4 Favorite Foreign Horror Classics

It’s almost Halloween, so it’s time to revive October Terrors, Spellbound’s series celebrating cinematic horror! Its first post of 2019 is prompted by a question TCM’s host Alicia Malone asked on Twitter. To promote TCM Imports, she’s sharing her favorite foreign horror films each day before Halloween, and she asked fans what their favorites are. Here are the four that immediately come to my mind!

1. VALKOINEN PEURA / THE WHITE REINDEER (1952)

Finland’s VALKOINEN PEURA / THE WHITE REINDEER (1952) is a powerful near silent. Jean Cocteau’s Cannes jury gave it a special award for Best Fairy Tale Film, and it’s the only Finnish movie to win a Golden Globe. A dissatisfied wife with a mysterious background causes chaos in her small Sámi community after visiting a witch. Haunting Nordic imagery like a field of discarded antlers rising up out of the snow add elegance to a tale featuring a vampiric were-reindeer. Perhaps because director Erik Blomberg wrote the screenplay with the film’s star, his wife Mirjami Kuosmanen, the movie ultimately plays as a tragedy instead of a mere cautionary tale.

2. VAMPYR (1932)

Carl Theodor Dreyer‘s VAMPYR (1932) is another near silent. Since it was Dreyer’s first sound film, and he was to shoot it in three languages, he kept dialogue to a minimum and added otherworldly sound effects to complement his soft focus, nightmarish imagery. It’s the kind of film that was perfect for the midnight movie circuit. It can be watched superficially for its strange, mystifying sights or a plot can be read in it. An occult student Allan Gray (Julian West) arrives to a village and soon witnesses a murder and stumbles upon a case of vampirism. Who will need saving more–the victim (Sybille Schmitz) or Gray? The atmosphere Dreyer created inspires dread not easily dispelled by the movie’s sunlight filled ending.

3. LES DIABOLIQUES (1955)

Finally a selection fully in the era of talkies! Henri-Georges Clouzot made the film Alfred Hitchcock wanted to. Clouzot optioned the coveted movie rights to the novel SHE WHO WAS NO MORE and turned it into LES DIABOLIQUES (1955). A cruel headmaster (Paul Meurisse) mistreats both his mistress (Simone Signoret) and wife (Véra Clouzot) so badly, they band together intent on murderous revenge. The suspense builds slowly as the wife with her weak heart already haunted by her actions is seemingly tormented by her husband’s ghost. She faces shock after shock, including a surprising twist that implants an indelible, horrific image in viewers’ brains.

4. AUDITION (1999)

Takashi Miike‘s AUDITION (1999) starts off like a romantic comedy based on a misguided concept. A widower (Ryo Ishibashi) is convinced by his son (Tetsu Sawaki) to date again, but the father doesn’t know how to meet women, so he lets a movie producer friend hold fake auditions in order to find a girlfriend. Slowly the film switches to the horror genre as clues point to something being off about the audition winner Asami (Eihi Shiina) and her behavior shockingly devolves. Is she the embodiment of female rage at male exploitation, something escaped from a misogynist’s nightmare, or a combination of both? She is definitely a modern horror icon whose final costume and maniacally gleeful “Kiri-kiri-kiri” are instantly recognizable.