It’s that time of year again and L.A. RECORD is coming at you with twenty-five more overlooked and obscure horror titles to heighten your Halloween. Most are available through Netflix and others can to be found down at Cinefile or Vidiots. And we’re off with Nolan Knight…

1. Phenomena – An Argento stunner featuring a young Jennifer Connelly, insects, murder and a monkey. Oh, Donald Pleasance’s character adds just the right touch of awkwardness to human-chimp relations too. Several bizarre twists will keep you guessing with a killer ending.

2. Tourist Trap – Don’t be fooled! That roadside museum in the middle of nowhere doesn’t kill time—just hare-brained twenty-somethings. Featuring Tonya Roberts, this one isn’t big on acting but definitely worth a peek.

3. The Burning – Pretty much a guide of what not to do when at summer camp, if you enjoy living. A serial-killer revenge flick that delivers with every slash to teenage flesh. A young George Costanza adds to the cast of unhappy campers. This one is a must.

4. Pieces – With a tagline of “You Don’t Have to Go to Texas for a Chainsaw Massacre,” how can you go wrong? An illogical plot, for starters? Nope. That doesn’t stop the fun of this flick. The impromptu martial-arts scene will make your day.

5. The Sentinel – John Carradine. Ava Gardner. Eli Wallach. Burgess Meredith. Christopher Walken. The Gateway to Hell. Nice.

6. Slumber Party Massacre – A driller killer and a full house of teenage girls. One would think the poor bastard wouldn’t stand a chance, right? Wrong. Loads of nudity and violence to compliment the blood and guts.

7. Eyeball – Pretty good Umberto Lenzi giallo. A caped killer is on the loose, knocking off tourists by plucking out their peepers. Go in without high expectations and you’ll dig it.

8. White Zombie – Lugosi in command of an army of undead slaves. Haunting atmosphere and perfectly macabre. A zombie classic.

9. I Spit on Your Grave – Not as explicit as Thriller: A Cruel Picture (i.e. no detailed sodomy scenes) but you’ll get the idea. Technically a revenge flick set in motion via gang rape. Not as many one liners as you’d expect.

10. Dracula’s Dog (a.k.a. Zoltan, Hound of Dracula) – The Russians excavate the tomb of Dracula, accidently unleashing–ah, fuck, just read the title one more time.

11. House at the Edge of the Park – The poor man’s Last House on the Left starring the always sadistic David Hess. This time, an uppity house party gets a full dose of torture and mayhem. Count how many times Hess uses the word twat.

12. Night of the Demon – One of the most visually horrific openers in silver-screen cinema. Dana Andrews stars.

13. This Night I Will Possess Your Corpse – Often regarded as Jose Mojica Marins’ masterpiece in the Coffin Joe series. The hell scene alone is worth the viewing. Subtitled, in case that ain’t your bag.

14. Dog Soldiers – A welcome twist on the werewolf genre by Neil Marshall (The Descent) that puts Scottish soldiers up against rabid beasts. Funny dialogue, great special effects, and tons of gore.

15. Alone in the Dark – Not the Uwe Boll piece of shit. This one’s from 1982. Four psychopaths, fresh out the bin and gunning for their psychiatrists. Jack Palance, Martin Landau, and Donald Pleasance (sans monkey) star.

16. The Car – Before there was Christine, there was The Car, a possessed four-wheel death machine terrorizing everyone in its path. James Brolin says: “Ten years of traffic tickets and all this in one day!” Your call.

17. Mark of the Devil – Ah, the many splendors of the witch hunt. So many ways to cast out the devil. Contains lots of screaming and grisly torture scenes. Watch it with The Conqueror Worm.

18. Satanico Pandemonium – Nunsploitation in all its grandeur. Nothing like a young hot nun tempted by visions of forbidden sexual fantasies to become one with Satan. Boobs, blood and the Bible. Yes!

19. J.D.’s Revenge – Blaxploitation Horror. A young law student becomes possessed by the soul of a 1940s street hustler, exacting revenge on those who killed him. A favorite of the Grindhouse Film Fest (who just screened it with Blacula). Louis Gossett, Jr., co-stars.

20. Happy Birthday to Me – Somebody’s picking off rich kids faster than they can spend their trust funds. Who gives a shit, right? Well, when there’s a death via shish-kabob and it co-stars Glenn Ford, I do.

21. Chopping Mall – Eight teenagers are trapped in the Beverly Center, stalked by murderous robots who blast lasers. ‘80s mall culture meets its match.

22. Witchboard – Tawny Kitaen, an Ouija board, demonic possession, and enough shit acting to fill 98 minutes. And you thought she was only good for dancing on cars. Nope. She’s good for laughs, too.

23. Popcorn – A bunch of film students throwing the most elaborate film fest this side of Cannes. Campy but cool. Death by giant plastic mosquito.

24. Black Sunday – Barbara Steele as a witch returning from the grave for vengeance. A Bava classic and the film that put him on the map.

25. The Exorcist III – William Peter Blatty takes back the Exorcist franchise with an adaptation of his novel Legion. George C. Scott commands the screen and this one delivers nicely, erasing those shitty memories of the Exorcist II.

1. Zombie Holocaust (a.k.a. Doctor Butcher M.D.) – This is a fan favorite over at the Grindhouse Film Festival that screens almost annually. With a tagline like, “He’s a depraved, homicidal killer… and he makes housecalls,” why the fuck not? Fun and gory—think Zombie meets a PETA-friendly Cannibal Ferox.

2. Beyond the Door – One of the better Eurotrash possession films to cash in on The Exorcist hype of the early seventies, this film combines itself thematically with Rosemary’s Baby and delivers a ‘better than you thought’ experience. Highlights go to the satanic doll sequence and the foul-mouthed butt-ugly daughter.

3. Maniac – Quite simply, William Lustig’s slasher opus. Joe Spinell (Nighthawks, The Godfather) redefines creepiness, taking the serial killer with mommy issues to a whole new realm. He makes Norman Bates look like a Jonas brother. The gruesome ending and infamous shotgun scene are a must-see.

4. God Told Me To … Kill – Larry Cohen (It’s Alive, The Stuff) truly outdoes himself with this one when random New Yorkers start killing each other and all blaming it on the man upstairs. Keep your eye out for Andy Kaufman in his first film role and don’t get up to piss—you might miss the man-gina.

5. The Beyond – “Behind this doorway lie the terrifying and unspeakable secrets of hell.” Lucio Fulci really takes you on a ride in this one. From the awesome intro to the WTF ending, if you’re a fan of his and haven’t experienced this yet, you’re in for a real treat.

6. Sisters – Siamese twins are usually twisted enough, but in the brain of Brian De Palma (Scarface, Body Double), that’s only the beginning. Margot Kidder shines in this horrifying tale of weirdness and murder. Smoke a doob and try to keep the shit inside your body.

7. Don’t Look Now – Nicholas Roeg (The Man Who Fell To Earth) really fucks with your instincts as he takes you into the strange underbelly of Venice, Italy, and forces you to experience a couple’s decline after the death of their only child. The shocking ending with Donald Sutherland will leave you happily freaked.

8. Autopsy – Stranger than your standard giallo, the film deals with random suicides, featuring a depressed pathologist who visualizes corpses in coitus and a racecar driver turned priest who’s out for vengeance. Throw in a score by Ennio Morricone (The Good, the Bad, and The Ugly) and you’ve got yourself a stunner.

9. The Sinful Dwarf – Wow. This Danish title really speaks for itself. But wait—it also involves girls lured into white slavery by mechanical toy poodles and various musical numbers by a drunken mother in a Chiquita costume. Only in Denmark.

10. Deathdream (a.k.a. Dead of Night)– Before Bob Clark set out to make A Christmas Story, he was hacking up shitty kids in horror films. When a soldier killed in Vietnam returns home as a zombie, he isn’t exactly met with a ticker-tape parade. An overt statement on the horrors of war and the disintegration of the American family, this one has its rough edges but overall is brutally gratifying.

11. Dolls – Next time your car breaks down in the rain, try not to seek refuge with magical toy makers who turn humans into evil dolls. Great death scenes that make Chucky look like “My Buddy.”

12. Night of the Demons – Teens and séance parties—when will they ever learn? This is a fun one with great special effects and over-the-top eighties fashion. I dug the FEAR sticker on their boombox and Linnea Quigley slutting it up is always a thrill.

13. The Devil’s Rain – A rampant group of small-town Satanists, lead by Ernest Borgnine and Anton LaVey, are using their evil powers to melt people’s faces off and the only one who can stop them is… William Shatner? If you thought Borgnine looked like a goat before, wait till you see this.

14. Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein – This one has it all—juggling comedy, horror, and romance in just the right way to make that ultra-rare and perfect cinematic experience. You get Bela Lugosi as Dracula, Lon Cheney Jr. as The Wolf Man, Glenn Strange as Frankenstein and Vincent Price as the Invisible Man. How can this not be loved?

15. Spider Baby – Before Sid Haig went on to immortalize exploitation cinema and land in the hands of Rob Zombie, he was a bug-eating inbred for Jack Hill (Coffy, Switchblade Sisters). A demented look at family and greed with an aged Lon Cheney Jr. standing out as the protective chauffeur-slash-guardian.

16. Last House On The Left – Pure sadism at it’s worst. The girls just wanted to score a little dope for the rock concert; the last thing they expected was to be kidnapped, tortured, raped, and killed at the hands of psychotic convicts. David Hess (Hitch-Hike) cements his status as cinema’s #1 sleazebag in this Wes Craven cult favorite.

17. Werewolf Woman – A mind-fucking Eurotrash featuring a woman who dreams of being a werewolf and goes out to hunt men, only to rip their throats out after using them for cheap sex. Check please!

18. Race with the Devil – Come hop in the brand new R.V. with Peter Fonda and Warren Oates as they journey into the countryside with their trophy wives for a vacation of dirtbike riding that quickly turns into a race for their lives after they witness a human sacrifice and black mass.

19. Daughters of Darkness – The DVD promises, “An erotic nightmare of vampire lust.” This is a very artsy and moody piece that succeeds at putting a new twist on the vampire genre as well as subtly tackling human sexuality. Also included on this Blue Underground disc is The Blood Splattered Bride—double score!

20. Black Candles – A Spanish film involving Satanism that includes virgins being raped by goats before they are sacrificed. ‘Nuff said.

21. The Prowler – Lawrence Tierney (Reservoir Dogs, Dillinger) and Farley Granger (They Live by Night, Rope) star in this underrated eighties slasher featuring a killer in WWII army fatigues out for blood at a college spring dance. Pretty sweet knifing to the face and shower scene.

22. House of Dracula – John Carradine takes a stab at Dracula as he and the Wolf Man set out to find a cure for their vampirism and lycanthropy. Mayhem ensues after the Frankenstein monster awakens, spawning a monster battle royale where only one will survive.

23. Taste of Fear – This is an excellent William Castle-produced Hammer Studios film with Christopher Lee that will keep you guessing all the way to the unpredictable ending. A cut above most Hammer films, this one keeps you at the edge of your seat and includes one of cinemas greatest drop-kicks.

24. The Conqueror Worm (a.k.a. Witchfinder General) – A brutal piece of cinema featuring Vincent Price as a witch hunter out to burn heretics at the stake or drown them into salvation. The violence is way ahead of its time and Price considered this to be his finest performance.

25. They Live – Roddy Piper is a nomad who stumbles across a pair of sunglasses that exposes the world for what it really is—a consumerized slave farm controlled by zombie-looking aliens. Heavy on its economic, political, and social overtones, this one also features one of the funniest bare-knuckle brawl scenes ever to be filmed.

Honorable Mentions (more common titles but always horrific): Demons, Near Dark, The Monster Squad, Freaks, I Spit on Your Grave, Susperia, C.H.U.D., Waxwork, Fright Night, She-Freak, Astro-Zombies, Re-Animator, The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue, The Hills Have Eyes, Deep Red, and Blood Diner.