When searching for a horror flick to watch for the night or an entire marathon of them, the choices can be overwhelming. With so many different subgenres including the slasher, torture porn, J-horror, supernatural horror and the vast others it can sometimes be hard to choose. Well if you need some help deciding then by all means, allow me to be your guide. With that being said…let’s take a look at some of my favorite revenge horror flicks because who doesn’t love seeing people get what’s coming to them!
First pick of the bunch is a given and that is Brian DePalma’s Carrie (1976). The story of a girl with telekinetic powers and an overbearing religious mother who has a little more than your typical embarrassing high school experience. After a humiliating experience at her high school prom Carrie unleashes her revenge.
Next up is the Wes Craven classic Last House on the Left (1972) in which two teenage girls looking to score drugs find themselves kidnapped and tormented by their captors. After barely escaping with her life, Mari makes her way home and soon we get to see her parents enact revenge on the convicts. This movie deeply disturbed me the first time I watched it and I actually didn’t finish it the first time.
For my third pick, I’m gonna go with I Spit on Your Grave (1978) in which aspiring writer Jennifer is repeatedly gang raped and left for dead by a group of four men near her cabin in the woods. The experience leaves Jennifer in a fragile and erratic state leading to her hunting the four men down and taking them out one at a time.
Pick number four is gonna have to be Terror Train (1980) starring Jamie Lee Curtis (post-Halloween) and David Copperfield. I watched this for the first time last year and it quickly became one of my favorite revenge horror films. A group of college kids are taken out aboard a train for a prank gone wrong three years before.
For my fifth and final pick I’m gonna go with Ms. 45 (1981) in which a mute seamstress goes off the deep end after being raped twice in the same day and starts taking out men with a .45 pistol who intend to do her wrong. I’ve found not as many people have seen this release and it’s for sure worth checking out.
These five films should be enough to get any revenge horror marathon started off right. Just in case you need a few more suggestion also check out May (2002), The Craft (1996), Valentine (2001)*, Irreversible (2002), and Lipstick (1976). Until next time…..
*Disclaimer: I never said that Valentine was a good movie in any way, shape or form. But feel free to play our drinking game while watching it.