Quest-en-Scène: Horror Movie Recommendations Quiz
What would you carve into a pumpkin?
a. Classic jack-o'-lantern face
b. Something sentimental
c. Vomit pumpkin
d. A meme
What Halloween Costume would you choose?
a. Black mesh bodysuit
b. Evil nun
c. SFX make-up heavy zombie
d. Skele-Boner
Which of these popular Halloween movies is your favorite?
a.The Shining
b. Midsommar
c. The Substance
d. Scary Movie\
What monster would you least want to run into?
a. An evil version of yourself
b. Satan
c. The Walrus
d. Clown
What is your favorite Halloween activity?
a. Corn maze
b. Ouija board
c. Bobbing for apples
d. Costume party/contest
What is the scariest thing about Reed?
a. Not knowing your grades
b. Communism, Atheism, Free Love
c. Renn Fayre
d. Hum 110 Paper Conference
If you answered mostly A, you should watch a psychological horror movie.
Here are our recommendations:
Thesis: A film student works on her thesis about cinematic violence and accidentally gets roped into a dangerous and potentially deadly conspiracy. It’s extremely tense and enthralling, and serves as proof that you should never trust a film bro.
Perfect Blue: As a pop star leaves the music industry to become an actress, she begins to lose touch with reality as she struggles under the weight of the grueling film industry and terrifying obsessive fans. Surreal and horrifying, it features an ahead-of-its-time understanding of the pitfalls of celebrity fan culture and parasocial relationships.
The Red Shoes: It tells the story of artists who go mad in their commitment to their art. It’s like Black Swan but more focused on consuming the creation rather than the creation consuming you. The film is so beautiful and heartbreaking.
Possession: A spy returns home to Berlin from a mission to find out that his wife wants to divorce him. As he uncovers the affair that spurred the divorce, the wife, Anna (portrayed by the stunning Isabelle Adjani), descends into a madness both psychological and paranormal.
Kotoko: It’s a super intense yet thoroughly compassionate movie about mental health and parenting. It’s simultaneously scary and devastating with catharsis sprinkled throughout. This is an example of extreme cinema that bares its heart.
The (First) Omen: In an entertaining and schlocky prequel, the sixth (!) in an infamously kitsch franchise about a demon named Damien who is hellbent on world domination. The original film, which is also good, was shamed by the Catholic Church for “misrepresenting their eschatology,” if that means anything to you.
Audition: This is an enthralling and incredibly layered film with so many formally audacious creative choices that invokes such strong emotional reactions. It is both viscerally petrifying and so much fun.
If you answered mostly B, you should watch a spiritual horror movie.
Here are our recommendations:
The Craft: This is a cult classic about Catholic school teen witches who put spells on people they hate. It’s a lesbian-coded film with a rock soundtrack, and it has one of the best fight scenes I’ve ever seen. In 1997, it won the MTV award, “Best Fight.”
The Love Witch: Probably the raciest film on this list, but we have Samantha Robinson as a witch tempting men to sin. It was released nine years ago, but it calls back to Technicolor film with its coloring. It’s a beautiful and entertaining watch.
The VVitch: In this film, a Puritan family in 1600s New England is haunted and tortured by witches in the dark and wild forests surrounding them.
The Wicker Man: Dubbed the “Citizen Kane of horror films,” The Wicker Man is the story of a steadfast Christian man who investigates a remote Scottish isle only to find that the inhabitants have all turned to an ancient form of Paganism; terror ensues.
The Ritual: Tragedy and hubris lead a group of lifelong friends to embark on an unforgettable dudes' weekend of smoking and hiking, only for it to go horribly, horribly wrong.
The Wailing: This is a twist-filled ride infected with such a strong sense of utter dread and deeply felt tension. It’s set in a very unique and compelling location with an enthralling depiction of South Korean folklore. It also features an absolutely knockout third act.
Heretic: Two teenage Mormon girls working as missionaries find themselves ensnared in the trap-filled home of a man who is essentially a crazed Reddit atheist, hell-bent on proving that their religion is false.
If you answered mostly C, you should watch a body horror movie
Here are our recommendations:
The Thing: Overwhelming paranoia, icy Antarctic winds, and insane practical effects punctuate every second of this classic John Carpenter flick. This movie is like Among Us if it were actually entertaining for more than twelve minutes.
Ginger Snaps: This is an emotional roller coaster., packed with sisterly love, periods on a lunar cycle (featuring m-period, which makes me think that m-preg is plausible in this universe), and werewolves. It features a really bad wig but some really good VFX.
An American Werewolf in London: Two American tourists traveling through the London countryside get attacked by werewolves and have to deal with the aftermath. It’s both funny and extremely gory with excellent practical effects.
Re-Animator: A medical student discovers that his weird new roommate has found the secret to bringing the dead back to life. It’s very weird, gross, and over the top, with an amazing performance by the lead actor, Jeffrey Combs.
Bones and All: This film is incredibly gross and incredibly gorgeous. The sound work, both the score and design, really stands out here, perfectly backing up this emotionally complex experience. It’s scary and it’s moving, often at the same time.
The Fly: It’s an amazingly disgusting cautionary tale that warns all who watch about the dangers of letting Jeff Goldblum invent teleportation. This is one of David Cronenberg’s finest.
Tetsuo: The Iron Man: Man vs. machine vs. self vs. God vs. random people on the street featuring brutal gore/practical effects. You will think twice about inserting metal into a rotting open wound after watching this movie.
If you answered mostly D, you should watch a comedy horror movie.
Here are our recommendations:
Jennifer's Body: It includes sexy bisexual Megan Fox, late 2000s emo music, and cannibalism as a metaphor for sex. What more can you want out of a horror comedy?
What We Do in the Shadows: This show (and movie) includes a group of vampires in the streets of New Jersey, following the lore of Interview with the Vampire. Both the show and the movie are hilarious.
House: The movie features a teenage girl who invites her friends to come stay at her aunt’s weird old house in the countryside. This is a surreal acid trip of a movie that rapidly oscillates between hilarious and disturbing with sometimes baffling editing choices that seem more reminiscent of something you’d find in the depths of weird YouTube shitposts than a film from the ‘70s.
Little Shop of Horrors: In this musical, a man-eating-plant-alien comes to haunt skid-row with funky tunes and a chance for financial freedom. It features an epic romance and, most importantly, Steve Martin as the Dentist, with a feature from Bill Murray as his masochistic patient.
Evil Dead (All) (specifically #2 and Army of Darkness): In this flick, a man stays at a secluded cabin in the woods with his girlfriend and must defeat the army of zombies he accidentally raised from the dead. Tonally closer to a Looney Tunes short than a traditional horror movie (albeit with more blood), it features a hilarious slapstick comedy with a man having the worst day of his life.
Evil Bong: What if you took a hit off a bong and the bong transported you to an evil weed dimension filled with strippers, and you had to defeat the bong, and Chong from Cheech and Chong was there? Evil Bong ponders this scenario over the course of nine movies. Yes, there are nine movies in the Evil Bong series.
One Cut of the Dead: Watching this movie is one of the funniest and most rewarding cinematic experiences out there. This movie changes and shifts so much throughout its runtime; it can be initially viewed as a standard (and not very good) one-shot horror movie that becomes something else entirely by the end, making the experience so worthwhile and fun. This film is more of a comedy than a horror.