31 Days of Creepy Scenes, #3: Mater Suspiriorum

They've given us nightmares, given us chills, made us cringe, made us laugh, made us gag, and made us stare at the screen in awe: these are the scenes that pop into our minds when we think of great Horror Films, and we love them all.

*We recommend that if you've never seen these scenes before, that you experience them for the first time unspoiled in the movies that they come from, if you can. With that in mind, we'll try to be as spoiler-free as possible while discussing them; try, being the key word here.

.. or more precisely, "The Wrath of Mater Suspiriorum." That was just too long of a title to type into that little banner up there though.

Suspiria is one of Dario Argento's greatest films, and many would even say it's THE greatest. All ranking debates aside, Suspiria is one hell of an effort that uses color to help tell its story better than any movie that we've ever seen. The movie is a clinic in how to use reds, blues, and greens to maximum effectiveness.

Suspiria is the story of a young foreign exchange student who arrives at a prestigious ballet academy in Germany, only to find that it's run by a coven of witches. When one of the students, Pat Hingle (?!?) is expelled from the academy, she takes refuge at a friends apartment, terrified that the witches are going to find her and kill her. At the behest of Helena Markos (either directly or indirectly), they do find her, and the video below reveals the fate of both Pat and her friend.

*Helena Markos aka Mater Suspiriorum (The Mother of Sighs) is the head witch of the coven, and the most powerful of the Three Mothers; the others are Mater Tenebrarum (from the movie Inferno), and Mater Lachrymarum (from The Mother of Tears.) Each film is a part of Dario Argento's Three Mothers Trilogy.


There was nobody, NOBODY, doing death scenes like that in the U.S. (or the World, for that matter) in the 70's... unless their name was Dario Argento. Elaborate, gorgeous, and stomach-turning, that sequence is still to this day one of the greatest things ever captured on film.

When it comes to 70's & 80's Horror, it's really hard to beat the work of Dario Argento; no one combined atmosphere, gore, and visual acumen as well as he did. If you've never seen Suspiria, you're missing out on a true genre classic, and even though it's the best of the Three Mothers Trilogy, Inferno and Mother of Tears are also worth a look. In fact, watching all three back to back makes for one hell of a movie marathon. 

Read our Full review of Inferno here.
Read our Full review of Mother of Tears here.

Blu-ray & DVD: The Digital Dread Report for October 28th

How did October go by so quickly? Honestly, it feels like our favorite month of the year just started, and here it is, only three days away from ending...

Well, at least we have one more week full of new releases to help us send October out with a bang.

Still, we're kinda bummed about the whole thing.

This week's Must Have release on Blu-ray is Nightbreed. Fans of the Clive Barker classic have been clamoring for decades for a Director's Cut of the movie, and Scream Factory (as per their usual) has answered their prayers with not one, but two Blu-ray versions of the film; the plain old The Director's Cut, and the Limited Edition package which contains both the Director's & Theatrical Cuts. We love Nightbreed, but the "normal" Director's Cut is good enough for us. For those of you who love Nightbreed enough to spend $70 on the Limited Edition, we salute you.

Either way, this movie is a must own.

Deliver Us From Evil is a way better movie than critics gave it credit for being, as we found it to be a B/B+ type of an experience. It's not perfect, but it is really dark and creepy, and the exorcism scene at the end was really great. We'll be adding this one to our collections, and any Horror fan who like their movies to feel a bit more polished and "mature" should do the same. If you're iffy about it, maybe just give it a rent.

The last of this week's releases that we have to own immediately is Shogun Assassin. It is not a Horror flick in any way, shape, or form, but it is a bloody, gory, and insanely fun Martial Arts flick. The movie may be most famous for the way that it was sampled on Wu-Tang Clan mastermind Gza's album, Liquid Swords. That album is one of our all-time faves (as far as Hip-Hop goes, anyhow), and the Shogun Assassin samples are a big part of that. This is a truly great movie, if you like that sort of thing.

The Criterion Collection's The Vanishing and Mario Bava's Planet of the Vampires are also both worthy purchases, but October has tapped us out, and so we'll be waiting a while before we grab those.

As for everything else, we're good.

We've seen two movies out of this week's crop of DVD releases; one of which we liked, and one of which we loathed.

Beneath (our review HERE) is a creepy little psychological Horror flick that is definitely worthy of a watch, especially if you're claustrophobic.

Conversely, Blood Vally: Seed's Revenge was one of the worst movies that we've seen in years, and maybe ever. As bad as most Uwe Boll movies are, this sequel to his slasher flick Seed (2006) is infinitely worse. He at least tries to make good movies and just fails... I honestly don't know what the producers of this shit pile were trying to make, unless it was an actual shit pile. If so, then they succeeded wildly.

As for the rest of the week's DVD releases, that's a crap-shoot that you're going to have to navigate for yourselves. Good luck with that.

31 Days of Creepy Scenes, #4: Boom, Headshot #2

They've given us nightmares, given us chills, made us cringe, made us laugh, made us gag, and made us stare at the screen in awe: these are the scenes that pop into our minds when we think of great Horror Films, and we love them all.

*We recommend that if you've never seen these scenes before, that you experience them for the first time unspoiled in the movies that they come from, if you can. With that in mind, we'll try to be as spoiler-free as possible while discussing them; try, being the key word here.

There are plenty of Horror movies that offer great scenes where heads are blown off in grand fashion (Planet Terror, Dawn of the Dead, The New York Ripper, just about every zombie movie ever made, etc...), and yes, most of them defy logistic/ballistic reality, but they absolutely do make for some great WTF!?! movie moments.

We already highlighted a little girl getting getting her forehead removed via pistol In The Beyond (our #6 scene), but this headshot scene from Maniac (1980) is just as special to us.

Maniac is a nasty little movie which has always remained one of our favorites because of one reason; Joe Spinell; The Godfather I & II, Rocky I & II, Nighthawks... Spinell played some great roles in some CLASSIC movies, and thus he played a big part in our cinematic childhood. Not to mention that the guy's performance in this movie is inspired, to say the least.

Maniac is the story of a serial killer who scalps his female victims, all because he can't find true love... or something like that. As likable of a guy as Joe Spinell is, he also plays "insane" extremely well, and both of those qualities make his turn here, as the creepy maniac Frank Zito, a truly memorable one.

The scene in question here is the one in which Tom Savini (the all-time great makeup/FX guy) and some girl are parked near the Verranzano Bridge in Brooklyn, trying to get it on, when Frank shows up, shotgun in hand.


Yes, parts of that scene play a bit "80's cheesy" but its still effective as hell. It's interesting to note that the scene looks darker because it was lit entirely by the car's actual headlights, which may be a part of the reason that it is so effective. Back then, this scene was shocking. It still is.

If you love slasher flicks, then Maniac is one 80's classic that you have to see. It's far more sinister and disturbing than most of the slashers of that day were, and it's a nice change of pace from the standard "Masked killer stalks a bunch of bawdy teens on Arbor Day" fare. *Not that we don't love those too.

31 Days of Creepy Scenes, #5: The Raft Massacre

They've given us nightmares, given us chills, made us cringe, made us laugh, made us gag, and made us stare at the screen in awe: these are the scenes that pop into our minds when we think of great Horror Films, and we love them all.

*We recommend that if you've never seen these scenes before, that you experience them for the first time unspoiled in the movies that they come from, if you can. With that in mind, we'll try to be as spoiler-free as possible while discussing them; try, being the key word here.

The Burning is another great (but lesser-known) slasher flick from the early 80's, which is more noteworthy than most others of its kind, for a few different reasons: it's the first movie ever produced/written by Harvey & Bob Weinstein, who went on to become mega-moguls in Hollywood; it's the first movie that Jason Alexander and Holly Hunter ever starred in; and it boasts one of the coolest massacre scenes of any Horror movie, ever.

The Burning is the story of a bunch of camp counselors being bumped off one by one, by a disfigured maniac whom they pissed off... yes, it sounds awfully similar to the plot of every Jason Voorhees movie of the 80's, but this one was technically released a few months before F13th Part 2 was, so lets not call it a "direct" ripoff... and for the record, people flocked to see F13th Part 2 instead of The Burning, because the first F13th was such a hit.

Anywho, of all the kill scenes in The Burning, there are none as satisfying, shocking, and infamous, as is the raft massacre scene.


Of course when The Burning was released way back in 1981, the MPAA censored the hell out of the movie, which made the impact of the raft scene almost zero. It felt neutered. The Burning is a really solid movie, and it's a shame that it fell victim to censorship in a time when the moral majority was so out of control; they show worse things every Sunday night on our TV's now, like The Walking Dead

At least now, Horror fans can see the entire movie (and the awesome raft scene) fully uncut and unedited, in full 1080p glory. It only took 30+ years to get there, but, hey, it's progress? *The Uncut DVD was released back in 2007, so for that non-1080p version of the movie, it only took 26 years. Even more progress!

*Fun Fact: The 2011 documentary Cropsey is about the actual New York State urban legend that The Burning based its killer off of.