5 international horror films that speak the universal language of fear

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These movies don't need to speak your language to freak you out. Photo:  Lux Film
These movies don't need to speak your language to freak you out. Photo: Lux Film

The world is a big, scary place, and you can learn a lot about a culture from what its people use to scare the crap out of each other for entertainment.

Cult of Mac’s weeklong festival of horror movie recommendations wraps up today with a selection of horrifying international films. (We hope you’ve found a new favorite among our classic, monster, anthology and trope-twisting suggestions.)

Now it’s time to see what gives people in other countries the heebie-jeebies. Halloween is just beginning, after all.

We are not talking about the Billy Idol song here. Photo: Lux Film
We are not talking about the Billy Idol song here. Photo: Lux Film

Les Yeux Sans Visage (Eyes Without a Face) (1960)

Director: Georges Franju
Runtime: 88 minutes
Availability: Netflix (disc), Hulu Plus, Amazon Instant Video, iTunes

I’m going to get this first one out of the way quickly because it’s easily the most disturbing film in this roundup: French film Eyes Without a Face is about a surgeon who blames himself for the car accident that disfigured his daughter. She spends almost the whole movie walking around in a blank, white mask that ends up making her scarier than any scar tissue could while he goes around and kidnaps young women.

But why does he kidnap these ladies? And does the fact that he is a skilled surgeon enter in? I’m glad you asked, reader, because it totally does: The surgeon’s plan to absolve himself is to give his daughter a new face from one of his victims.

Eyes predicts all of those medical-horror films we have today like The Human Centipede and Tusk, but it’s even scarier because it’s in black-and-white and plays out in complete earnest with zero campiness either attempted or achieved.

The highlight — if you could call it that — is a surgery scene that plays out over a single, static, uninterrupted shot. You’re just sitting there watching this guy cut a girl’s face off, and the effects still look horrifyingly good more than 50 years later.

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The ghosts can't get past red tape. I don't know if that's a metaphor for anything or not. Photo: Toho Company
The ghosts can’t get past red tape. I don’t know if that’s a metaphor for anything or not. Photo: Toho Company

Kairo (Pulse) (2001)

Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Runtime: 118 minutes
Availability: Netflix (disc), Amazon Instant Video, iTunes

Forget that crappy American remake and its somehow-even-worse sequels: Kairo is an effective and deeply troubling film.

It’s about the worlds of the living and the dead colliding via a webcam (a spoooooky webcam). And once people see the ghosts, they become hopeless and lose their will to live until they disappear into a shadow on the wall. It sounds weird, sure, but this movie is not kidding around, and it will sadden you while it scares your pants off. What I’m saying is that this should not be the last film you watch on Halloween.

Why the Internet? Probably because Japan is arguably the technology capital of the world, so you would expect their horror to derive from the gadgets and devices that pervade their culture. So here we have the Internet, Ringu has a VHS tape, and Godzilla comes from advancements in military tech.

It’s time to just unplug, man.

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Some of the spiders are laughably fake, but that doesn't mean what's about to happen isn't completely awful. Photo: Fulvia Film
Some of the spiders are laughably fake, but that doesn’t mean what’s about to happen isn’t completely awful. Photo: Fulvia Film

…E tu vivrai nel terrore! L’aldilà (The Beyond) (1981)

Director: Lucio Fulci
Runtime: 87 minutes
Availability: Netflix (disc), Hulu Plus

Italian director Lucio Fulci’s masterpiece The Beyond is about the discovery of a doorway to hell in the basement of a New Orleans hotel. You heard that right: New Orleans. Where basements are basically impossible to have. But see, that’s why it’s terrifying.

That point aside, this is a violent, atmospheric, gory, surreal and bloody trip into a world of zombies and spiders that will just eat your damn face right off. I really can’t underscore the graphic content in this film enough; it is not at all for the squeamish. Expect exploding heads, impaled eyes and a whole lot of bad things happening to necks and faces.

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The bomb is actually the least terrifying way for these kids to be killed. Photo: Canal+ España
The bomb is actually the least terrifying way for these kids to be killed. Photo: Canal+ España

El Espinazo del Diablo (The Devil’s Backbone) (2001)

Director: Guillermo del Toro
Runtime: 106
Availability: Netflix (disc), Amazon Instant Video, iTunes

Guillermo del Toro’s gothic tale The Devil’s Backbone takes place at an orphanage during the Spanish Civil War (1936 to 1939). And not only does this place have an unexploded bomb plunked in the middle of it, but it’s also full up with ghosts.

The newest arrival, Carlos, investigates the dark history of the building. Meanwhile, the adults running the orphanage try to keep the flesh-and-blood horrors of war from getting in. This is a beautifully shot, poetic film that is as haunting as its location is haunted, and it’s probably del Toro’s finest work.

https://youtu.be/90o1YhN0vHY

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It's the only vampire love story I've ever liked. Because it knows it's creepy. Photo: Sandrew Metronome
It’s the only vampire love story I’ve ever liked. Because it knows it’s creepy. Photo: Sandrew Metronome

Låt den Rätte Komma In (Let the Right One In) (2008)

Director: Tomas Alfredson
Runtime: 115 minutes
Availability: Netflix (disc and streaming), Amazon Instant Video, iTunes

Speaking of weirdo kids, here comes Let the Right One In, a spooky tale about a lonely young boy whose new best friend is a vampire. Kind of like that zany Robert Sean Leonard vehicle from the ’80s but with more decapitations.

This one’s kind of sneaky because it looks like a story about two lonely souls finding each other. But after you watch it, you might kinda realize that something else was probably going on there, and the whole story just gets more unsettling.

Until that happens, however, it’s pretty sweet. Except for that whole “this adorable little girl kills a lot of people” aspect. That’s not so cute.

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