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.

obscure

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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Seeding of a Ghost

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

cult

Mystics in Bali

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

cult

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.

▶ watch⊘ bannedcult

Night of the Bloody Apes

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

▶ watchcult

Brain Damage

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

▶ watchcult

Color Me Blood Red

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

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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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Frankenhooker

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

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Street Trash

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

▶ watch⊘ bannedknown

Blood Feast

The first gore film. Barely competent, historically unavoidable.

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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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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.

▶ watch⊘ bannedknown

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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The Toxic Avenger

Troma's only good film, and the head-crushing is still funny.

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Bad Taste

Shot at weekends over four years by Jackson and his friends. Astonishing.

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The Return of the Living Dead

Punk soundtrack, running zombies, and the film that invented 'BRAINS'.

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Re-Animator

Where the effects and the writing finally matched. Jeffrey Combs is perfect.

▶ watch⊘ bannedcanon

Braindead

Jackson before the trilogy. The lawnmower scene ends the argument.

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Day of the Dead

The bleakest Romero. Bub is the only sympathetic character in it.

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Dawn of the Dead

A shopping mall, four survivors, and Savini's finest hour.

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The Evil Dead II

Remake and sequel at once. Raimi discovers slapstick and never looks back.

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The Evil Dead

Prosecuted in Britain. Actually a comedy, though it took years to admit it.