We're here to help. In the spirit of The ABCs of Death, we're offering 26 full-length horror-movie suggestions, one for each letter of the alphabet, at a pace of five a day for each day the film is showing (on day five, we'll actually offer six, because of the alphabet and math). Some are favorites old and new, some are overlooked gems, and some are just there because, look, there aren't very many horror movies that start with Q, okay?
Scared yet? You will be after watching these 26 films.
See also: - Horror films from A to Z: part one - Horror films from A to Z: part two - Horror films from A to Z: part three
P is for Phantasm From the deadly silver globe to the ultra menacing Tall Man, Don Coscarelli's Phantasm is full of indelible images. Pair those with a strange tale of a mortuary that's the site of an interdimensional doorway and a plot to turn corpses into dwarf zombie slaves, and you have a one-of-a-kind horror film that's spawned three sequels and a huge cult following.
Q is for Quarantine The biggest knock on Quarantine is that it's a completely unnecessary remake of the excellent Spanish film REC. If you can get past that, it's a nice, tense thriller about a news crew trapped inside an apartment building full of rabies-infected "zombies." Besides, it's not like Q: The Winged Serpent is worth tracking down to fill this slot.
R is for Re-Animator Stuart Gordon's tale of medical-school madness and reanimated corpses is based loosely on a story by H.P. Lovecraft, but it's a sure bet Lovecraft never imagined the unforgettable scene where a severed head performs oral sex on an unwilling co-ed. Or maybe he did. Lovecraft was pretty fucking twisted, after all.
S is for The Shining Stanley Kubrick. Stephen King. Jack Nicholson. The Shining! It's the cinematic equivalent of the All-Star Game, all in the service of telling a great haunted house (well, haunted hotel) story.
T is for The Thing Kurt Russell stars in John Carpenter's tale of a shapeshifting alien and a handful of freaked-out people stuck in Antarctica with nowhere to go. The creeping paranoia punctuated with unforgettable movie-monster mayhem makes for a classic.
Check back Thursday for the letters U through Z.
Follow @WestwordCulture