Census Bloodbath: A boy's best friend is his mother

BLOOD RAGE

aka Slasher aka Nightmare at Shadow Woods

It wouldn't be October without Brennan Klein of Popcorn Culture and Alternate Ending, and so I'm ecstatic to present our tenth annual Halloween Switcheroo, wherein I get to chew on some hunks of bloody meat from his field of expertise, the 80s slasher, while I throw him some wholesome stolid science heroism from the 50s.  This is an abbreviated year, which is a shame, and while all things will pass into the night—not this one, not yet.

1987

Directed by John Grissmer

Written by Bruce Rubin

Spoilers: moderate

Spirit Week: The living and the so-called dead

THE DEVIL COMMANDS

1941

Directed by Edward Dmytryk

Written by William Sloane, Robert Hardy Andrew, and Milton Gunzberg (based on the novel The Edge of Running Water by William Sloane)

Spoilers: moderate

Spirit Week: Do you dare to insist that the practice of the occult science is a racket?

YOU'LL FIND OUT

1940

Directed by David Butler

Written by James V. Kern, Monte Brice, Andrew Bennison, R.T.M. Scott, and David Butler

Spoilers: moderate

Gimme some Sugar, baby

THE WONDERFUL STORY OF HENRY SUGAR and six three more

2023

Written and directed by Wes Anderson (based on the short stories "The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar," "The Swan," "The Rat Catcher," and "Poison" by Roald Dahl)

Spoilers: moderate

American Gothic Week: For every sound that floats from the rust within their throats is a groan

CRY OF THE BANSHEE

1970

Directed by Gordon Hessler

Written by Tim Kelly and Christopher Wicking

Spoilers: moderate

Spirit Week: Discarnation

SUPERNATURAL

1933

Directed by Victor Halperin

Written by Garnett Weston, Brian Marlow, and Harvey Thew

Spoilers: moderate

American Gothic Week: Help! I'm being disorientated!

SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN

1970

Directed by Gordon Hessler

Written by Milton Subotsky and Christopher Wicking (based on the novel The Disorientated Man by Steven V. Francis and W. Howard Baker d/b/a "Peter Saxon")

Spoilers: moderate

American Gothic Week: Of Their semblance no man may know, saving only in the features They have begotten on mankind; and of those there are many sorts, differing in likeness from man's truest eidolon to that shape without sight or substance which is Them

THE DUNWICH HORROR

1970

Directed by Daniel Haller

Written by Curtis Hanson, Henry Rosenbaum, and Ronald Silkosky (based on the short story by H.P. Lovecraft)

Spoilers: maybe kind of high?

American Gothic Week: The next morning he was quite recovered, so far as regarded his mere bodily health. Of his mind I say nothing, of course.

THE OBLONG BOX

1969

Directed by Gordon Hessler

Written by Lawrence Huntington and Christopher Wicking (based on the title by Edgar Allan Poe)

Spoilers: moderate

American Gothic Week: The discovery of witches

WITCHFINDER GENERAL

aka The Conqueror Worm aka Matthew Hopkins: Witchfinder General

1968

Directed by Michael Reeves

Written by Tom Baker and Michael Reeves

Spoilers: moderate