Are you interested in angels, demons, spirits, ghosts, and monsters? Are you curious about their origins, tales, and influence upon history and on the present day? If so, sit back, relax, and welcome to Southern Demonology, the podcast that explores all of this and more. And welcome to the Last Bites episode for October 2022. And I say for October, for I may keep this series as a monthly run, but I'm still pondering that, so I'll keep you updated. And if you have any opinions on that, please let me know. You can contact me through the website, southerndemonology.
com, on the various social media platforms I am on, which is also on the site, or through Discord. And it doesn't just have to be on that particular topic. Remember, podcasting can be a lonely medium where I can feel as if I'm just throwing my voice out there in the void. Feel free to contact me about really anything. But enough about me and my lack of human contact. Let's go to the meat of the topic. Mainly horror movies that can help you feel the Halloween vibe. There's no theme for this final episode, like last ones, which was zombies.
I'm just going to cover some films that are simply excellent. Though there are hundreds of fantastic horror movies, I keep walking away after watching each one, thinking that the state of the genre isn't quite up to par, as, in my opinion, the best horror movie ever made was in 1973 and goes by the little name of The Exorcist. That was until I happened to watch Hereditary. While I won't say it's better necessarily, I will say that it's by and far the best horror movie made since.
We've watched this one as part of our Discord Wednesday movie night, and it elicited the reaction that I thought it might. A mixture of disgust, horror, and disbelief. Hereditary is such an amazing movie just because it succeeds like no other movie I've watched. It bombards the viewer with such a plethora of feelings, from disgust to guilt, anxiety, and horror. Plus that ending. I can't say the same thing about the follow-up Midsummer, because to me it's just a one-trick pony, but I know many people that do love it. So your mileage may vary on that one.
I was the guest on your worst friend podcast for their Halloween episode. It's become a Halloween tradition, if something twice can count as such. And we had a blast talking about a whole load of horror movies. That episode is coming out this weekend, I believe. And I'll post a link to it on my various social media platforms when it does. Now that I can even make community posts on YouTube, it will be there as well. Another excellent film that I honestly didn't expect much from, but just blew me away, is The Autopsy of Jane Doe. This one hits all the buttons.
A little medical mystery, a whole lot of creepiness. You can't go wrong with this one. Is Found Footage more your game? I recommend Hellhouse LLC and even the two sequels that form a very nice trilogy. It's legitimately creepy. For me, these movies fall into the same category as Found Footage Done Right. Just like one of my favorite films of all time, Natoi, or Curse in Japanese. A group of friends who run a haunted house attraction every year by a rundown inn in upstate New York for their newest edition. And on opening night, things don't go quite to plan.
And as you come to learn from the first and only fleshed out in the later movies, there's several good reasons why. Another great found footage movie is Grave Encounters. I actually watched this one on Voodoo as a theater pre-release back in the day and was shocked when walking around a Japanese movie theater a year later to encounter the same movie but going by its now modern name. Now there are other movies out there that follow the same plot line as Sanatorium, but as I watch this particular one first, it's the one that's nearer and dearer to my heart.
As you know, I cannot go a single episode without mentioning a Japanese horror film. I recommend A Hundred Monsters, or, as it's known in Japanese, Yokai Hiyako Managatari, A Hundred Tales of Yokai. Shudder recently added it to its lineup, and while it's a classic from 1968, it holds up so well. A rich and powerful lord is seeking to tear down a tenement building and a shrine in order to enrich himself and his own master. Now, the majority of the movie is a morality play between the villagers trying to stop all of this and a samurai hero.
But interspersed amongst all of that are yokai and curses. You even find as a comic relief Kamikasa Obake, the umbrella yokai who has a long tongue along with one eye and one foot. The first time I ever heard of Kamikasa Obake, I fell in love. And that has only grown stronger over the years. Don't judge me. Lastly, don't neglect the YouTube short horror movies. They're such a plethora of amazingly well done ones that I could not even begin to mention them all. I will link a YouTube playlist of some of my favorites, and by some I mean 165 and growing.
But I can't go without calling out two in particular, both horror comedies. The first is Dead Hearts, a narrative tale starring a little boy who is a mortician and his love interest a blind girl. It is so well done and funny to boot. I cannot recommend that one enough. The second is a Japanese one called Deads about a hairdresser who finds purpose in a zombie apocalypse. And that's going to do it for bites for October. I cannot thank you enough for listening to my ramblings about some of my favorite horror movies. And I hope you have a fantastic Halloween, my friends. Stay safe out there.