I love those practical effects psychological sci fi thrillers - the thing is another one of my favourite movies. Back when films could spend the first 30 minutes building tension, when the score was sparse and gave you a sense of the isolation and fear of the characters instead of just slamming a soundtrack and a CGI monster in your face.
It’s not even just monster movies, I used to really love the shining growing up. I think I just love those old movies that built a slow sense of dread and tension.
The only modern movie I can think of that hits these same notes is It Follows.
Who else loves these kind of films? Anyone got any recommendations?
Alien was the last good Star Wars movie.
Alien and The Thing are my favorites too! Love the slow tension build and the slow realization of the dread that the characters are screwed.
Similar movies I’ve enjoyed (whether horror/monster movies, or similar tension building):
- Halloween (1978) (I need to try more of John Carpenter’s movies)
- Predator
- Terminator 1 (similar monster movie dread theme, whereas T2 is prime action)
- Dead Alive (zombie movie gorefest that’s an homage to B movies by Peter Jackson (before LOTR))
- The Lighthouse (loved this more than the witch. I think it’s the claustrophobia on the island and the old 100 year old camera lense they used. Might have to try the witch again, I didn’t get it at the time and it made me feel very isolated (I know that’s the point))
I think I love modern monster movies and the atmosphere that’s built. I wish there were more movies done in the style of Alien and The Thing.
Honestly thought the Rob Zombie remake of Halloween was even better than the original. Fleshing out the backstory a bit and tying Myers to his history as the primary motive for the slayings gives the movie more momentum. Also, Myers going from a small boy to this hulking giant of a man inside the first Act raises the stakes in a very visual way.
Myer’s is less frightening when he’s a character with a mental illness you see develop over time in response to external forces, in the original the choice to have his life be totally ordinary up until one day he kills his sister creates a more unknowable killer, a force of nature more than a character.
I guess I came at it from the other direction. The RZ Halloween had more of a Joker vibe, in so far as he was a symptom of a dysfunctional society whose monstrous nature reflected his monstrous upbringing. His sister struggling with similar psychotic urges in the second movie
spoiler
ones that don’t manifest until she’s significantly traumatized
add to the overall narrative arc.
e: this sounds dick-ish when I type it out. Obviously it’s fine you like the new one more.
Hey, different strokes for different folks. There’s always a certain vibe to a quality original that will leave remakes feeling lackluster simply because they’re not that original masterful thing.
I agree whole-heartedly. My favourite aspect was probably the claustrophobic atmosphere, and the 70s sci-fi aesthetic. The way the creature is built up is brilliant too, it doesn’t blow its load too early like a lot of horror films, and the sense of mystery surrounding the origins of the alien (which was later ruined by Ridley Scott in Prometheus and Alien: Covenant). The music is absolutely wonderful too. I really must finish Alien: Isolation one day!
I’m not sure I can recommend any other films that do what Alien does, but I guess Event Horizon captures the atmosphere quite well. Also the VVitch, which someone else recommended elsewhere in this thread.
Edit: Oh, and [REC] + [REC2]. I saw the second in late-night telly many years ago and it really stuck with me, and I watched the original a few months ago and that was great too. Faster paced than the others that have been recommended, but still with elements of mystery and ‘Cosmic Horror’.
Edit 2: OH also a BBC miniseries that aired in 2014 called Remember Me. It’s a slow-burn supernatural thing, perhaps not so much a horror as a thriller, but I enjoyed it at the time (though I was a teenager, so take that with a pinch of salt). It’s also got an alternate version of the song Scarborough Fair in it with a different melody, which I still half-remember.
This is not really similar in tone, but if your favorite part of Alien was the practical effects then you owe it to yourself to watch Pumpkinhead. It’s a revenge flick mashed up with a creature feature and what it lacks in subtlety it more than makes up for with it’s originality. It’s directed by Stan Winston, the master behind a lot of the FX work in The Thing, Aliens, and the Jurassic Park trilogy, among others.
For a more modern movie with great practical effects, Late Phases is my go-to recommendation. It’s by far the best werewolf movie since An American Werewolf in London and the pacing might be a better fit for your tastes. It takes place in an assisted living community and is thematically focused on the social isolation that comes with age.
And shit I just realized that the practical effects part wasn’t the focus of your request. If you want something sort of similar to The Shining, my all-time favorite horror movie is Rosemary’s Baby. Pirate it, obviously, because Polanski doesn’t deserve a cent of your money, but no movie does a better job of slowly building up the rising sense of dread - this is the only film that has given me lasting nightmares. Cronenberg’s The Brood is in a similar vein and it has the practical effects turned up to 11. And I mentioned it when I was praising Stan Winston earlier on, but if there is any chance you haven’t seen The Thing somehow… that is actually probably the exact movie that you’re looking for in terms of genre, pacing and production.
Lastly, I can’t leave a discussion touching on practical effects without mentioning Society, a scathing satire on the incestuous nature of the bourgeoisie. Content warning: bourgeois decadence in ways that make Eyes Wide Shut look take by comparison. As in, flesh-melding mutant family orgies. I don’t think it is at all what you’re looking for but I’m still going to recommend it because Yuzna pulls no punches.
TLDR:
- Pumpkinhead (1988)
- Late Phases (2014)
- Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
- The Brood (1979)
- The Thing (1982)
- Society (1989)
Gonna highly disagree on Pumpkinhead because you’re right the monster effect is amazing but the movie never does anything interesting with it. Every time pumpkinhead shows up to kill someone it just kind of punches them to death and then leaves, there’s only one good kill where he shoves a stick or something through a guys torso but other than that it was an absolute snoozer imo
It was Winston’s directorial debut and it shows, I’ll give you that. While the effects and the monster design are the reason I recommend this one, it also stands out among its contemporaries for shunning the typical middle-class setting and taking a more nuanced view of revenge and vigilanteism. Think about the other horror movies that came out in the 80s - they took place at summer camp or in the suburbs or in dormitories or college campuses. When we do get the chance to visit less affluent areas in '80s horror, it’s most often as tourists with a group of yuppies who are stalked by the locals.
In Pumpkinhead, we follow a swampy, rural community in eastern North Carolina. The people there aren’t monsters like Texas Chainsaw Massacre or The Hills Have Eyes - they’re just regular poor people. Pumpkinhead is an ugly, divine force of vigilante retribution in a community that can’t rely on the authorities for justice. And while revenge movies were nothing new by '88, Pumpkinhead is one of the few that shows the toll that revenge can take on all parties - even fully justified revenge - and points to the generational impact of punitive justice.
So yeah, the writing is not great and the acting doesn’t do the script any favors. There are definitely pacing issues and they could have given Pumpkinhead more screen time. Underneath all of that, however, I think it’s a real gem.
