True love is forever… and for some it even transcends death! While that might sound romantic, horror fans know better. For this profoundly disturbing Valentine’s Day read, we have compiled a list of movies featuring love of the “not so living” kind!
***Warning: Many of the films on this list are considered extreme cinema and contain content that some may find offensive or disturbing.***
Cemetery Man/ Dellamorte, Dellamore (1994)
A cemetery man must kill the dead a second time when they become zombies.
There is a really beautiful flow to Dellamorte Dellamore, aka Cemetery Man, with the constant death and rebirth of the beautiful Anna Falchi as ‘she’. Her and Francesco (Rupert Evvertt) experience profound love time and time again, only for it to lead to death once again. While the actual status of ‘her’ is somewhat veiled in mystery the constant run-ins between the two give this stylish horror film an edge of gothic romance. (Adam)
The Shining (1980)
A family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where a sinister presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from both past and future.
Who will ever forget the bathtub scene from The Shining? Jack stumbles across an attractive young woman in a tub of one of the hotel rooms, and begins making out with her only to discover that the young vibrant woman in his arms has transformed into an older woman with a decaying body. Kubric does an amazing job of taking a sexy scene and turning it into something that will haunt nightmares forever.
The Corpse Bride (2005)
When a shy groom practices his wedding vows in the inadvertent presence of a deceased young woman, she rises from the grave assuming he has married her.
Okay, not quite a horror but I would say Tim Burton is horror-adjacent. The funny thing about this movie is that it’s a family film with a dude who runs around with a dead woman. I mean, you can dress this movie up in whatever feel-good, cutie-patootie, lovey-doveyness you want but that lady is dead dead with a blue palor and a ghostly visage. (Aubry)
Ghostbusters (1984)
Three parapsychologists forced out of their university funding set up shop as a unique ghost removal service in New York City, attracting frightened yet skeptical customers.
Let us never forget that Dan Aykroyd gets a BJ from a ghost in this film. What’s more, is that this seemingly throw away dream sequence was originally intended to be a whole thing, where Ray Stantz had a dead lover, but it was cut in favor of the shorter sequence for time. Aykroyd himself was a big supporter of the scene due to its alleged “realness”:
“Sexual encounters with spirits are very, very common,” said Aykroyd. “And there are some people that I know that have a house that have a presence and they don’t try to purge it. They say, You know what, I’m going to stay with it and I’ll live with it.”
Sounds like Aykroyd has a kink! (Aubry)
Beyond the Darkness (1979)
A disturbed young taxidermist exhumes his recently deceased girlfriend, brings her body to his family villa and proceeds to embalm her corpse, with help from his strange housekeeper. But his bouts of insanity are just beginning.
In some stories, refusing to let go of a loved one after death, whether that means resurrection or preserving their body, may be romantic or at least evoke some kind of sympathy from the audience. However, Frank is such a disturbed man that it’s hard to feel anything remotely like sympathy for him. He has some unhealthy proclivities, to say the least, one of which is bringing home women to bed right near the body of poor Anna. This Italian entry into extreme cinema is packed with ridiculous behavior, gross out content, and unforgettable scenes. (Aubry)
Bride of Re-Animator (1990)
Doctors Herbert West and Dan Cain discover the secret to creating human life and proceed to create a perfect woman from dead tissue.
It’s hard to say no to Herbert West, especially when he says he plans to bring back your lost love. Dan goes along with Herbert’s crazy scheme, becoming more and more infatuated with the monstrosity constructed using pilfered body parts to piece together their “bride.” Nothing says sexy like sutures and mix-matched limbs. Playing off the classic The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), this disturbing goofball film is a fun followup to the original. (Aubry)
Fido (2006)
Space radiation turns the dead into Zombies. Zomcon fights zombies and finds ways to pacify and use them. On pre-teen Timmy’s (Kesun Loder’s) 1950s suburban street, they all have a zombie doing menial chores. Timmy’s zombie becomes his pet and friend, and is named Fido (Sir Billy Connolly).
It’s not only young Timmy that falls for Fido’s charm, but also his mother Helen (played by Carrie-Ann Moss). Set among the restrictive family dynamics of 1950 American atomic culture, Helen finds herself in an abusive relationship and none other than zombie turned dog substitute Fido coming to her rescue. Though his kind is known as brain-munchers, Fido proves to be more tender and romantic than the warm men that surround Helen… so you go girl! (Aubry)
Warm Bodies (2013)
After a highly unusual zombie saves a still-living girl from an attack, the two form a relationship that sets in motion events that might transform the entire lifeless world.
If you are in the mood for something cutesy and PG-13, Warm Bodies is it! However, it still features a love affair between a living breathing woman and a very dead boy. Sure, the zombie named R–who narrates the story through inner dialogue–is a charming hipster, but he is still very much a brain-munching very dead boy. He is sentient, aware of the world around him, and has interests and friends (I told you it’s cutesy), however the more you look at the story the more disturbing it is. I mean… R learns of his love interest Julie by eating her boyfriend’s brains. Hot! (Aubry)
Deadgirl (2008)
Two high school boys discover an imprisoned woman in an abandoned mental asylum who cannot die.
Though it makes my mouth fill with sick, I think this would lean more on the ‘sexy’ than romance. A group of high school students find the undead and decide the best thing they can do is chain it up and use it as a ‘toy’. The film is shocking, but it also has a lot to say about our objectification of others and the horrible ways in which youth can distort sexuality. It may be a stretch to have included in on this list, but here we are and I am okay with it.
If you have not given this one a shot, check it out, it is a surprisingly effective horror/drama with little recognition to its name. (Adam)
Necromantik (1987)
A street sweeper who cleans up after grisly accidents brings home a full corpse for him and his wife to enjoy sexually, but is dismayed to see that his wife prefers the corpse over him.
One of the more extreme entries to the list, Necromantik is a notorious dark comedy splatter horror that is most known for one of the most taboo sex scenes in horror. However, what pushes the film gratuity to the next level is the use of a near polar opposite music that chaperones this gruesome display. Featuring a beautiful piano piece that would feel at home in a period romance, is well utilised to further exacerbate the scenes disturbing imagery effectively. (Jim)
Stacy: Attack of the Schoolgirl Zombies (2001)
Seventeen year old girls are affected by an illness that turn them into ‘Stacies’: they feel a strange and momentary happiness until they become zombies.
When all seems lost and the world is coming to an end due to an unstoppable zombie apocalypse, it turns out love conquers all in its way. As the ‘Stacys’ cease their violent tendencies and men become able to ‘love’ these undead females, the human population again begins to increase as a new stage in our evolution is born. (Jim)
Hellrasier (1987)
A woman discovers the newly resurrected, partially formed, body of her brother-in-law. She starts killing for him to revitalize his body so he can escape the demonic beings that are pursuing him after he escaped their sadistic underworld.
Frank is such a bad boy, that even his edgy appeal does not get lost when he was walking around as just a skin sack. As iconic as the film is, the story between Frank and Julia always felt like the definitive narrative of the work, injecting morbid erotica which Barker likes to delve into. In addition, Julias luring of men to their demise makes this relationship even more enjoyably toxic. (Adam)
Blood Diner (1987)
Two brothers are entrusted by their uncle to uphold the ritualistic cannibalism of the ancient cult of Sheetar. In order to do so, they have to prepare a feast of sacrifice for the resurrection of their goddess.
Love takes on new meaning in Blood Diner, specifically “devotion to an ancient goddess that is going to f*ck up everyone’s biz once we resurrect her using all these body parts we collected from killing immoral women”… you know, that kind? Okay, so I just love any chance I can get to mention Jackie Kong’s masterpiece, and I may be stretching the bounds of what this article was intended for. However! What’s not to love about Sheetar? She’s all about blood feasts and sports a nifty giant jaw-vagina on her tum tum! (Aubry)
R*pe Zombie: Lust of the Dead (2012)
A strange phenomena that turns men into rapists and after awhile they turn into zombie rapists. And women all over the world are in dire peril.
As Tokyo suffers a nuclear attack, the male population mutate into undead sex fiends who will stop at nothing to fulfil their sick desires on the female survivors of this attack. Though the girls try their best, nothing can stop the hoard of lustful zombies having their way with those unlucky enough to not escape with their dignity… or their lives. (Jim)
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