WHAT'S YOUR TOP 3 HORROR FILMS OF ALL TIME? GHOULISH GARY PULLIN GIVES US HIS!

If you're a horror fan then you probably know the name Ghoulish Gary Pullin. An amazing artist who has created many outstanding eye-popping pieces for posters, magazines, records, and films and a 2009 Rondo Award winner. In my personal collection I have Waxwork Records' original soundtracks for RE-ANIMATOR and CREEPSHOW which Gary created original artwork for. They are drop dead gorgeous! Gary and his work will also be featured in the upcoming film TWENTY-FOUR BY THIRTY-SIX!

So for the month of Halloween I've asked a few people to share their top 3 horror films of all time, for any of you planning a scare-a-thon for Samhain and are pressed for what to watch. Well Gary was kind enough to share his top 3, so take it from a true monster kid...

Gary's first choice is one that I haven't seen and I feel like a chump, because everyone I know who has seen it talks about how scary it is. Starring George C Scott (Exorcist III, Dr Strangelove, Hardcore), THE CHANGELING is about a composer who tragically lost his family. He's consumed by grief and his friends convince him to get away for a while, so he rents a turn of the century house, but things get worse when he discovers the house is haunted by the ghost of a murdered child!

...yea, this is the year I watch THE CHANGELING!

Gary's next choice is one we have in common, THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON! What a fantastic picture-what an incredible monster...It's rare to find a full body monster suit from the 1950s that looked so realistic and gave such an iconic performance (there were actually two people who played the creature-Ben Chapman for the above the water scenes and Ricou Browning for the underwater scenes). In the film, a paleontologist discovers a fossilized hand with webbed fingers, marking the link in evolution from sea to land creatures and leads an expedition into the Amazon to try and learn more. There they encounter the curious monster who becomes enraged after being attacked, but also infatuated with the sole female member of the crew, Kay (Julie Adams). Though it came out much later than the original Universal Classics, the Creature is still counted among their ranks and will be included in the new line of shared universe remakes. One of the gems of the monster cinema and an unimpeachable classic. 

And for his number 3 pick, Gary chose a modern classic that just hit Blu Ray back in August.

SESSION 9 landed with little fan fare back in 2001, flying under the radar. It is criminal this movie wasn't a hit! I saw it at a midnight showing and it was seriously one of the scariest films I've seen. Shot in Massachusetts, SESSION 9 is about a crew of contractors hired to go into an old insane asylum and clean out the asbestos so the place can be torn down. Are they alone in the place, or is someone not what they seem? No frigging joke, the last half hour is intense! No spoilers and no more details, if you haven't experienced this underrated jewel, you need to add this your Halloween viewing schedule.  

Thanks, Gary, for sharing your top 3 favorite horror films! Too learn more about Ghoulish Gary and purchase his art you can go HERE to check out his official site. And you can follow him at @ghoulishgary on Twitter and Instagram and he'll be a guest at MondoCon, October 22-23 and Days of the Dead: Chicago, November 18 - 20. And check out the official trailer for TWENTY-FOUR BY THIRTY-SIX below...

 

 

LATE PHASES REVIEW

Adrian Garcia Bogliano stunned me with his last film, Here Comes The Devil, an art house possession flick that dealt head on with a crumbling family unit, sexual abuse and incest. It's a jarring and unforgiving film with one of the best endings I've seen in a horror film. The Spanish director's follow up is an even smaller, more intimate story of a blind war vet being dumped in a retirement community to wait for death, but not the death he expects.
Late Phases wastes little time getting to the horror. Only a few minutes in we get our first glimpse of our werewolf pass by a window and the sight made my wife scream a bit. Like the demons in Here Comes The Devil, the werewolf sets the movie up and then takes a backseat, while Bogliano delivers a moving character drama about fatherhood, death and estrangement. Nick Damici (Stake Land) is perfect as Ambrose, a widowed Vietnam vet who's gone blind along with dealing very poorly with his disintegrating relationship with his son. Ambrose is a course and stand offish man who gets on the wrong side of some of his neighbors while charming others. He finds a sort of friend and confidant in Father Roger, played by the always fun to watch Tom Noonan (House of the Devil, Manhunter).
On the horror side, Late Phases does not let viewers down. It's a scary, gory, and tense film that defies expectations, doesn't dumb things down, and goes for the throat with very cool creature FX and action. It's yet another win for Dark Sky Films and Glass Eye Pix, who will be remembered in film history as fondly, if not more, as Hammer or Universal. Late Phases works, not because its a good werewolf movie, but because it's a good movie with werewolves.