TOP-TEN NON-ENGLISH LANGUAGE ~HORROR~ FILMS
Feb 11 '05 (Updated Jun 30 '05)
The Bottom Line Here's a Top-Ten (and four bonus films) sure to shake your confidence! Lock the doors, slip into your jammies, cuddle up next to your shotgun, and let 'em rip!
The next best thing to getting naked is getting scared. I just made that up. The worst thing is when you get naked and then scared! Getting scared, though, is international. It knows no boundaries or language barriers. If you haven't yet had your fill of being scared and you've already gone through the best frights of Hollywood, try getting scared in French, German, Danish, Italian, Spanish or Japanese. My ranking for the films in my list of heinous horror happenings is based on the relative worth of each film overall rather than how frightening it happens to be. I've included a separate "Fright Factor" rating for each film – just like a good Indian restaurant gives each item on their menu a spiciness rating. So lock the doors and windows, lay back, toss down a Valium, and be terrorized!
METALLUK'S TOP-TEN NON-ENGLISH LANGUAGE ~HORROR~ FILMS:
#1. Eyes Without a Face (1960)
Country: France
Director: Georges Franju
Stars: Edith Scob as Christiana; Pierre Brasseur as Prof. Genessier
Runtime: 84 minutes
Rating: Unrated
Fright Factor: High
Brief Synopsis: A plastic surgeon is obsessed with restoring the beauty of his daughter after her face is mutilated in an automobile accident in which he was driving. With the help of his assistant, he kidnaps young women who match his daughter in general appearance so as to surgically remove their faces, in a series of futile attempts to graft a new face onto his daughter. You might skip your next doctor's appointment after this film!
#2. Le Boucher (1970)
Country: France
Director: Claude Chabrol
Stars: Stéphane Audran as Hélène; Jean Yanne as Papaul
Runtime: 94 minutes
Rating: GP
Fright Factor: Moderate
Brief Synopsis: When a series of brutal murders terrorize the small village of Périgord in rural France, a dropped cigarette lighter makes Hélène, a schoolteacher, fearful that the killer might be the local butcher, Popaul, with whom she has developed a friendship, while rejecting his efforts to extend the friendship to romance. This film combines high suspense with moderate scariness.
#3. The Kingdom & The Kingdom II (1994/7)
Country: Denmark
Director: Lars von Trier
Stars: Ernst-Huro Järegård as Stig Helmer; Kirsten Rolffes as Mrs. Drusse
Runtime: 279 (I) and 289 (II)minutes
Rating: R
Fright Factor: Low
Brief Synopsis: The ghost of a young girl haunts The Kingdom, a hospital in Denmark built over the ancient bleaching ponds. A patient, Mrs. Drusse, with psychic powers, is determined to discover what evil force is responsible for the girl's unrest. She'll have to work around the staff of the hospital, which is absorbed in romances, intrigues, malpractice suits, ambulance races, and zombie potions. The horror element for this pair of films is intermingled with satire and comedy.
#4. Delicatessen (1991)
Country: France
Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet & Marc Caro
Stars: Dominique Pinon as Louison; Marie-Laure Dougnac as Julie Clapet
Runtime: 97 minutes
Rating: R
Fright Factor: High
Brief Synopsis: In a surreal and dystopian future, scarcity of food, especially meat, has changed the social view toward cannibalism. The enterprising landlord of one building, who also operates the delicatessen, has worked out a convenient arrangement so that none of his tenants will need to be slaughtered. Instead, he periodically slaughters the handyman, after a few days' work, and then advertises for a replacement. This system becomes problematic when the landlord's daughter and the latest handiman replacement fall in love. The film opens with one of its most frightening segments.
#5. Nosferatu (1922)
Country: Germany
Director: F.W. Murnau
Stars: Max Schreck as Graf Orlok;
Runtime: 94 minutes
Rating: Unrated
Fright Factor: Moderate
Brief Synopsis: Count Orlok is looking for a new residence in town but when he takes an uncommon interest in the real estate agent's wife, it gradually becomes apparent that his tastes may not be all that natural. The performance by Max Schreck is a classic of campy creepiness.
#6. Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1976)
Country: Italy
Director: Pier Paolo Pasolioni
Stars: Paolo Bonacelli as The Duke; Aldo Valletti as The President
Runtime: 117 minutes
Rating: NC-17
Fright Factor: High
Brief Synopsis: This adaptation of The Marquis de Sade's 120 Days of Sodom follows the sadistic pleasures of four powerful men who have abducted virginal adolescent boys and girls, spiriting them away to a remote castle to exploit the youth in terrible acts of sadism. Some portions of this film are as much disgusting as horrifying.
#7. Kwaidan (1964)
Country: Japan
Director: Masaki Kobayashi
Stars: Rentaro Mikuni as the Samurai; Keiko Kishi as the Woodcutter; Katsuo Nakamura as Hoichi
Runtime: 164 minutes
Rating: Unrated
Fright Factor: Moderate
Brief Synopsis: This anthology of four short horror stories by Lafcadio Hern includes the stories of a samurai who returns to the wife he abandoned to discover a horrible surprise, another of a woodcutter who betrays a vow of secrecy, and an earless musician who plays and sings for the dead.
#8. Suspiria (1976)
Country: Italy
Director: Dario Argento
Stars: Jessica Harper as Susy Banyon; Joan Bennett as Madame Blank
Runtime: 97 minutes
Rating: R
Fright Factor: High
Brief Synopsis: When an American dance student, Susy, arrives at Tanz Academy, she observes another student fleeing in terror. The next day, Susy learns that Pat had been brutally murdered the preceding night. You'll be wondering why Susy doesn't transfer real quick to another school! The opening segment of this film may have you burying your head under your comforter!
#9. Ringu (1997) (See artbyjude's Review)
Country: Japan
Director: Hideo Nakata
Stars: Nanako Matsushima as Reiko Asakawa
Runtime: 92 minutes
Rating: Unrated
Fright Factor: High
Brief Synopsis: A high school girl tells a friend about a videotape that is supposedly cursed. If you watch the tape, you'll get a call shortly after it finishes but no one will be on the line. Then, soon, you'll die. The girl confides to her friend that she and three others watched the tape secretly when they went away for a weekend to a country inn. Sure enough, the phone rings, the girl dies, and her friend goes insane. The girl's aunt, Reiko, is a reporter and decides to investigate her neice's death. Obviously, the investigation requires a viewing of the tape and, naturally, the phone rings and . . . . You get the idea. This film was a blockbuster in Japan. As usual, the original is better than the Hollywood remake, which in this case was The Ring, released in 2002, directed by Gore Verbinski and starring Naomi Watts and Martin Henderson.
#10. The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933)
Country: Germany
Director: Fritz Lang
Stars: Rudolf Klein-Rogge as Dr. Mabuse; Otto Wernicke as Commissioner Lohmann; Theodore Loos as Dr. Kramm.
Runtime: 122 minutes
Rating: Unrated
Fright Factor: Moderate
Brief Synopsis: This sequel to Lang's famous 1922 two-part silent film, Dr. Mabuse, features Dr. Mabuse locked away in an asylum, yet still able to control his criminal empire through his influence over the psychiatrist, Dr. Kramm. It's up to Commissioner Karl Lohmann (a character that film viewers first encountered in Lang's highly effective film M) to discover the cause of the crime wave that's threatening the city.
FOUR MORE FOR DESSERT:
#11. Diabolique (1954)
Country: France
Director: Henri-Georges Clouzot
Stars: Simone Signoret as Nicole Horner; Véra Clouzot as Christina Delasalle
Runtime: 107 minutes
Rating: Unrated
Fright Factor: Moderate
Brief Synopsis: In this Hitchcock style thriller, the headmaster of a provincial boy's school in France is a shameless lothario, being married to the school's owner while having an affair with one of the teachers. When the mistress also sours on her lover, the two misused women team up in a murder plot to rid themselves of the sadistic headmaster. A hitch develops, however, when the corpse disappears without a trace. There have been three remakes of this film in America, two for television and one for the big screen, but none as effective as the original.
#12. Thesis (1996)
Country: Spain
Director: Alejandro Amenábar
Stars: Ana Torrent as Angela; Eduardo Noriega as Bosco
Runtime: 125 minutes
Rating: Unrated
Fright Factor: High
Brief Synopsis: Angela, a film student, having decided to do her thesis on violence in film, accidentally discovers a "snuff film" in which an actual brutal murder had been taped. Angela has several suspects but is uncertain about who she can trust. Her investigation threatens to culminate in her becoming the next victim. Ana Torrent, who was a famous child actress earlier in her life (Cria!, Spirit of the Beehive), gives a commendable performance.
#13. Vampyr (1932)
Country: Germany
Director: Carl Theodor Dreyer
Stars: Julian West as David Gray
Runtime: 65 minutes
Rating: Unrated
Fright Factor: Low
Brief Synopsis: This unsettling film has a traveler, David Gray, taking a room at the inn of a remote and mysterious European village. A man at the inn gives David a package to be opened in the event of the man's death. The man is duly murdered and David discovers that the package contains a book entitled, Strange Tales of Vampires. With the aid of the book, David struggles to put two and two together to save himself as well as the dead man's two young adult daughters. There are some interesting special effects, for a film made in 1932.
#14. The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1969) (See Mike Bracken's Review)
Country: Italy/West Germany
Director: Dario Argento
Stars: Tony Musante as Sam Dalmas; Suzy Kendall as Julia
Runtime: 98 minutes
Rating: PG
Fright Factor: Moderate
Brief Synopsis: Musante, an American writer in Rome, becomes the witness to a murder in an art gallery. Though he was unable to get a good look at the killer's face, the police nevertheless confiscate his passport because the murder is one of a string of murders of young women in the city. Musante not only cooperates with the police, but also launches an investigation of his own. The performances are excellent.
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You may also enjoy my other genre lists for non-English language films:
Ten Excellent Spanish-Language Films
Ten More Excellent Spanish-Language Films
Coming-of-age – Outside the USA!
Top Ten Foreign Language Psychodramas
Top Ten Non-English Language Political Movies
My Top Ten Non-English Language Tragedies
Top Non-English Language Comedies
Top-Ten Non-English Language Film Biographies
Top-Ten Non-English Language Action/Adventure Films
Ten Best Non-English Language War Movies!!
Top-Ten Non-English Language Mystery Films
Ten Excellent Films Featuring Royalty
Ten Excellent Non-English Language Thrillers
Ten Non-English Language High-Yield Tearjerkers
Ten Excellent Non-English Language Senior Films
Top-Ten Non-English Language Films Featuring Classical Music
The Top Non-English Language Epics
The 10 Best Foreign Language Romance Movies!!
The Ten Best Non-English Language Love Story Movies!!
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