It\u2019s getting harder to make these lists. I\u2019ve already written about most of the good ones\u2026 although as this year\u2019s #1 movie shows, occasionally I realize I\u2019ve overlooked something important. Still, there are some gems out there, or at least, some new-to-me movies worth watching.<\/p>\n
Are they scary? For 21st<\/sup> century audiences, mostly no. But I don\u2019t really want to be scared, and I certainly don\u2019t want to be grossed out. I want to be fascinated. These movies fascinate me.<\/p>\n So here is Streaming Revenge III: ten great movies for Halloween that you probably haven\u2019t seen, and that I haven\u2019t written about before.<\/p>\n This is one for the completists, those of us who are trying to see as many film adaptations of Bram Stoker\u2019s classic novel as we possibly can. It\u2019s a reasonably faithful adaptation by Dan Curtis starring Jack Palance as the Count. It\u2019s the first Dracula movie with the reincarnated love interest storyline, something Curtis borrowed from his Dark Shadows<\/em> TV series and that would be used again in Francis Ford Coppola\u2019s far superior Bram Stoker\u2019s Dracula <\/em>(1992).<\/p>\n The script is good and it covers more of the novel than most adaptations, and at 1:38 it never drags. Palance\u2019s Dracula is better than I remembered, although he sometimes comes across as Christopher Lee lite. Fiona Lewis and Penelope Horner are good as Lucy and Mina, respectively, but Murray Brown was far too old (in attitude as much as in looks) to play Jonathan Harker. Mainly, the low TV movie budget makes it look and feel decidedly inferior to the better adaptations.<\/p>\n Still, if you\u2019ve never seen it \u2013 or if like me you haven\u2019t seen it since it was on TV a long long time ago \u2013 it\u2019s well worth watching.<\/p>\n I think this is first Korean vampire movie I\u2019ve ever seen. It stars Song Kang-ho as a Catholic priest who works as a hospital chaplain and who selflessly volunteers to test a vaccine for a plague-like virus. The vaccine fails, but a blood transfusion heals him\u2026 for a while. And it leaves him with a thirst for blood.<\/p>\n And for other pleasures.<\/p>\n What happens when thirst compels you to do things you swore you\u2019d never do, and prevents you from doing your life\u2019s work? What other promises might you have to reconsider?<\/p>\n Thirst<\/em> runs 2:14 and parts of it are slow \u2013 and parts of it are flat-out gross. But the story is quite good, and it\u2019s one of the most original takes on vampirism I\u2019ve ever seen.<\/p>\n Also known as Night of the Walking Dead<\/em>, this is a Spanish movie set in a generic 19th<\/sup> century European village that is plagued by vampires who literally come out of their graves at night to feed on the local population, and who are gathering at the mansion of the local vampire lord for a grand feast.<\/p>\n Intersecting with this is a young woman who is dying from a disease none of the doctors can figure out \u2013 and that\u2019s before she meets the vampires.<\/p>\n Strange Love of the Vampires<\/em> has the atmosphere of the better Hammer movies, though the story is more complicated and none of the actors have the presence of Christopher Lee or Peter Cushing (though mediocre dubbing probably has something to do with that). It shows the ethical issue of vampires who feed on humans from both perspectives \u2013 something few movies and books do today, much less in 1975 \u2013 but I found the ending to be sad.<\/p>\n Still, as someone who\u2019s constantly looking for a certain kind of vampire movie that\u2019s also new to me, I thought Strange Love of the Vampires<\/em> was quite good.<\/p>\n If you liked last year\u2019s Nosferatu<\/em> (and if you didn\u2019t, what\u2019s wrong with you?) there are three other movies you simply must watch: F.W. Murnau\u2019s original Nosferatu<\/em> (1922), Werner Herzog\u2019s remake Nosferatu the Vampyre<\/em> (1979), and Shadow of the Vampire<\/em> (2000), which is a fictionalized account of the making of the original film. It stars John Malkovich as Murnau and Willem Dafoe (who played Professor Von Franz in the 2024 Nosferatu<\/em>) as Max Schreck, who played Count Orlok in 1922.<\/p>\n The premise of Shadow of the Vampire<\/em> is that Schreck really was a vampire. Which, if you read the accounts of his behavior on set (he stayed in character at all times), isn\u2019t much of a stretch.<\/p>\n Shadow of the Vampire<\/em> is a good vampire movie, but first and foremost it\u2019s a commentary on the arrogance of some filmmakers. The fact that it was made during the height of Harvey Weinstein\u2019s<\/a> reign in Hollywood may be coincidental, but probably not.<\/p>\n A group of guests leave a party to tour an old theater that\u2019s been closed for a century. There\u2019s the family patriarch and owner of the theater, his trophy wife-to-be, and her ex-boyfriend who may not be an ex. There\u2019s his ex-wife, who he reluctantly divorced after her past was exposed and made her an unsuitable spouse for someone in his position, and her new husband who just wants their money. There\u2019s his lesbian sister and her \u201cI\u2019m not sure I\u2019m ready to be out\u201d girlfriend. There\u2019s his drug addict daughter and her drug addict boyfriend. And there\u2019s a tenth guest who everyone assumes came with someone else because no one knows who he is.<\/p>\n And then people start being murdered, and the doors can\u2019t be unlocked, and everyone behaves in the exact opposite of \u201chow to survive a horror movie\u201d rules (which, to be fair, hadn\u2019t been written yet in 1974).<\/p>\n None of the characters are innocent, but some are more suspicious than others. Who \u2013 if anyone \u2013 will be alive at dawn?<\/p>\n The Killer Reserved Nine Seats <\/em>is considered a giallo, the Italian serial killer murder mysteries of the 1960s and 1970s. Unlike most other gialli \u2013 including those by directors with legitimate horror credentials, like Mario Bava and Dario Argento \u2013 this movie has actual supernatural elements, instead of teasing the supernatural only to disappoint with a Scooby Doo <\/em>ending.<\/p>\n As befits a giallo, The Killer Reserved Nine Seats <\/em>contains some rather gruesome murders. And as you might expect for 1974 (and sadly, much later) the lesbians get the worst of it. But as with the better gialli, it\u2019s glamourous and fascinating and quite entertaining.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know where to place this movie on this list, so I\u2019ll put it here in the middle. It\u2019s a Polish musical reimagining of Hans Christian Anderson\u2019s \u201cThe Little Mermaid\u201d only with folkloric mermaids who eat human hearts. Two young mermaid sisters decide to try living on land. They end up singing, stripping, and transforming in a Warsaw nightclub act. This is definitely not a Disney production.<\/p>\n One of the sisters falls in love with a human boy, and she\u2019s willing to do anything \u2013 anything \u2013 to be with him. But human boys can be fickle.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t cry at movies. Well, that\u2019s not exactly true \u2013 Keira Knightley\u2019s \u201cwhat shall we die for?\u201d speech in Pirates of the Caribbean \u2013 At World\u2019s End<\/em> never fails to move me to tears. But tears of sadness? I just don\u2019t.<\/p>\n Until I saw the last quarter of this movie.<\/p>\n The Lure \u2013 <\/em>original title C\u00f3rki dancingu<\/em>, literally \u201cDaughters of the Dance\u201d \u2013<\/em> is unlike anything else on this list. Reviews are all over the place, from great to horrible to everything in between. It\u2019s hard to follow the details of the story, and not just because of having to read subtitles. But it\u2019s also not hard to see where the main plot is going\u2026 even if you wish it wouldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n Somehow, despite my lifelong love of movies that feature magic and witchcraft, I had never seen I Married A Witch<\/em> until this year.<\/p>\n It stars Veronica Lake as a witch who is burned at the stake in puritan New England (I know, I know: the people thought to be witches in puritan New England were hanged, not burned \u2013 when did Hollywood ever let history get in the way of a more convenient story?). She comes back in present times (which is now 83 years in the past!) and goes after revenge against the descendant of the man most responsible for her death. Things don\u2019t go exactly as planned\u2026<\/p>\n I Married A Witch<\/em> is silly but cute. Along with Bell Book and Candle<\/em> from 1958 (which, in my opinion, is a much better movie), it was one of the direct inspirations for the 1960s Bewitched<\/em> TV series starring Elizabeth Montgomery.<\/p>\n Legendary director James Whale made this movie a year after Frankenstein<\/em>. It stars Boris Karloff, Charles Laughton, and a young Gloria Stuart, best known to our generation for playing the old Rose in Titanic<\/em> (1997). It\u2019s a horror-comedy about a group of travelers whose car breaks down on a stormy night and are forced to take shelter in the titular old dark house \u2013 a trope that would be used over and over again in everything from Dracula Prince of Darkness<\/em> to The Rocky Horror Picture Show<\/em>.<\/p>\n The infamous Hays Code had come out in 1930 but it wasn\u2019t enforced until 1934. The Old Dark House<\/em> is loaded with queer coding<\/a>, gender bending, and challenges to established religion.<\/p>\n Because of complicated rights issues, The Old Dark House<\/em> was not included in the \u201cShock Theatre\u201d package of Universal horror movies I grew up watching (and loving). This was the first time I had ever seen it. It\u2019s a fun movie and I would have enjoyed it as a 10-year-old, but I don\u2019t think I would have appreciated it as much then as I do as an adult.<\/p>\n Also known as Night of the Eagle<\/em> (a greatly inferior title) this movie stars Peter Wyngarde (who I will always remember as the leader of the Hellfire Club in the Diana Rigg Avengers<\/em> episode \u201cA Touch of Brimstone<\/a>\u201d) as a young sociology professor, and Janet Blair as his stay-at-home wife who had a magical experience in Jamaica and now uses witchcraft to protect herself and her husband from jealous academic colleagues.<\/p>\n Until the thoroughly-materialist professor discovers his wife\u2019s charms and amulets and burns them all in front of her, claiming they\u2019re dangerous delusions.<\/p>\n And then, deprived of her protection, bad things start happening.<\/p>\n Burn Witch Burn<\/em> is a direct adaptation of Fritz Lieber\u2019s 1943 novel Conjure Wife<\/em>. It\u2019s one of the few movies of its time to present witchcraft both as real and as morally neutral. The opening voiceover and invocation of protection are silly, but the movie itself is quite good. It\u2019s fast-paced and full of action and the print I watched was near-perfect.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know how this movie never made any of my lists before now. Not only is it excellent, there was a period in the late 2010s when I was practically watching it on a loop.<\/p>\n Johnny Depp plays a \u201cbook detective\u201d who specializes in authenticating rare books. One of his clients \u2013 played by Frank Langella, who looks nothing like he did in Dracula<\/em> 20 years earlier \u2013 pays him an exorbitant amount of money to investigate his copy of The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows<\/em>, a 17th<\/sup> century book supposedly co-written by Lucifer himself. People are willing to kill to get that book, and they do. Along the way, Depp\u2019s Dean Corso picks up a mysterious protector known only as \u201cThe Girl\u201d played by Emmanuelle Seigner.<\/p>\n Who is The Girl? Where is Corso going at the end? To hell? To \u201cequality with God\u201d? To enlightenment? The movie is unclear. Director Roman Polanski is an atheist who\u2019s said he has no definitive answers. Neither does the source material, the novel The Club Dumas<\/em> (1993) by Arturo P\u00e9rez-Reverte. I read it and I enjoyed it, but this is the rare case where the movie is better than the book.<\/p>\n The director and both major stars have been credibly accused of inappropriate sexual conduct. Polanski fled the U.S. in 1977 to avoid going to prison<\/a> for statutory rape and has never returned. If you choose to avoid this movie because of that, I completely understand. If you choose to separate the art from the artists (in this case I can \u2013 in other cases I can\u2019t, and I can\u2019t explain the difference) you\u2019ll find The Ninth Gate<\/em> to be one of the best occult thrillers of all time.<\/p>\n 31 Movies for Halloween<\/a> (2016)<\/p>\n 13 Horror Movies I\u2019m Watching This October<\/a> (2019)<\/p>\n The Four Great Draculas<\/a> (2022)<\/p>\n Streaming Revenge: The Top 10 Horror Movies I Wasn\u2019t Allowed to Watch as a Kid<\/a> (2023)<\/p>\n![\"photo](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/243\/2025\/09\/Streaming-Revenge-III-6x4-1-1024x683.jpg\")
<\/a>10. Dracula (1974)<\/h2>\n
9. Thirst (2009)<\/h2>\n
8. Strange Love of the Vampires (1975)<\/h2>\n
7. Shadow of the Vampire (2000)<\/h2>\n
6. The Killer Reserved Nine Seats (1974)<\/h2>\n
5. The Lure (2015)<\/h2>\n
4. I Married A Witch (1942)<\/h2>\n
3. The Old Dark House (1932)<\/h2>\n
2. Burn Witch Burn (1962)<\/h2>\n
1. The Ninth Gate (1999)<\/h2>\n
Previous horror movie lists<\/h2>\n