Sick of screening “My Bloody Valentine” every year but still craving something HORRORibly romantic to watch this Valentine’s Day? This list is a better cure than any heart-shaped box of chocolates.
Slither
“For better or for worse.”
“What’s fuckin’ worse?”
Like many directors who would eventually take on the big-budget superhero genre, James Gunn got his start in horror. His directorial debut is filled the humor style that we know him for. It also marks the beginning of his collaboration with Michael Rooker. Rooker plays Grant, a small town big-shot whose dwindling relationship with his high school sweetheart Starla (Elizabeth Banks) becomes even more complicated when he is infested by an alien parasite. He slowly undergoes a Cronenburg-esque transformation while the alien slugs infest the town.
Nathan Fillion’s Sheriff Bill Party steps up as the film’s hero and third point of the film’s love triangle, being in love with Starla since childhood. In the end, Starla has to decide if one can stay true to the man they love even if he’s now a giant tentacle monster taking over the town. After viewing this, you’ll definitely want to make Air Supply’s “Every Woman in the World To Me” your go-to song of you and your significant other.
Bug
“I am the drone, you are the queen.”
Speaking of career-long collaborations, a lesser-known one is Michael Shannon and Tracy Letts. Shannon met Letts when they were both young artists in the Chicago theatre scene. Shannon originated roles in Letts’ “Killer Joe” and “Bug,” reprising his role for the screen in the latter. Shannon plays a paranoid drifter who sparks a romance with grieving mother Ashley Judd. He is convinced that her motel room is infested with bugs. Their bond grows stronger and sense of reality weakens the more she believes him. Bonus props to this film for portraying an Oklahoma dyke bar.
Frankenhooker
“Wanna date?”
This may not be my most feminist choice of the bunch, but boy is it a blast. When medical student Jeffrey loses his fiancé to a tragic lawnmower accident, he saves her head and sets out to bring her back to life using various body parts of other women. He obtains said parts by traveling to the city and examining local sex workers to kill for their parts. Without giving too much away, something called “super crack” is involved.
Mad Love
“I have conquered science! Why can’t I conquer love?”
This film is 68 minutes long and that is all I should need to say for convincing. And honestly, nothing I can say is better than Bill Hader’s introduction of this at last year’s TCM Film Festival.
Misery
“God, I love you.”
Ladies, who among us hasn’t kidnapped our favorite author, forced him to rewrite the ending to our favorite book series, and fall hopelessly in love with him in the process? Just girl things!
Ravenous
“If you die first, I am definitely going to eat you.”
Guy Pearce and Robert Carlisle star in the late Antonia Bird’s tale of cannibalism in the 19th Century California mountains. Men eating the flesh of other men enforces the story’s power struggles and homoerotism. Spoiler warnings ahoy, but the film literally ends with the two leads dying in each other’s arms. The romance of it all!
