Rutger Hauer in The Hitcher

Four years after playing a killer desperate to dodge extinction—Roy Batty in Blade Runner—Rutger Hauer played John Ryder in The Hitcher (1986), a killer courting oblivion.

Waldemar Daninsky. The name is a trochaic delight, a complete poem—I could walk around all day saying those words, which roll off the tongue like “Candyman.” Waldemar Daninsky, the lycanthropic Polish nobleman, was the creation of Spanish screenwriter Paul Naschy (also credited as Jacinto Molina, his real name), who portrayed him in 12 films…

The Beyond

Timothy Leary taught us that set and setting are critical to determining the shape of any mind-altering experience.

Demons

Demons (1971) begins with the sun’s burial. It sinks beneath the horizon, like the circle leaving a Japanese flag. This brief color sequence is the overture to a monochrome samurai nightmare, unfolding on the fringes of Chushingura, the 18th-century Kabuki drama cycle about the 47 ronin.

Nosferatu the Vampyre

Now that the fear economy is booming, you may be kicking yourself for investing everything in love. But before you dump all those stocks, ask yourself the perennial question: would you rather be loved or feared? You can’t have both, just like you’d never mistake a “follower” for a “friend.” This dilemma is at the heart of Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)…

Messiah of Evil

The cold open to Messiah of Evil (1973) promises first-rate grindhouse, grimy as you like: a man running for his life down a suburban sidewalk collapses outside a wooden gate.

Empire of Silence

Renowned composer Toru Takemitsu brought his own brand of sonic fear to the soundtracks of many genre highlights from the Japanese New Wave.

The Hellstrom Chronicle

Insects are the worst kind of people. With all the venom-pumping, eye-gouging, and cannibalism, it’s a wonder they get around to maintaining our delicate ecosystem. Dr. Nils Hellstrom, fictional entomologist, is here to tell us that they mean to kill us, or simply wait until we kill ourselves.