HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH (1982)

This Michael Myers-free romp has nothing to do with anything in the series' seven other instalments. Hilariously, it doesn't even feature a witch. Why does it exist at all? If the answer ever arrives, it's safe to say that multiple exclamations of 'wow – that's beautiful, man' will follow.

THE LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM (1988)

Giant dildos, impaled nuns on crosses, blood-soaked tits, people who are actually snakes (or aliens or Satan or something), characters who have no idea what is going on at any point, an enormous rubber worm (twined around impaled nuns on crosses), and more white serpentine 'metaphors' than you can shake a (serpentine) stick at.

'Dude, is that the worm?'

'No, man. It's a white garden hose.'

'What about that? Is that the worm?'

'No. It's a white necklace.'

'When do we get to see the worm?'

'Shut up, man—I'm missing dialogue.'

Yes – director Ken Russell wants to show® you something. Even he isn't sure what it is. But it's, like, long and white. Forget IRREVERSIBLE. You'll be afraid of where this film will take you.

HOUSE OF THE DEAD (2003)

We know it's based on a video game because, in a commendable display of 'why the fucking fuck would anyone do that, ever?' moxie, actual screens from the video game are spliced into the film mid-action. We also know it's based on a video game because, about halfway through, all plot concerns evaporate and an orgy of luridly unapologetic gun fetishism erupts. Fine. But it continues to erupt, and continues – for so long, and in such living colour, that the banal somehow becomes sublime, and the film becomes a masterpiece of masturbatory ridiculousness. That HOUSE OF THE DEAD was made at all gives me faith in Hollywood – someone there has a greater sense of coaxing beauty out of meaninglessness than Sartre, Camus, and, well... all of France, really.

Oh, there's also a super slow-motion shot of the heroine's bouncing chest.

VAMPIRE CLAN (2002)

Based on the true story of a group of kids who thought they were vampires and, well... killed people. In between re-applying lipgloss and listening to the COCTEAU TWINS' earlier, 'earthier' albums, presumably. This seminally inane and yet irredeemably shit Movie-Of-The-Week is remarkable for two reasons: firstly, its portrayal of teens who think they are vampires in an irony-free, humour-free zone. The very fact that this film takes itself as seriously as it does (ie. more so than THE HOURS) is a thing of such profound hilarity that laughter, on the audience's part, simply isn't possible – once we started, like some perpetual motion machine of absurdism, we'd probably never stop. VAMPIRE CLAN's second remarkable selling-point comes when director John Webb films one murder, in particular, with all the disturbing veracity of FUNNY GAMES' Michael Haneke – crucially, without once winking at the audience.

LOS SIN NOMBRE (1999)

The freaky little dead girl movie, the Satan movie, the haunted house movie, the serial killer movie, the religious cult movie, the twitchy-grainy-video-is-scary movie, Lynch, Fincher, THE SHINING, DON'T LOOK NOW, RINGU—it's all here in one package which steals from everything and yet is somehow superior to almost everything. No, no-one wears a yellow tracksuit.

© Reuben Ham

E-MAIL THE AUTHOR | ARCHIVES