This is Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast More What You Hear Weekday Afternoon's on the Drive.
After a lifelong love affair with horror films, Jesse Nelson co founded the Philadelphia based repertory film group Exhumed Films, appropriately named, which then sprawled into his male Order Blu Ray Company Diabolic DVD. And he's here now to go over a list of his underrated and unknown horror movies. I do you for Halloween? Happy Halloween, Jesse Nelson of Diabolic DVD.
Yeah, right back to you. My favorite time of year.
Mine. Hearkens back to a nineteen forty seven film that I first saw when I was maybe five. I don't know why I was watching this film alone with no parents around on a Sunday afternoon, but it was the old black and white Peter Lourie in the Beast with Five Fingers. Do you know of that film? The great one was the I ever saw.
Yeah. I think a lot of us of a certain age remember very fondly watching horror movies, either in the middle of the afternoon or late at night, and have very fond memories of being creeped out. I think that's lost these days. But but something I remember very fondly.
This was at the birth of cable television, so there wasn't a lot on. You know, you'd have these scrolling these scrolling advertisements and scrolling weather reports, and about every third channel there might be something. And then there was this old black and white and I thought, well, okay, this is as good as it is going to get, and I sat down and watched it. But we've got a whole list here from from your library of some of the best movies to curl up with this Halloween.
So let's start with the list. And I don't guess this is in any particular order.
No, I made the list up. I actually made it up over a couple of weeks while I was thinking about movies and packing people's orders, and I was like, oh, this is perfect for my list.
Well, and let's well, I told you when it started for me, When did it start for you? Your love of movie?
You know, My love of movies goes back forever. My mom tells me that she took me to see American Graffiti about twenty times in the movie theater when I was a toddler, that I kept insisting to go see American Graffiti, which actually is a good segue into the first movie on the list, which is Messiah of Evil that is made by the people that went on to write American Graffiti and Indiana Jones at the Table of
Doom and The Unfortunate Howard the Duck movie. But they started out with this Messiah of Evil that is a story of a woman who goes looking for her father in this creepy coastal town and literal, instead of maybe a ghost town, you would call it a zombie town where everyone is just kind of floating around and being odd and you never really know what's going on. It's so disorienting and creepy. Just a terrific movie.
Kind of like when the music stops an American Graffiti and they're in the woods. I have a little doubt I was a great I still am a great fan of American Graffiti. I think I saw it when I was eight and fell in love with the relationship between Wolfman Jack and all of the characters in the movie. That's when I mean, I already knew at that age that I wanted to do what I'm doing here right now,
but that sealed the deal. And that's one of the reasons I go back and watch that movie again and again and again because I wanted to be that I wanted to be the soundtrack of everybody else's life.
It is. It is one of the great American movies of the seventies.
But we're talking to our good friend Jesse Nelson, who is the founder of Exhoomed Films and Diabolic DVD, about some of the best horror movies. Black Coats Daughter from twenty to fifteen.
It's great. They there's been so much press this year about Long Legs. It's a great movie. It's creepy. But the director Osgood Perkins, who is a former actor and also son of Anthony Perkins from Psycho. Although it's a discredit to you know, I don't always like to tell people that because he is a career on his own here making really great horror movies. Black Coach's Daughter was his first and it is the story of some girls that are staying at their boarding school over the Christmas
holidays and sinister things are going on. It's it's really kind of underseen. And when Long Legs came out at the business here, I overstocked this movie because everybody wanted to go back and take a look at it, and I think it stands up if you like long legs. I think Black Coop's daughter kind of exists in that same universe.
One you're gonna have a hard time finding Midnight Hour.
Well, you can't find it on physical media, it's just not available, but you can find it on YouTube, and I'm pretty sure there's some original broadcast recordings of it, so you can go and watch it with all those original commercials from when it was originally on. Because it was a TV movie, you know, that's an extra bonus. But it's such a fun movie and takes place on Halloween, which is a triple bonus this time of year.
I noticed a lot of these films you've listed, and this is a Diabolic DVD's a list of the best Halloween movies. Jesse Nelson is the founder. A lot of these are not necessarily slasher films.
No. I love a good slasher movie. I've there's no doubt that I've seen eighty percent of the slasher movies that exist from the seventies and eighties. But I like things that are a little creepier, with a little more sense of dread. I also like things that you know, maybe skew to a little off the wall too, like maybe have a little bit of humor in them.
I also notice you don't have a lot of the creepy black and white nineteen sixties film except Burn, Witch Burn, Burn.
Witch Burn. It's also known as Knight of the Eagle, but it's recently been reissued on a beautiful blu ray. It is such a good movie. It is. It is so creepy, and it's written by Charles Beaumont and Richard mathe and Mathison who wrote a lot of the original Twilight Zone episodes, and in particular Richard Matheson also wrote the famous zombie book I Am Legend.
And these are unrated unknown horror movies ideal for Halloween from Jesse Nelson and Diabolic DVD. Let's talk about Suspiriy. Is it Suspiria or Suspiria.
It's Suspiria. Terrific movie. When when they announced that this was being remade, the originals a considered maybe one of the greatest Italian horror movies, especially one of the greatest of the seventies. Terrific soundtrack, this beautiful color palette, this creepy story, of a woman who goes to a dance academy that turns out to be a coven of witches. When they announced that this was going to be remade, everyone kind of threw their arms in the air and said, no,
you can't remake this movie. It's the best. But they really went in there and kind of turned the whole thing on its head and picked out different themes that weren't explored in the original and took some different ideas and made it this really incredible and interesting movie. That is it better than the original, No, but it definitely stands alongside of it because it offers a lot of new things to the viewer, especially viewers that are fans of the.
Original, and you'll see some familiar faces to Coda Johnson, Tilda Swinson, Chloe Grace more Ritz doing something that you're not used to seeing them do act in a horror movie. Underrated unknown horror movies ideal for Halloween from Jesse Nelson at Diabolica Dvd. There's one on this list for you. Where can people find out more?
At diabolic dvd dot com. We have all these movies for sale and literally ten thousand others. I run the daily operations of the business, so I'm always available on social media, by email, I engage with customers every day.
And we thank you for joining us. Happy Halloween, Thank you right back at you.
Thanks for listening to Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast, and remember to listen to The Drive Live weekday afternoons from five to seven and Iheartsmedia Presentation