the films on this list are obtainable. If something here catches your eye but you can’t get ahold of it, reach out, and I’ll point you in the right direction.
A younger me might have published this list as an excuse to flex my outré tastes, but today, it’s the opposite: I’d love to help push these horror films above the 200-view threshold. So here’s hoping this list becomes obsolete.
Brides to Be (2016)
Directed by Lindy and Kris Boustedt
Available on AppleTV
An engaged couple chooses an old house for their wedding venue, but things go off the rails when they show up to decorate for the big day. This brain-bender has some of the most striking sound design and scoring I’ve heard in a low-budget movie, and the way the psychic space shapes the physical space makes this like a Polanski film you don’t need to feel guilty about.
Plus, queer love in a film where queerness is not the focus!
Confessions (2016)
Directed by Mark Bessenger
Available on VOD
While this anthology touts itself as “a peek under the surface of any gay man,” it’d be more accurate to call it a peek under the surface of a handful of white, middle-class gay cis men. Limited perspective notwithstanding, what’s here is compellingly well-made.
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Only a few segments can properly be called horror, but they pack a punch—especially a chilling to-camera monologue delivered by a kidnapper to his victim.
Fhtagn: Rock Opera of Doom (2017)
Directed by Fabian Rush
I’m probably biased by central Virginia pride and by seeing some familiar hometown faces in supporting parts, but this one swings for the fences, mounting a time-hopping greenscreen period piece that serves as an origin story for the Necronomicon.
Despite the parodic tone, it’s truer to Lovecraft’s spirit than a lot of played-straight adaptations, and it contains the only funny “Lovecraft gave his cat a racist name” joke ever told. It’s almost enough to make me forget my inherent dislike of musicals.
Girls, Dance With the Dead (2015)
Directed by Kayoko Asakura
Two musicals in a row—maybe I don’t hate them after all. Who’d have thought a promo film for a Japanese idol girl group, complete with machine-gunning gangsters, could turn out so poignant?
When a group of cleaners discovers a dead body in the woods and decides to try a reanimation ritual, it becomes a surreal contemplation of the strange glamor of death and the pain of living.
Hrabě Drakula (Count Dracula) (1971)
Directed by Anna Procházková
Atmosphere is the main attraction of this faithful Dracula adaptation made for Czech television. The snowbound Carpathians and eldritch castle interiors in stark black and white evoke Cocteau, while the soundstage scenes rely on claustrophobic close-ups.
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Sure to pair nicely with this winter’s Nosferatu.
In Search of Lovecraft (2008)
Directed by David J. Hohl
A mockumentary from the post-Blair Witch, pre-Cloverfield window when found footage was still a format and not yet a genre, this horror film finds a TV news reporter pulled into a mad whirl of cult paranoia and mysterious monoliths.
It takes a lot to rattle me, but a nighttime viewing of this film alone in the house left me genuinely unnerved.
In the Blood (2006)
Directed by Lou Peterson
Available on VOD
Another cheapie horror film that shoots for the moon. Check out this premise: a young man has clairvoyant visions of future murders, but only when having sex with men. His unwillingness to emerge from closeted denial does battle with his desire to unmask a campus serial killer who seems to be targeting his sister.
With that unique premise and an 82-minute runtime, it doesn’t even need to be well-made, but as a nice bonus, it is.
The Jackhammer Massacre (2004)
Directed by Joe Castro
A Requiem for a Dream-esque drug horror spiral morphs into a vicious tripped-out slasher, with sickly visions of cops turning into Jacob’s Ladder syringe-toothed head-chatterers, Castro’s trademark extreme grue, and meaty subtext about a culture that rewards male violence.
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When Jack comes for you, brandishing his jackhammer just below the pelvis, that’s when you realize masculinity is the most dangerous drug.
Nite Tales (2008)
Directed by Deon Taylor
A two-part anthology hosted by Flavor Flav, from the director of Traffik, featuring both members of Onyx, a dark ‘n’ stormy night, a teenage house party, sinister clowns, Bloody Mary, escaped lunatics, and Tony Todd? This horror film recommendation writes itself.
October Moon (2005)
Directed by Jason Paul Collum
Available on VOD
Despite the box art and blurb, don’t go in expecting a werewolf movie. Instead, expect a dense, slow-burn character study about the dangers of the closet, as a “straight” family man’s internalized homophobia leads to obsession and violence.
This one will reward you if you can get on its wavelength.
Pickman’s Muse (2010)
Directed by Robert Cappelletto
More low-budget Lovecraft; despite the title, this adapts “The Haunter of the Dark,” telling the story of an artist who becomes obsessed with an artifact in an abandoned church.
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It’s telling that indie auteurs, who know how to do a lot with a little, are often better at conjuring something authentically Lovecraftian than filmmakers with a thousand times the budget. (Garland and Stanley, this side-eye is for you.)
Ratline (2011)
Directed by Eric Stanze
From the indie wizard behind the better-known faux-snuff Scrapbook comes a hugely ambitious tale of a criminal on the run who collides with a devil-worshipping Nazi and a paranormal artifact.
This is honest independent filmmaking, rough around the edges but brimming with enough gore-soaked enthusiasm and originality to bring you along for the ride.
Rorret (1988)
Directed by Fulvio Wetzl
In this little-seen Italian chiller, the owner of a repertory movie theater subjects victims to reenactments of classic suspense setpieces. What starts as a mainstream psycho-thriller with splashy ‘80s pop music soon reveals itself as an unrepentant art film, growing increasingly surreal and theatrical as it shifts from video to rich 35mm black and white when the killer restages iconic scenes from Peeping Tom, Psycho, and Strangers on a Train.
Strange Girls (2007)
Directed by Rona Marks
The titular girls are two identical twins who are released from a psychiatric hospital, with a troubled psychiatrist tasked with investigating their bizarre behavior. Take some De Palma, stir in some Cronenberg, add a splash of John Waters, and set it all in authentically grimy urban locales.
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If you can make it past the opening scene, you’re locked in.
Suroh: Alien Hitchhiker (1996)
Directed by Patrick McGuinn
Shot-on-video psychedelia about a pothead journalist who encounters a crash-landed alien on the run from government agents. If its premise is accurate—all it takes for humankind to reach enlightenment is to have sex with an alien.
Your turn! Echo-chambering the latest hype is all well and good, but occasionally, you have to upturn some stones and point your flashlight at the slime beneath. Comment with some of your favorite ultra-obscure horror films. I promise I’ll watch them.
