Black Magic Woman (1991)
Voodoo Curse
Essentially Fatal Attraction with voodoo in which Mark Hamill engages in an affair with Apollonia and breaks it off only to find a voodoo curse has been placed on him
Curses
A curse is an invocation that calls upon a supernatural power to inflict ill will against a person or persons. The curse is usually invoked by speaking words of power such as a ritual or invocation.
In the horror genre, curses are often placed on individuals, their families, their descendants, even entire towns. These can often occur on a particular occasion such as a birthday or an anniversary of some crime in the past. This may often be because of the persecution of a wronged innocent such as a Witch who was burned at the stake. Voodoo also offers a variety of curses.
In fantasy, curses are enacted by wizards and witches. Curses can often be responsible for afflicting a person with bodily transformation of some type (notedly The Beast in various versions of Beauty and the Beast). It can also afflict people with Immortality, leaving them unaging as punishment or until they seek restitution for their crimes.
Places can also be regarded as cursed where those that intrude bring death and retribution on themselves. This has even extended into real-life such as the tabloid belief that those who opened Tutankhamun’s tomb were cursed for doing so. See also Cursed Objects for artefacts that exude evil influence.
The Boneyard (1991)
Zombie Children Overrun a Mortuary
Part of the 80s/90s fad for makeup effects driven popcorn horror – in this case, actually directed by an effects artist. The film moves slow as molasses but the giant zombie poodle and zombie Phyllis Diller do compensate
Meridian (1990)
Erotic Fairytale
A much better than usual film from Charles Band, an erotic fairytale in which Sherilyn Fenn becomes involved with a circusmaster and his twin brother who turns into a werewolf
Rockula (1990)
Vampire Rock Star Comedy
Painfully unfunny vampire comedy from Cannon Films about a vampire teenager who becomes a rock star. This has one of the least credible premises I’ve ever seen in a film. Mostly it seems to have been conceived around placing various musicians of the day in acting roles with bizarre results
When the Whales Came (1989)
Period Drama/Preventing a Whale Curse
This is what might result if Greenpeace were allowed to take over the BBC arts division. Nicely made but not necessarily a great period drama about a whale curse
Kadaicha (1988)
Aborigine Curse
Australian horror that sets out to combine US models like A Nightmare on Elm Street and a few dashes of Poltergeist with the idea of an Aborigine curse but emerges as poorly executed
Sleeping Beauty (1987)
Fairytale
One of the cheap fairytale adaptations made by Cannon Films in the 1980s. A dreary impoverished run through by the numbers with Morgan Fairchild as the Wicked Stepmother and Tahnee Welch in the title role
The Believers (1987)
Santeria Cult
Big serious film about Santeria religion that readily delves into the voodoo side of it as detective Martin Sheen and his family are targeted by cultists
Scared Stiff (1987)
Haunting
An incredibly bad film from the heyday of the VHS era. The incoherent plot involves hauntings and a voodoo curse before arriving at a totally surreal ending
My Demon Lover (1987)
Possession Comedy
The title sounds like that of an erotic horror film but all that we get is an inane teen comedy in which Scott Valentine turns into a demon whenever he gets turned on
Big Trouble in Little China (1986)
Chinese Supernatural/Martial Arts Fantasy
John Carpenter film that was marketed as a Raiders of the Lost Ark copy but is more Carpenter trying to emulate Hong Kong’s Wu Xia cinema, which was largely unknown in the West at the time. All with highly enjoyable conic results.
Ladyhawke (1985)
Mediaeval Fantasy/Lovers Under Animal Transformation Curse
A beautifully made Richard Donner mediaeval fantasy with two lovers suffering a curse that transforms them into animals only able to touch in person for a second at dusk and dawn
The Alchemist (1983)
Evil Sorcerer
One of the earliest films from Charles Band. In the years following, Band went onto produce and occasionally direct a great many often enterprisingly cheap low-budget genre films – this is not one of them
Mausoleum (1983)
Possessed Housewife
A B-budgeted hit from the video era concerning a possessed housewife. This is a film that has only ever been construed around the provision of cheap makeup effects at regular intervals, all of which hold an undeniable entertainment value in their cheesy ridiculousness
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1983)
Sherlock Holmes Film/Ghostly Dog Mystery
Given lavish period settings and featuring a sterling cast line-up of British talent from the day, this is probably the most faithful film adaptation of the Conan Doyle story
Saturday the 14th (1981)
Genre Parody
Friday the 13th so changed the horror genre that within two years it produced two four parodies of its title. From Roger Corman, this is more of an occasionally amusing parody of classic monster movies than the slasher film
Cat People (1982)
Human-Feline Transformation
The remake of Cat People. In the hands of Paul Schrader, all the ambiguity is made overt and the film becomes one of Schrader’s allegories for tormented sexuality. On its own terms, this is an often smoulderingly sensual work
Oasis of the Zombies (1981)
Nazi Zombies
One of the original Nazi zombies films with zombies protecting an oasis that hides a gold treasure. This was made by prolific exploitation director Jess Franco meaning that much of the film’s potential is drowned in cheap production values and bad dubbing
Jaws of Satan (1981)
Satanically Empowered Killer Snakes
This seems to have been slung together as a mash-up of Jaws and the 1970s fad for occult films. Ridiculous and badly made on all levels, no more so than the climax with a giant snake conducting a devil worship ceremony
The Curse of King Tut’s Tomb (1980)
"True Story" of the Discovery of Tutankhamun's Tomb
TV movie about the historical discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb by Howard Carter that inflates the tabloid notion there was a curse and so distorts the historical record that it more properly enters the realm of fantasy
Hero (1980)
Finn MacCool Legend
Adaptation of the Finn Mac Coll legend, filmed in Gaelic with a cast that learned their lines by rote. An interesting idea that suffers a painful amateurism
The Fall of the House of Usher (1979)
Edgar Allan Poe Adaptation
Maybe the worst Edgar Allan Poe adaptation ever, a version made for tv that fails utterly to project any of Poe’s gloom and despair, while a badly overacting Martin Landau is disastrously miscast as Roderick Usher
Shadow of Chikara (1977)
Western Quest/Cursed Mountain
This is nominally a Western – one of the harsh and realistic ones made at the end of the 1970s – and quite a good one too. It comes with a real surprise ending that takes it over into fantasy
Tales That Witness Madness (1973)
Horror Anthology
Director Freddie Francis had had great success making several of the Amicus horror anthologies then went independent to made another Amicus-styled anthology here with mixed results
The Brides Wore Blood (1972)
Family Curse/Occult Rituals
Obscure 1970s horror that generates a certain creepy effect with four girls gathered at a big old house for sinister purpose. before going sidewise during the second half amid a profusion of competing tropes
Cry of the Banshee (1970)
Mysterious Stranger/Witch's Retribution
Dreary film in which Vincent Price is a magistrate who is haunted by a manifestation of The Devil for his witch persecutions. The publicity falsely tried to sell this as an Edgar Allan Poe adaptation.
The Vulture (1967)
Human-Vulture Hybrid/Teleporter Accident
Possibly the most conceptually demented film to come out of the 1960s-70s Anglo-horror cycle – one part The Fly, one part a witch’s retribution film about a man who transforms into a vulture creature after teleporting into his ancestor’s grave whereupon he is driven to enact a centuries old curse
An Angel for Satan (1966)
Italian Gothic
A small masterpiece of 1960s Italian Gothic cinema. Exquisitely moody black-and-white photography with Barbara Steele as the ideal of a Gothic dominatrix twisting men around her finger and setting a town against itself
The Blancheville Monster (1963)
Italian Gothic
One of the entries from the Italian Gothic cycle featuring a big decaying castle, lurking disfigured figures, sinister hypnotists and moodily atmospheric black-and-white photography
Twice-Told Tales (1963)
Horror Anthology
With the success of the Edgar Allan Poe adaptations starring Vincent Price, this was a copycat attempt that cast Price in a trio of tales adapted from another writer of American horror stories, Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Magic Sword (1962)
Heroic Fantasy Adventure
One of the better films from B-budget dircetor Bert I. Gordon, a fantasy adventure where Gordon produces some decent effects
Jack the Giant Killer (1962)
Heroic Fantasy Adventure
A blatant attempt to copy Ray Harryhausen’s The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, night down to employing the same lead actors and director, but this fails through shoddy stop-motion animated effects
Beauty and the Beast (1961)
Fairy-Tale
Largely forgotten version of the fairytale that is too rudimentary and pedestrian to find much flight of fantasy compared to other classic versions
The Ghost Cat of Otama Pond (1960)
Japanese Ghost Story
Another effort from the Golden Age of kaidan eiga (Japanese ghost story films) during the 1950s-60s. While this assembles the essentials of the genre, it is only delivered in terms of a series of strident and unsubtle pop-up effects
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959)
Hammer Sherlock Holmes Film/Ghostly Dog Mystery
Hammer Films’ one and only Sherlock Holmes adaptation. It is beautiful to see the opulence of early Hammer productions brought to bear giving the story unusually effective life
The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake (1959)
Shrunken Head Curse
Someone decided to make a horror film about the practice of shrinking heads conducted by some South American Indian tribes. Despite starting well, this is mostly dull and pedestrian
Sleeping Beauty (1959)
Disney Animation/Fairy-Tale
One of the finest of all Disney animated films, an adaptation of the fairytale made with the full artistic resources that studio could bring to bear
I Bury the Living (1958)
Cemetery Keeper with Killing Powers
Fascinating forgotten film with Richard Boone as a cemetery keeper who finds he can kill by placing pins on a map of the cemetery. This feels like a forgotten Twilight Zone episode and develops some quite creepy effect.
Night of the Demon (1957)
Occult Curse
Classic occult film from former Val Lewton associate Jacques Tourneur that sits in a wonderfully ambiguous place where we cannot be certain whether the supernatural is real or imagined
Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1951)
Immortally Cursed Sea Captain/Romantic Fantasy
Exquisitely shot Technicolor fantasy in which Ava Gardner is romanced by James Mason as the Flying Dutchman, cursed to eternally sail the seas
Night in Paradise (1946)
Greek Storyteller
Overblown production featuring Turhan Bey as the storyteller Aesop engaged in a romantic adventure
The Time of Their Lives (1946)
Ghost Comedy
An Abbott and Costello comedy. Not one of their monster bashes but a variant on the light comedy that had been popular in the last decade with Lou as an 18th Century ghost haunting Bud Abbott in the present. Can’t say I am a big fan of their humour, most of the slapstick that seems dated today
I Married a Witch (1942)
Mischievous Witch in Love
Charming and delightful film starring Veronica Lake as a witch burned at the stake who returns to life in the present to make life miserable for her judge’s descendant Frederic March
The Thief of Bagdad (1940)
Arabian Nights Adventure
An Arabian Nights adventure that offers up one of the purest blends of fantasy and romance of its era. Filled with stunning directorial set-pieces and magnificent sets and all shot in colour.
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939)
Sherlock Holmes Film/Ghostly Dog Mystery
The first in a series of Sherlock Holmes films starring Basil Rathbone, who became the definitive Holmes for many years, and a reasonable adaptation of the Arthur Conan Doyle novel
The Ghost Goes West (1935)
Haunted Castle Comedy
A light fantasy comedy with Lucas Donat as the inheritor of a Scottish castle that is haunted by a ghost and the problems faced when the castle is sold to be shipped to America
The Mummy (1932)
Revived Mummy
The original mummy film starring Boris Karloff. Unlike the sequels where the mummy became a slow, shuffling creature, this is a subtle classic with haunted mood.
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1929)
Silent Sherlock Holmes Film/Ghostly Dog Mystery
An incredibly good adaptation of the Sherlock Holmes story. Thought lost for many years, this was made at the height of German Expressionism and has a vividness that other adaptations lack