31 days, 31 countries....no repeats!
I did this last year, but I'm definitely not the first to have done it. James Rolfe at Cinemassacre ended up doing it at the same time, but other writers have done the 31 days, 31 countries in Octobers past. However, I have yet to see anyone do it twice. This makes a total of 62 countries and while I'm typically reluctant to brag, I feel pretty good about that. Could I do this for a third year? I did some preliminary research and I came to the conclusion that I could only squeeze about ten to twelve more countries into the overall list. Another 31 just doesn't seem possible.
However, you'll notice that a good chunk of this list are films made in the last decade, with a few being the first ever horror films from their countries. So in another ten years, who knows? There are roughly 195 countries in the world, give or take some disputed territories. What I have on this list and last year's list represents only about a third of them. Join the party, you guys!
1. Ukraine - Ghoul (2015)
I couldn't imagine starting with any other country. The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Ukrainian people's steadfast resistance has been some of the most extraordinary history I've seen in my lifetime. It's settled into something of a stalemate, one that could go on for years. I hope it ends sooner rather than later, for the sake of both nations.
Eligibility was a bit wonky for this movie, which is a co-production with the Czech Republic. However, it was shot in Ukraine and is deeply rooted in the country's history so I think it's a worthy selection. It's a found footage movie that was made shortly after Russia’s invasion and occupation of the Crimean Peninsula, but the story looks back on another atrocity perpetrated by Ukraine’s bullying neighbor. The “holodomor” was a famine orchestrated by Joseph Stalin during the 1930s to crush a Ukrainian independence movement, something Russian leaders deny to this day (as if that's worth anything).
The film begins with three American filmmakers arriving to film a documentary about the grisly incidents of cannibalism which occurred during the height of the famine. Their hosts take them to a house in the countryside that was the site of a particularly brutal murder only to find out that the place is possessed by the spirit of the real-life cannibalistic serial killer Andrei Chikatilo, whose mind was warped by his experiences during the famine. The Americans seem to have brought the most overused found footage tropes along with them, including characters who act extremely stupid, but the way the horror is rooted in real history makes it quite compelling.
There weren't a lot of Ukrainian horror films to choose from. Whenever the country gets back on its feet, I think that will change.
2. Taiwan - Detention (2019)
That's right, Taiwan gets its own entry. No China, I will not be recording a simpering apology in your language so you'll just have to deal. This powerful horror film is actually based on a video game by the Taiwanese studio Red Candle Games and takes place at a school during the “White Terror,” an era when the people of Taiwan were brutally oppressed by Chiang Kai-shek and his Kuomintang party following their retreat from mainland China after losing their civil war against the communists and Mao Zedong. Wei is a student terrified of being exposed as a member of an underground book club reading forbidden literature, while Fang has developed an questionably close relationship with one of her teachers. During a typhoon, both of them are trapped at the school, which has become a nightmarish distortion of itself populated by various ghosts and monsters.
It’s surprisingly close to the story of the game and both versions memorably use surreal horror as a metaphor for the real-life terror of living under occupation. This is the exact kind of movie I hope for when doing this exercise, one that is deeply rooted in the history of its country of origin and rewards viewers who take the time to do a little research on the background.
3. Tunisia - Dachra (2020)
The first Tunisian horror film was a grim tale that examines the tension between tradition and modernity that lingers in the years following the 2011 Arab Spring uprising that overthrew a repressive regime and established a new democratic system. Yassmine, Walid, and Bilelare are three bickering journalism students collaborating on a research project involving an institutionalized woman who survived an attempted murder that was never solved. Their search leads them to an isolated village in the woods where the people dabble in the occult, along with revelations none of them expected. It’s easy to get invested in the mystery of it all, making for a tense movie that creates unease with composition that often puts the characters at the far side of the frame. The last half-hour is such a gruesome ride that it might be a while before you realize that you still have a lot of questions about the storyline. Apparently people are still victimized by occult rituals in the more remote parts of Tunisia, which is unnerving to say the least. If this is what Tunisian horror looks like, all I've got to say is welcome to the fold.
4. Peru - The Entity (2015)
Not to be confused with the brutal American horror film where Barbara Hershey gets repeatedly raped by a ghost, this is a fairly traditional found footage movie that incorporates some regional history. I came across a lot of found footage while searching for films to use for this, although not all of them were available. The format allows people to make effective horror without much of a budget, just some essential creativity. I suspect it opened doors for a lot of aspiring directors across the world.
The story revolves around four students working on a class project on the trend of "reaction videos." In the early stages of their research, the group learns that three of the people featured in one of these videos have died under mysterious circumstances, which leads them into the path of a vicious ghost with a penchant for lifting people in the air before slicing them up. The threadbare, occasionally silly plot is held together mainly by coincidence (or is it?) but the film gains an interesting historical perspective when it's revealed the ghost was a victim of the Spanish Inquisition. The fact that the ghost speaks in the indigenous Quechan language drives the point home. Like a lot of the films I covered last year, this is another examination of the horrors the Catholic Church has inflicted on the Spanish-speaking world throughout history.
5. Poland - Diabel (1972)
If you've never seen a movie by the Polish maniac Andrzej Zulawski, you are in for a ride. Good luck turning away from the screen during the hysterical mayhem of this film’s first seven minutes. An imprisoned nobleman named Jakub is rescued during a prison riot by a mysterious man dressed all in black. The already traumatized Jakub is manipulated by the stranger into a series of grisly murders, eventually bringing down the wrath of the authorities. Even at this early stage in his career, Zulawski had perfected his kinetic visual style and affinity for characters who always appear in the midst of a nervous breakdown.
Although it it set in the 1790s, the story has parallels to a series of real incidents in the 1960s when Poland’s communist government baited dissidents into protests to provide a pretext for a crackdown on free speech. The regime figured out what was going on and they were not amused, although they could have just as easily objected to the taboo-shattering violence and depravity. Either way, they prevented the film’s release and it was not seen by the public until the late 1980s after the regime had fallen. Zulawski was so disgusted by the whole thing that he left his homeland and made the rest of his films elsewhere in Europe, including his best known work - Possession.
6. Singapore - Revenge of the Pontianak (2019)
According to Southeast Asian folklore, a pregnant woman who dies before or during childbirth and is not given proper burial rites will return as a vampiric creature known as a pontianak. Khalid moves back home to his native village with his new wife Siti and young son Nik only to find himself haunted by the vengeful presence of the boy’s mother Mina. The movie wisely keeps the pontianak out of sight until near the end, even if it isn’t quite sure what to do with her once she appears. Seeing her beat the crap out of an angry mob near the end is jarring compared to the rest of the film. The art direction uses a lot of eerie blue and red lighting to beautiful effect. It also takes place in 1965, which was the year Singapore seceded from Malaysia. Is this tale of a twisted romance gone wrong some sort of allegory for those events? I would love to hear an analysis from someone with more expertise on that region's history.
7. Greece - Medusa (1998)
The Greek myths are some of the most famous stories in history, so I was very surprised to learn just how few horror films they've produced. You would think there would be all sorts of movies featuring minotaurs, gorgons or hydras, right? Not so much. At first, all I could find were incredibly dull British co-productions that relied on the gorgeous Greek scenery but had very little apparent interest in their culture. It took some digging, but I eventually found the sort of movie I was hoping for.
The only film made by George Lazopoulos is a retelling of the classic legend in a contemporary setting. You see this kind of thing constantly with Shakespeare, but not as much with Greek myth. Perseus is a knife enthusiast and petty criminal who breaks into his childhood home to find it occupied by a mysterious woman who always wears dark glasses. Meanwhile, police are investigating strange stone statues that resemble people who have gone missing. There is a very unique feel to this film - it’s low-key, naturalistic and quietly unnerving. It sometimes feels like more could have been done with the idea, but there are a lot of clever little details for those who remember the ancient tale.
8. Paraguay - Morgue (2019)
This movie does impressive work with limited resources, filmed in mostly one location with a tiny cast. Diego is a struggling, hapless security guard for hire who commits a hit and run one night on a deserted road. The very next evening, he is assigned to patrol the local morgue that just happens to be housing the corpse of the man he hit. What follows is a familiar “reap what you sow” paranormal tale, but it’s a real nail-biter with one particularly brilliant jump scare. When Diego is locked into a dark room near the end, the viewer might find themself fighting off claustrophobia along with him. The director also picked up something else from American mainstream horror - the film is supposedly “based on actual events.” Yeah, sure it is.
9. North Korea - Pulgasari (1985)
There's a hell of a story behind this monster movie. The South Korean director Sang-ok Shin and his ex-wife, the actress Eun-hee Choi, were abducted by agents of the North Korean government in 1978. Kim Jong-il, at that time the heir to North Korea’s repressive dictatorship, forced the two to get remarried and they spent nearly a decade producing movies to try and elevate the famously reclusive nation’s cultural stature. This was the last film Shin made for them, finished shortly before the Vienna Film Festival of 1986, when the two of them sprinted to an American embassy and finally escaped.
The movie takes place in feudal Korea. A peasant blacksmith is unjustly imprisoned by an evil monarchy and carves a metal figurine of a monster, begging the gods to give it the power to avenge him. The figurine comes to life, eating metal and steadily growing large enough to help the villagers topple their oppressors. The creature effects are actually quite good but the otherwise ham-fisted movie suffers whenever Pulgasari is not on screen. The North Koreans intended this to be a proud communist tale but Shin complicated that message with the third act. As Pulgasari begins to terrorize his own people after the revolution, he becomes a metaphor for Kim il-Sung’s abuse of the North Korean populace once he came to power. Luckily for the director, nobody figured that out at the time.
This film was surprisingly easy to find. There seems to be an unspoken agreement among movie buffs worldwide to ignore North Korean copyright because the Kim dynasty is just such a pain in the ass.
10. Ireland - The Devil's Doorway (2018)
This is a powerful found footage movie about two priests, the devout young Flynn and the older, skeptical Thomas, who travel to one of Ireland's infamous "Magdalene laundries" in the year 1960 to investigate a strange paranormal occurrence. They discover profound evil, both human and supernatural. These were real places operated by the Catholic Church (yep, them again) for centuries that were supposedly a place to rehabilitate "fallen women" like prostitutes or unwed mothers but in reality functioned more like prisons.
The director Aislinn Clarke wisely shot the whole thing in 16mm film, which visually differentiates it from its peers and also makes it resemble the sort of low-budget socially conscious documentaries of that era. The building used for the facility is also a great setting. The demonic elements are mostly what we've all seen before but the condemnation of the church's real-life abuses is razor sharp.
11. Nigeria - Karishika (1996)
My goal with this activity is not to mock any countries. Both years I've done this, there have been times when I finished a movie that turned out to be awful and thought "I should find something better than that, just to be fair to them." Unfortunately, this is the only Nigerian film I could track down and, well...as number 5 from last year might say, it's-a no good.
At the very least, it's quite a trip - a low budget, bible-thumping two and a half hour mess that begins with what looks like some sort of company meeting in Hell. Satan is annoyed about his lack of success in corrupting the world, so he sends the demoness Karishika to Earth. The shape-shifting trickster tempts men and takes cruel advantage of women suffering from infertility but a heroic pastor stands in her way. The film is well-known in its native country as a key part of the early "Nollywood" output and, somewhat unbelievably, people who grew up watching it describe it as a frightening experience. I really want to find movies that reflect well on their home country, but it didn't work out this time. I can't recommend it for sober viewing, but at least that theme song is a real banger.
12. Vietnam - Muoi (2007)
Given that Vietnam spent much of the last century in brutal battle with colonial powers, you might expect there to be a lot of horror films as a result. Not so much. In fact, this ghost story was the first one to come out of the country and was suppressed for months due to its violence, which would be considered unremarkable in Japan or Korea, whose horror traditions have clearly influenced it. As a result of the delay, a different horror movie (Ghosted Stream) was released earlier and stole its thunder, making it debatable which one was actually "first."
A Korean writer named Yun-hui travels to Vietnam to meet her estranged friend Seo-yeon as part of the research for a book. Seo-yeon shares the background information on a local folk tale involving a woman named Muoi who was betrayed and mutilated a century earlier. However, Yun-hui begins to suspect that the legend might be repeating itself around her. The premise is engaging at first, but the plot gets lost somewhere in the middle of the endless hallucinations and dream sequence fake-outs.
13. Panama - Diablo Rojo (2019)
Panama’s first horror film was produced by a very specific group called the "Panama Horror Film Company." It's about a middle-aged bus driver and his younger co-worker who stumble upon a powerful coven of witches who embody the legend of “La Tulivieja.” This is a variant on the vengeful mother archetype similar to La Llorona, but exclusive to Panama and Costa Rica. With some brutal kills, unexpected comic moments and a superb-looking monster, this movie is often reminiscent of the work of Sam Raimi, all packed into an exciting 73 minutes. Gotta love a short-ass movie.
14. Israel - Jeruzalem (2015)
The Z in the title is clearly meant to evoke World War Z, which had a major action sequence set in Israel. This is a homegrown found footage movie about the onset of the apocalypse that comes just at the right time to ruin vacation for Sarah and Rachel. The whole thing is from the point of view of Sarah's new Google Glass (does she know it's always recording?) and while it's the standard found footage plot we've all seen plenty of times, setting it at the epicenter of the world's most intractable conflict gives it a sharp edge.
The Israeli military is portrayed as trigger happy and paranoid and ultimately it seems logical that a place plagued by so much man-made evil would also attract the supernatural variety. The highlight of the film is the introduction, which is styled like 1970s archival footage. I think I would have preferred a whole movie in that vein, although I am a sucker for stories about evil that has terrorized mankind throughout history.
15. Czech Republic - Witchhammer (1970)
If you can get through this two hour movie without singing the title to the tune of Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer," you are a more disciplined person than I. Although it was likely influenced by the success of the British film Witchfinder General a few years earlier, this striking movie has more in common with “The Crucible,” both in terms of its narrative and subtext. In the year 1678, a destitute old woman steals a communion wafer for a friend, which provokes such a hysterical witch hunt that the local government recruits the amoral inquisitor Jindrich Boblig. Almost immediately, Boblig is coercing and torturing women into false confessions with only the deacon Krystof Lautner willing to stand up for what’s right.
It’s not the fastest paced movie but it lays bare the hypocrisy and corruption behind this sort of moral panic, whether it's about witchcraft or acknowledging the existence of gay people in a classroom. Like Diabel, it also uses an older historical era (a completely true story in this case) to critique the show trials put on by the occupying forces of Soviet Russia during this time. The communists were slow on the uptake and the film played all over the country before they pulled it from theaters. It wasn't seen again in Eastern Europe until 1989.
16. Laos - Dearest Sister (2016)
Laos is a one-party Communist state and not the ideal environment to nurture a film culture. However, one has still managed to emerge (albeit under the watchful eyes of censors) with Mattie Do's socially conscious horror films at the forefront. Dearest Sister was the first film Laos had ever submitted for consideration for the International Feature category at the Academy Awards. The Oscars have little respect for horror so it was not nominated, but it did bring a lot of welcome attention.
A young woman named Nok relocates from her dead-end village to the city of Vientiane to work as a caregiver for her cousin Ana, who is going blind. She is married to a rich European dirtbag who is rarely home, leaving Nok as Ana’s constant companion. In addition to losing her sight, Ana is also experiencing strange bouts of clairvoyance, everything from winning lottery numbers to menacing ghosts bringing ill omens. The shots from Ana’s point of view, where muddy figures appear in her blurry field of vision, are quite unnerving. However, it’s just as much a social drama as it is a horror film. In addition to a familiar look at the clash of tradition and modernity, the story highlights the lack of opportunities for women in Laos - going abroad and meeting a white man is seen as the best option for success. In the end, the corrupting influence of money is more frightening than any ghost.
17. Norway - Lake of Death (1958)
At first, I assumed I would pick Trollhunter, but I've written about that one here like two or three times already so I decided to find something else. This is an old-fashioned ghost story that is beloved in Norway but almost unknown outside of Scandinavia. Lilian brings several of her friends to a remote cabin by a lake in anticipation of meeting her twin brother Bjorn there. However, when they arrive Bjorn is missing with evidence suggesting suicide by drowning. While her guests delve into the history of mysterious deaths near the lake, Lilian finds herself drawn to something lurking underneath.
It relies heavily on dialogue, sometimes feeling like a play, complete with a story-within-a-story opening that serves no real purpose. Still, the scenery of Norway looks gorgeous even in black and white and there is an eerie atmosphere that’s often compelling. I think it also deserves some credit for doing the "cabin in the woods" setup way before that became so common. The Norwegians remade it into a more generic sort of horror movie in 2020, although that one is worth watching just to see Norway in color.
18. Serbia - Leptirica (1973)
Technically, this folk horror farce was a Yugoslavian film, but it was filmed entirely in the Serbian region and since Yugoslavia's dissolution, Serbia has understandably claimed it. The miller of a small village is attacked and killed by the wicked vampire Sava Savanovich, basically a Serbian variant of Count Dracula. The bumbling villagers try to come up with a plan to stop him but none of them are prepared for the gnarly final twist. It doesn’t totally work but the movie has charm thanks to it’s realistic pastoral production design. The mill referenced in the legend (and the shooting location for the movie) is a real place in the small Serbian village of Zarozje. It's marked on Google Maps and everything!
I could have gone with a certain other "Serbian Film," but it just seemed too easy. Not that there isn't plenty to say about that one. Perhaps I'll get to it another time.
19. Malaysia - Roh (2021)
A grim movie that unfolds deep in the jungle during an undetermined time period, where single mother Mak and her children Along and Angah live in almost complete isolation. One day, a little girl covered in mud arrives with cryptic warnings about a “ghost hunter.” The scary moments are extremely effective but the story as a whole is dreamy and elusive. Maybe a more in-depth knowledge of Malaysian superstition and myth is required to fully appreciate what's going on here and unlike some other regional folk horror films like this, it doesn't seem in any hurry to throw a bone to international audiences. However, any viewer is likely to get lost in the gorgeous jungle scenery.
20. Colombia - The Hidden Face (2011)
This film resembles a classic Hitchcock mystery in the vein of Rebecca or Shadow of a Doubt. Adrian, the conductor of the Bogota Philharmonic Orchestra, has just been dumped by his girlfriend via video message. Ouch. He assumes she just ran off with another man, but his new girlfriend Fabiana can’t shake the feeling that there is a strange presence in the house. It’s gripping, economic storytelling that is rarely predictable. The truth behind the mystery is not what you expect, but it’s both chilling and darkly funny.
Many of the South American films we've covered these past two years deal with the horrors of their past. Aside from a brief reference to the continent being a safe harbor for Nazi war criminals, this is a very different approach - a story that brings attention to the cultural arts of a modern nation. People in the United States tend to write off Colombia as a typical banana republic with a lot of cocaine, so it's a shame this perspective hasn't been seen by more people here.
21. Denmark - When Animals Dream (2015)
This is a moody and unusual story with a welcome emphasis on characterization. It’s not hard for the audience to identify with Marie, an isolated girl with a seriously ill mother and a miserable job at a fishery where most of her coworkers are macho idiots. Not exactly in line with Denmark's "happiest country on Earth" reputation. When people in her small town start turning up dead, she wonders if it has anything to do with the strange changes her body is going through. It's actually more effective as a portrait of adolescent struggle than as a horror film. Even though most viewers will know what's coming, it still feels out of place once the supernatural elements emerge.
22. Morocco - Achoura (2019)
The title refers to a real Moroccan children festival that has drawn the attention of a child-snatching monster in this lush and stylized movie. A group of childhood friends who were traumatized by the creature have to come together as adults when it suddenly returns. If that sounds familiar, it’s because it’s an extremely similar premise to Stephen King’s “It," complete with numerous flashbacks to when the characters were all kids. The movie attempts to tell the whole story in 90 minutes, which is pretty tough. If you recall, the last Hollywood adaptation of "It" needed two movies and over five hours and still left some things out.
Naturally, some viewers will find this irritating but honestly, I thought it was fascinating. "It" is one of my favorite stories and to see such an American tale filtered through a different culture was incredibly interesting. There are some regional twists on how the creature behaves and one detail in the opening scene was particularly noteworthy. It takes place years earlier and one of the children who appears has been married off to a much older man despite only being about 12 years old. "It" is primarily a story about childhood trauma, but those traumas can look very different depending on where you are in the world.
23. Estonia - November (2017)
This is a deeply weird black and white folk horror movie that opens with a sentient skeletal pinwheel abducting a cow. These creatures are called kratts and they are just one of many supernatural oddities that the inhabitants of a poor village accept as just part of daily life. They resort to all sorts of trickery and black magic to survive the harsh living conditions while trying to weasel out of the inevitable consequences. Viewers aren’t really told a story, they just spend two hours in this bizarre place taking everything in. The gorgeous photography and examination of the region’s unique folklore make it intermittently compelling.
24. Costa Rica - The Sanatorium (2010)
Costa Rica has been a pacifist, stable democracy since the 1980s, giving it a reputation as an oasis of calm in the often tumultuous region of Central America. That stability translates into an irreverent take on the Duran Sanatorium, a real place which functioned over the years as a clinic for tuberculosis patients, an orphanage and of course, an asylum. Tales about the haunted place, many including a sinister nun, have brought international attention from ghost hunters. A small and mismatched documentary film crew head out to the place and might find some great evidence if they can stop bickering. It’s mostly a deadpan comedy that goes totally bananas in the last twenty minutes. It feels lighter and softer than one might expect from a movie like this, but benefits from being filmed in the actual sanatorium.
25. Iceland - Lamb (2021)
A plodding fable that got a wider release than is typical for this sort of movie. The main characters are a lonely couple who make a modest living as farmers out in an isolated and beautiful region of the country. At some point in the past, they lost a child but fate takes a strange turn when they discover that one of their sheep has given birth to some hybrid creature that is half lamb and half human. They happily adopt the lamb, who they name Ada, as their own but the truth about her origins will eventually come out. The filmmakers seemed to have a tough time depicting the creature, using mostly CGI that varies wildly in quality from scene to scene. It would be easier to ignore if there was more going on in the story. Other than a thin look at parental grief, the movie doesn’t do much besides waste time. I didn't love it but the bleak and beautiful scenery of Iceland is truly one of a kind.
26. Cambodia - The Spell (2019)
A somewhat formulaic film that begins with Thida and her husband Nak moving into his beautiful childhood home to find that it's now haunted by the angry ghost of a young woman named Lin. Thida has no clue what's going on but both Nak and especially the housekeeper are acting strangely. In terms of style, it borrows a lot from their East Asian neighbors. But, as you've probably noticed after two years of this, the story of a wronged woman exacting supernatural vengeance is an international staple. However, there are differences in terms of how deeply each country wants to get into the issues at hand.
While the story has some sympathy for Lin (and they gave her a catchy musical leitmotif), the thematic power of the film is undermined by flashbacks that reveal she was crazy all along and Nak didn't do anything wrong. It's a missed opportunity that feels strangely defensive - Cambodia has obviously come a long way since the days of the Khmer Rouge but human rights organizations have called out the country for widespread domestic violence that is generally considered socially acceptable. The kind of thing the US Supreme Court looks at and says "we need more of that."
27. Netherlands - Amsterdamned (1988)
If someone absolutely had to make this pun, at least it was the Dutch themselves. This action-filled slasher depicts the city of Amsterdam shaken up by a killer with scuba gear who is killing people seemingly at random from the city’s famous canals. Two swaggering detectives struggle to catch the maniac while under pressure from nervous city officials. This is a film that tries to do a lot and mostly succeeds, blending the typical masked killer story with elements of Jaws, hardboiled crime drama, a sense of gallows humor, and a spectacular speedboat chase towards the end. Your typical slasher does not go this hard so this was a nice surprise.
28. Finland - Lake Bodom (2016)
The most infamous unsolved murder in Finnish history happened at Lake Bodom in 1960, when three people on a camping trip were stabbed to death and another was seriously injured. With the killer unknown to this day, the case has taken on a lasting presence in Finland's culture similar to the Zodiac killings in the United States. The metal band Children of Bodom is just one example.
This film takes place in the present day as four students journey to the site in the wake of a nude photo scandal that has shaken up their school. They intend to study the crime and the viewer is prepared for a copycat killing to unfold. Instead things go in a very different direction and to say more would spoil the surprise. There seems to an effort to connect modern teen misbehavior to the brutality of the original murders, but I don't think the story quite pulls that off. It's still quite a gripping film.
29. Egypt - 122 (2019)
In Egypt, calling 122 is the equivalent of 911 in the United States. Nasr and his deaf, pregnant wife Umneya are legally married but are struggling to find enough money for a ceremony and reception. That proves to be the least of their worries after a brutal car accident - Umneya wakes up in the hospital but Nasr has been abducted by organ harvesters working in the basement of that same hospital. The bloody mayhem that follows is pretty straightforward for this kind of movie, but the tension around the martial status of the main characters is pretty interesting. Egypt is a conservative Muslim country so the writers were likely careful about how to depict that situation. The stigma of the unwed mother is a rare thing that unites most of the mainstream religions and cultures. The lengths that the writers of Lethal Weapon 4 went to avoid Murtaugh's daughter being an unwed mother are more ridiculous than anything in this film.
30. Belgium - The Devil's Nightmare (1971)
In the black and white introduction to this gothic film, a Nazi general explains that a curse has afflicted his family for centuries, targeting the first daughter born to each generation. In the present day, he lives in a castle and invites seven lost tourists to stay the night. However, the castle grounds are prowled by a mysterious succubus. There’s an interesting blend of eras - it resembles the haunted house films of Golden Age Hollywood but there’s quite a bit of swinging sixties energy here too. In an interesting touch, each of the guests represents one of the seven deadly sins and are punished in appropriate ways, almost 25 years before David Fincher’s Seven.
31.
Honduras -
La Condesa (2020)
This film begins in the late 1970s, when two brothers bring their significant others to a remote family mansion called La Condesa (the Countess). While visiting, they stumble on evidence of terrible atrocities committed there in the past and struggle with the dilemma of keeping it quiet for the sake of their family or bringing it to light for the greater good. The story alternates between this era and the present day, when the niece of the two brothers visits with her girlfriend and confronts the same issue.
It’s a straightforward metaphor for what a lot of countries go through, not just Honduras, when dealing with the less flattering aspects of their past. The advances in communication in recent years have made it even harder for governments to control what information gets to the general public. The film stops addressing it in the final act in favor of more traditional scares. It’s still well worth a watch thanks to the shadowy mansion setting and the baroque music box score.
Happy Halloween!
