The films

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Boardinghouse

The first shot-on-video horror feature, blown up to 35mm and just as ugly as that sounds.

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She-Devils on Wheels

H.G. Lewis hands the gore to a real biker gang. The acting is a crime; the piano wire is the point.

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The Burning Moon

Shot-on-video German splatter so homemade you can smell the garage. Ittenbach's Herschell Gordon Lewis tribute act.

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Seeding of a Ghost

Ninety minutes of restrained Shaw revenge, then twenty of rotting-corpse insanity.

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Five Element Ninjas

Chang Cheh spills more guts here than in any Shaw film before it, and grins the whole way.

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Run and Kill

A drunk man accidentally orders a hit on his own wife, and it is all downhill from there.

cult

Mystics in Bali

The Indonesian one everybody means: a flying witch's head, viscera trailing, hunting in the dark.

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The Gore Gore Girls

Herschell Gordon Lewis signs off with a meat tenderiser and a gag about chocolate milk.

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The Wizard of Gore

A stage magician whose tricks are real. Lewis's most interesting idea.

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Ebola Syndrome

Anthony Wong versus the world, armed with a virus and no impulse control.

cult

Guinea Pig 2: Flower of Flesh and Blood

The fake snuff film that got Charlie Sheen on the phone to the FBI.

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Night of the Bloody Apes

Mexican horror at the gore end: a gorilla-heart transplant, real surgery footage, and a masked lady wrestler.

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Brain Damage

A parasite gives a young man euphoric highs in exchange for feeding it brains. Addiction as horror.

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Color Me Blood Red

Lewis finishing his gore trilogy. A painter, and his pigment source.

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Tromeo and Juliet

Body piercings, a penis monster, and Lemmy on narration. Troma's actual masterpiece.

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Nekromantik 2

Buttgereit's necrophilia sequel, prosecuted on arrival, and stranger than the first.

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Tokyo Gore Police

The Japanese splatter movement at full arterial pressure, from the man who built it.

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Class of Nuke 'Em High

Troma's toxic high school, second only to Toxie. Exactly as stupid as you want it to be.

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Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky

A live-action gore manga where nobody has heard of restraint or arterial pressure.

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The Untold Story

Anthony Wong won Best Actor for this. Then you find out what goes in the pork buns.

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Street Trash

People melt in primary colours. Tasteless, inventive, weirdly beautiful.

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Blood Feast

The first gore film. Barely competent, historically unavoidable.

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Frankenhooker

A man rebuilds his dead girlfriend from the parts of exploded sex workers. Exactly that stupid, and great.

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Dead & Buried

Stan Winston effects and a good twist. Underseen.

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The Driller Killer

Abel Ferrara's debut. More interesting as a document of downtown New York.

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Two Thousand Maniacs!

H.G. Lewis, a Southern town, and gore effects that predate everyone.

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Frontier(s)

Texas Chainsaw with a French accent and a swastika over the door.

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Maniac

Savini's effects, Spinell's performance, and a very bleak little film.

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The Exterminator

A flamethrower and a meat grinder. Death Wish with the restraint removed.

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Basket Case

$35,000, shot on 42nd Street, and completely charming. The best kind of cheap.

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Nekromantik

German, banned widely, and much sadder than its reputation suggests.

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Tetsuo: The Iron Man

Sixty-seven minutes of industrial nightmare. Nothing else looks like it.

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Bride of Re-Animator

Herbert West builds a woman from parts. The sequel goes bigger, wetter and more demented.

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From Beyond

Stuart Gordon and Jeffrey Combs do Lovecraft again. A machine that lets you see what should stay unseen.

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Inside

The French extremity wave stripped to one room, one night, and a pair of scissors.

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Ichi the Killer

Miike hands out sick bags at the premiere and earns every one of them.