Short, good, done. No three-hour commitment required.
While vacationing on a remote German island with his younger pregnant wife, an artist has an emotional breakdown while confronting his repressed desires.
Gets in, does what it came to do, and gets out. That's a real quality.
Un Chien Andalou is an European avant-garde surrealist film, a collaboration between director Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali.
Done in under 90. No sprawl, no padding. Just the film.
A vengeful witch, Asa Vajda, and her fiendish servant, Igor Jauvitch, return from the grave and begin a bloody campaign to possess the body of the witch's beautiful look-alike descendant: Katia. Only a handsome doctor with the help of family members stand in her way.
Done in under 90. No sprawl, no padding. Just the film.
Two hillbillies are suspected of being killers by a group of paranoid college kids camping near the duo's West Virginian cabin. As the body count climbs, so does the fear and confusion as the college kids try to seek revenge against the pair.
Gets in, does what it came to do, and gets out. That's a real quality.
American tourists David and Jack are savagely attacked by an unidentified animal while hiking on the Yorkshire Moors. After retiring to the home of a beautiful nurse to recuperate, David soon begins experiencing disturbing changes to his body and mind.
Done in under 90. No sprawl, no padding. Just the film.
Under 90 minutes is a constraint that forces discipline. These films did their work in the time they had.
Short horror is often better horror. The constraint forces discipline.
When a Sumatran rat-monkey bites Lionel Cosgrove's mother, she's transformed into a zombie and begins killing (and transforming) the entire town while Lionel races to keep things under control.
Gets in, does what it came to do, and gets out. That's a real quality.
A mother of two inherits a home from her aunt. On the first night in the new home she is confronted with murderous intruders and fights for her daughters’ lives. Sixteen years later the daughters reunite at the house, and that is when things get strange...
Gets in, does what it came to do, and gets out. That's a real quality.
A family is forced to live in silence while hiding from creatures that hunt by sound.
Done in under 90. No sprawl, no padding. Just the film.
A vampire relates his epic life story of love, betrayal, loneliness, and dark hunger to an over-curious reporter.
Gets in, does what it came to do, and gets out. That's a real quality.
Beautiful young manicurist Carole suffers from androphobia (the pathological fear of interaction with men). When her sister and roommate, Helen, leaves their London flat to go on an Italian holiday with her married boyfriend, Carole withdraws into her apartment. She begins to experience frightful hallucinations, her fear gradually mutating into madness.
Done in under 90. No sprawl, no padding. Just the film.
These films were chosen for the state you're in, not the state you wish you were in.