Recommend another foreign horror movie.

Paul Corupe - Canuxploitation

Netherlands

I’m going to go with Dick Maas’ moderately effective stab at elevator horror, The Lift, a curiosuly unseen Dutch effort. I first spotted it for sale in a used video store, and I couldn’t resist the amazing tagline: “Take the stairs…take the stairs! For God’s sake, take the Stairs!!!” In the film, an elevator repair man investigates a malfunctioning lift that is killing people. It’s a nice mix of campily decadent 80s horror (a debauched executive having an affair in the elevator) with occasional shocks and surprises (a blind man falls down the shaft thinking the elevator car is there!) and even a sprinkle of social commentary, when it’s revealed that an American manufacturer may be to blame. It was remade by Maas himself almost a decade later in Hollywood as The Shaft.

Jeff O’Brien

Ireland

Dead Meat.

Sean T. Collins - Attentiondeficitdisorderly Too Flat

New Zealand

I’m recommending an obscure series of films from New Zealand called The Lord of the Rings. No, for real! You don’t have to look any further than The Wizard of Oz’s flying monkeys to see how influential horror in non-horror films can be, and seen in that light this epic from horror veteran Peter Jackson is tough to top. The orcs, the Ringwraiths, the Uruk-Hai, Bilbo’s Ring-driven freak-out, the Watcher in the Water, the cave troll, the Balrog, Gollum, the Dead Marshes, the fell beasts, the Eye of Sauron, the wargs, the Paths of the Dead, Minas Morgul, Shelob’s lair, Shelob herself, Aragorn’s dream, the Mouth of Sauron…top-flight horror images one and all. I eagerly await the grown-up fruits of the childhood nightmares they’ve inspired.

Nathan - MicroHorror

The United Kingdom

The United Kingdom, in recent years, has blessed us with some truly great and original horror films. “28 Days Later” and “Shaun of the Dead” will be influencing zombie movies for years to come, and “Dog Soldiers” was pretty much a perfect werewolf film. You don’t need me to tell you how good those movies are, nor do you need to listen to me go on about the classic Hammer horror oeuvre. Instead, I’ll tell you about a movie which may not be so perfect and timeless, but which is near and dear to my heart: 1972’s “Tales from the Crypt.”

Amicus Productions was, and remains, best known for its anthology horror films, which include 1965’s “Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors” and 1970’s “The House That Dripped Blood.” As Amicus was already in the habit of producing movies consisting of several short stories all wrapped up together, it should come as no surprise that the studio turned to the comics of Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein for inspiration.

“Tales from the Crypt” contains five stories adapted from EC’s horror comics, plus a framing story. Ironically, only two of those stories were actually published in the comic “Tales from the Crypt.” The other three came from EC’s other horror titles, “The Vault of Horror” and “The Haunt of Fear.” The five segments are “…And All Through the House,” a cheerful tale of Christmas murder; “Reflection of Death,” a meditation on the aftermath of a fatal car accident; “Poetic Justice,” a satisfying story of revenge; “Wish You Were Here,” a loose adaptation of “The Monkey’s Paw”; and “Blind Alleys,” a cautionary tale about the abuse of power.

“Tales from the Crypt,” admittedly, seems a little dated these days, and the HBO series spearheaded by Robert Zemeckis really is the definitive collection of EC adaptations, but it’s still chock full of delightfully grim humor and dry wit, as the oh-so-American shock stories of EC get filtered through the very British sensibilities of Amicus. Enjoy.

After far too long a wait, “Tales from the Crypt” will finally be released on DVD on September 11, 2007, in a double pack with Amicus’s 1973 follow-up “The Vault of Horror.”

Thanks to Jeff and Paul (and Sean and Nathan) for taking one for the team. You wouldn’t think there’d be a silver lining to having so few submissions, but it’s kind of nice to be able to thank contributors individually.

I’m off to the Festival of Fear tomorrow, where I hope I can meet a few Roundtable members and maybe buy that poster from Humoungous I saw last year. Have a nice weekend!

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