I Think You Should Leave
We all want to be hospitable. We don’t want to come across as rude. We don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings. But, sometimes we’re prisoners of our own manners and our politeness can turn deadly. And end... badly.
We’ve all been there. You’re invited to stay with an old weird friend and you should have said “Thanks, but no thanks” and bailed. You realise too late that the kid you were going to let stay with you because his whole previous family died mysteriously is obviously evil. You take one look at the clearly murder-friendly house you inherited, the castle full of suspiciously seductive people with pointy teeth, or the small town full of rednecks your car runs out of gas in and should have said “You know what? I’ll get a hotel”. Or maybe a stranger or two turned up at your doorstep, or some killer gnomes crashed your birthday party, and you found yourself wishing you had just politely, yet firmly, asked them to turn around and move on.
Well, next time you are invited to go somewhere you don’t think you should, or someone suss is playing on your kindness to outstay a welcome or take advantage of your civility, remember our advice - before someone ends up getting hurt or ends up getting put in the ground: “I think you should leave.” This is a season where nobody heeds that advice and look what happens to them.
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The Invitation
2016 • United States • Directed by Karyn Kusama
In this taut psychological thriller by Karyn Kusama (Girlfight, Jennifer's Body), the tension is palpable when Will shows up to his ex-wife Eden and new husband David's dinner party. The pair's tragic past haunts an equally spooky present: Amid Ede...
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Scream of the Demon Lover
1970 • Italy • Directed by José Luis Merino
Though he made only two horror films, veteran writer/director José Luis Merino here embraces the genre's classic elements and ravishes them to vivid extremes: When a beautiful biochemist (Erna Schurer) arrives at a foreboding castle to work for a sinis...
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The Threat
1966 • Japan • Directed by Kinji Fukasaku
IMPRISONED IN HIS OWN HOME!
The Threat is a gritty crime drama in the vein of Kurosawa's High and Low, set against the backdrop of a rapidly modernising Japan that has left many of its citizens behind.
Misawa (Rentarō Mikuni, Fugitive from the Past, Ve...
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The Night of the Scorpion
1972 • Spain • Directed by Alfonso Balcázar
A man brings his new wife to his sinister Spanish mansion, much to the displeasure of his family who also live there. It is then that the sinister happenings start, and it appears a killer might be on the loose trying to cover up the tragic death of wi...
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Terror at Tenkiller
1986 • United States • Directed by Ken Meyer
Leslie and Jana are a couple of attractive young ladies, who take off on a vacation and strange things start to happen at their remote cabin in the woods.
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Castle Of Blood
1964 • France • Directed by Antonio Margheriti
It was begun by Sergio Corbucci (DJANGO), completed by Antonio Margheriti (THE LONG HAIR OF DEATH) and remains one of the true masterpieces of Gothic Horror: When a journalist accepts a wager that he won't survive the night in a haunted castle, it w...
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The Dead Mother
1993 • Spain • Directed by Juanma Bajo Ulloa
Ismael (Karra Elejalde, Timecrimes) breaks into the house of a fine art restorer and shoots the homeowner dead, leaving her daughter orphaned and traumatised for life. Years later Ismael is working in a bar where he sees the daughter again. Paranoid t...
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The Terror
1963 • United States • Directed by Roger Corman
In Roger Corman's gothic tale of the supernatural, starring Jack Nicholson, Boris Karloff and Dick Miller, the ghostly apparition of a woman is seen by an 18th Century French Lieutenant. After two failed attempts to keep up with her, he heads to th...
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Fck'n Nuts
2023 • United States • Directed by Sam Fox
Sandy is a melancholy teenager who lives at home with her abnormal parents. She has finally met the boy of her dreams, the kind and sincere Dan Deakins. Unfortunately, Dan has fallen for Sandy too, and he wants to get close to her, he wants to meet her ...
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The Righteous
2021 • Canada • Directed by Mark O'Brien
A brooding occult horror with echoes of Bergman and Pasolini, The Righteous insinuates its way beneath the skin by way of an intelligent script, taut direction, and strong performances. Writer and actor Mark O'Brien (Ready or Not) pulls no punches as he c...
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The Bloodhound
First-time feature director Patrick Picard brings a fresh take to one of the best-known stories from the master of mystery and the macabre, Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher, in his new slow-burner horror-thriller The Bloodhound, a hauntingly atmospheric tale described by The Holly...
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Scared Stiff
1987 • United States • Directed by Richard Friedman
TV star Mary Page Keller ('Pretty Little Liars') appears alongside Andrew Stevens ('10 to Midnight', 'The Fury') as a couple terrorised by an age-old curse in this much-underrated late-80s offering from director Richard Friedman. Keller plays K...
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Two Thousand Maniacs
1964 • United States • Directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis
The American Civil War may long be over, but the supernatural residents of small Southern town Pleasant Valley won't soon forget. When a group of Yankee tourists take a detour and wind up in the town - which has magically re-materialized ...
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Eaten Alive
1976 • United States • Directed by Tobe Hooper
Nearly a decade before he donned Freddy Krueger's famous red and green sweater, horror icon Robert Englund delivered a supremely sleazy performance in Eaten Alive another essay in taut Southern terror from Tobe Hooper, director of The Texas Chain Sa...
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The Leech
2022 • United States • Directed by Eric Pennycoff
From Black Christmas to Rare Exports, there has long been a symbiotic relationship between horror and the season of good cheer. Now, writer/director Eric Pennycoff (Sadistic Intentions) continues this proud tradition with The Leech, a cautionary ...
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Why Don't You Just Die!
2018 • Russia • Directed by Kirill Sokolov
Shades of early Tarantino, Edgar Wright and Sam Raimi abound in this violent, stylish and riotously entertaining slice of family life, Moscow style, described as "a splatterpunk action comedy drenched in gleefully dark Russian humour" - The Hollywood Re...
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Dr. Tarr’s Torture Dungeon
1973 • Mexico • Directed by Juan López Moctezuma
Dr. Tarr’s Torture Dungeon, also known as Mansion Of Madness. A mysterious man is sent into the forest to investigate the bizarre behaviour of the notorious Dr. Tarr. What he stumbles upon is the doctor's torture dungeon, a hellish asylum complete...
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The Monkey's Paw
2022 • United Kingdom • Directed by Ben Caplan
When a mysterious stranger turns up on a stormy night, a family is seduced by tales of wishes granted by a monkey's paw. The wish they make doesn't quite turn out how they expect.
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Glitch!
1988 • United States • Directed by Nico Mastorakis
Glitch! See's two bumbling burglars whose attempt to throw the house party of the century in the luxury home of a Hollywood producer, is foiled by a group of mobsters determined to collect what the producer owes them - no matter what.
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Spider Labyrinth
1988 • Italy • Directed by Gianfranco Giagni
For more than three decades, the remarkable debut feature by award-winning director Gianfranco Giagni has been one of the most elusive Italian horror titles in home video history...until now: When an American professor is sent to Budapest to complete ...
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Vigil
1984 • New Zealand • Directed by Vincent Ward
A stranger appears in a remote New Zealand farmland at the exact time a farmer accidentally falls to his death. The mysterious outsider grows close to some of the dead man's family, to the point where he and the widow become lovers. But her eleven-ye...
