While many of us already have a complicated relationship with Valentine’s Day, this year is sure to strain it even further—how do we indulge romance when our options for a good time have been slashed and our motivation for innovative ways to celebrate died ten Zoom birthday parties ago? One remaining way to get the blood pumping and get in touch with your most visceral feelings is by celebrating with scary movies.
Here, Kelly Kay Hurcomb and James Watts, the filmmakers behind Death Trip, a new Canadian-made horror set in the dead of winter, suggest 10 disturbingly romantic, dementedly erotic horror films to color this dreary Valentine’s Day red.
Death Trip will be released February 16th, and is currently available for pre-order here.
1.Knock Knock (2015)
Don’t let the Eli Roth-ness of it all fool you—Knock Knock is truly a masterpiece. When two hot, lost, rain-soaked women show up at Keanu Reeves’ place while his wife is out of town, the shaggy haired Gen-Xer can’t help but invite them to dry off and use his phone—he’s a nice dude, after all! He really warms up to these sexy strangers after they ask him about his killer record collection, Keanu’s most potent fantasy come to life. After he spends some time playing living room DJ for them—whoops!—a threesome ensues. The next morning, the strangers show their true colours and turn Keanu’s chill life into a living hell. Knock Knock is, without a shadow of a doubt, one of the greatest comedy horrors ever made.
2. Rabid (1977)
If you live in Quebec, David Cronenberg’s 1977 film Rabid (in which a city-wide epidemic infects Montréal) will be the most triggering movie you’ll see all year. Pandemic aside, it has all the romantic staples: a biker-boyfriend, a woman infecting men with a “death-penis” that is located in her armpit and Marilyn Chambers (in a truly underrated role). Cronenberg’s early movies all have the same loose plot: an opportunistic doctor takes it upon himself to experiment on a female patient and as a result EVERYONE PAYS!
3.Ms 45 (1981)
The best B-Horror revenge premise of all time: a mute woman goes to the apartments of various men and impassively murders them.
“What did they do to deserve murder?” you ask. Well, none of them once asked her a single question, or even noticed that she’s mute! The most beautiful romance you will see on this list is between a woman, her gun and the agency afforded by their beautiful union.
4. Bride of Chucky (1998)
The hottest romance of all time.
5. Misery (1990)
Stephen King is weird because he cares about his fans, but he also hates them. Rumour has it that he wrote this book because of the negative reception to his fantasy novel The Eyes of the Dragon. Misery is about a hunky, alcoholic best-selling author (sound familiar?), and King meshes all of his rabid fans into the character of Annie Wilkes, the woman who tortures the author in the hope he will fall in love with her. The hot takeaway here is that Misery is not really about Annie Wilkes and her violent obsession with a successful author—if you’re reading into the subtext, Misery is about King’s own relationship to his fans and the fact that he’s a bit of a “sub” who truly wants to get it on with Annie Wilkes, ropes and all.
6. The Hunger (1983)
Some movies are worth it just for the first 10 minutes. This is true of the sexy vampire lustfest that is The Hunger. In the opening scene, you meet the film’s stars (David Bowie & Catherine Deneuve, looking very hot) at some dark NYC night club. They’re on the prowl for their next victim(s). In a cage, at the club, Bauhaus performs “Bela Legosi’s Dead.” Talk about “fangs out.”
7. Possession (1981)
This movie is “a lot.” Sam Neill portrays the most “romantically challenged” protagonist of all time and it’s not a question but a fact that Possession contains the best scene in film history.
8. Valentine (2001)
This movie is as bad now as it was then. Because of our age demographic (and because of it’s 14A rating in Canada) we both watched this when we were very young. David Boreanaz shot his entire role in 12 days, which makes a lot of sense. Most millennial filmgoers will take the memory of Denise Richards getting electrocuted in the hot tub to their graves.
9. Les Diaboliques (1955)
A woman and her husband’s mistress team-up to murder the adulterous man at the center of their (very French) love triangle. What starts out as a gothic take on The Other Woman quickly turns into the world’s most elaborate gaslighting situation. The protagonist’s greatest strength and greatest weakness is her heart condition… needless to say, there’s no shortage of symbolism in this diabolical roma-horror.
10. The Loved Ones (2009)
This movie is absolutely disgusting. A teen wants a date to prom, so she gets her dad to help her kidnap and tie up a boy that she likes. Then the dad kind of just hangs around during their “torture-date”…this dude really loves his daughter! A modern Ozploitation freakfest that served as the inspiration for a real life copycat crime in 2013.
If you’re looking for more Valentine’s viewing, read our top 10 list of films about Revolutionary Love here.
Blood Lust: Hot Horror Movies For Valentine’s Day
While many of us already have a complicated relationship with Valentine’s Day, this year is sure to strain it even further—how do we indulge romance when our options for a good time have been slashed and our motivation for innovative ways to celebrate died ten Zoom birthday parties ago? One remaining way to get the blood pumping and get in touch with your most visceral feelings is by celebrating with scary movies.
Here, Kelly Kay Hurcomb and James Watts, the filmmakers behind Death Trip, a new Canadian-made horror set in the dead of winter, suggest 10 disturbingly romantic, dementedly erotic horror films to color this dreary Valentine’s Day red.
Death Trip will be released February 16th, and is currently available for pre-order here.
1. Knock Knock (2015)
Don’t let the Eli Roth-ness of it all fool you—Knock Knock is truly a masterpiece. When two hot, lost, rain-soaked women show up at Keanu Reeves’ place while his wife is out of town, the shaggy haired Gen-Xer can’t help but invite them to dry off and use his phone—he’s a nice dude, after all! He really warms up to these sexy strangers after they ask him about his killer record collection, Keanu’s most potent fantasy come to life. After he spends some time playing living room DJ for them—whoops!—a threesome ensues. The next morning, the strangers show their true colours and turn Keanu’s chill life into a living hell. Knock Knock is, without a shadow of a doubt, one of the greatest comedy horrors ever made.
2. Rabid (1977)
If you live in Quebec, David Cronenberg’s 1977 film Rabid (in which a city-wide epidemic infects Montréal) will be the most triggering movie you’ll see all year. Pandemic aside, it has all the romantic staples: a biker-boyfriend, a woman infecting men with a “death-penis” that is located in her armpit and Marilyn Chambers (in a truly underrated role). Cronenberg’s early movies all have the same loose plot: an opportunistic doctor takes it upon himself to experiment on a female patient and as a result EVERYONE PAYS!
3. Ms 45 (1981)
The best B-Horror revenge premise of all time: a mute woman goes to the apartments of various men and impassively murders them.
“What did they do to deserve murder?” you ask. Well, none of them once asked her a single question, or even noticed that she’s mute! The most beautiful romance you will see on this list is between a woman, her gun and the agency afforded by their beautiful union.
4. Bride of Chucky (1998)
The hottest romance of all time.
5. Misery (1990)
Stephen King is weird because he cares about his fans, but he also hates them. Rumour has it that he wrote this book because of the negative reception to his fantasy novel The Eyes of the Dragon. Misery is about a hunky, alcoholic best-selling author (sound familiar?), and King meshes all of his rabid fans into the character of Annie Wilkes, the woman who tortures the author in the hope he will fall in love with her. The hot takeaway here is that Misery is not really about Annie Wilkes and her violent obsession with a successful author—if you’re reading into the subtext, Misery is about King’s own relationship to his fans and the fact that he’s a bit of a “sub” who truly wants to get it on with Annie Wilkes, ropes and all.
6. The Hunger (1983)
Some movies are worth it just for the first 10 minutes. This is true of the sexy vampire lustfest that is The Hunger. In the opening scene, you meet the film’s stars (David Bowie & Catherine Deneuve, looking very hot) at some dark NYC night club. They’re on the prowl for their next victim(s). In a cage, at the club, Bauhaus performs “Bela Legosi’s Dead.” Talk about “fangs out.”
7. Possession (1981)
This movie is “a lot.” Sam Neill portrays the most “romantically challenged” protagonist of all time and it’s not a question but a fact that Possession contains the best scene in film history.
8. Valentine (2001)
This movie is as bad now as it was then. Because of our age demographic (and because of it’s 14A rating in Canada) we both watched this when we were very young. David Boreanaz shot his entire role in 12 days, which makes a lot of sense. Most millennial filmgoers will take the memory of Denise Richards getting electrocuted in the hot tub to their graves.
9. Les Diaboliques (1955)
A woman and her husband’s mistress team-up to murder the adulterous man at the center of their (very French) love triangle. What starts out as a gothic take on The Other Woman quickly turns into the world’s most elaborate gaslighting situation. The protagonist’s greatest strength and greatest weakness is her heart condition… needless to say, there’s no shortage of symbolism in this diabolical roma-horror.
10. The Loved Ones (2009)
This movie is absolutely disgusting. A teen wants a date to prom, so she gets her dad to help her kidnap and tie up a boy that she likes. Then the dad kind of just hangs around during their “torture-date”…this dude really loves his daughter! A modern Ozploitation freakfest that served as the inspiration for a real life copycat crime in 2013.
If you’re looking for more Valentine’s viewing, read our top 10 list of films about Revolutionary Love here.