inside LOVEFiLM

Horror films are a curious business – perhaps there’s something primal or elemental (or just plain mental) about our love of stories that scare us half to death, then leave us with sleepless nights and peering petrified into the shadowy corners of our own homes.

Whatever the reason, if you’re looking for an instant fright night on October 31st (or any other night), here are a few screaming streaming suggestions.

Sam Raimi’s rather excellent B-movie horror-comedies The Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2 are both available. And from even earlier, George A Romero’s Night of the Living Dead brings the zombies to town.

Ring is just one of many Asian terror-mongers; Audition and Ju-On are really creepy too, as is the original Dark Water. And on the subject of originals, the atmosphere created in Ole Bornedal’s Nightwatch - about a security guard in a mortuary – is intense.

More recently, Dead Snow is proving very popular (skiers run into Nazi zombies!); likewise The Box, starring Cameron Diaz and James Marsden.

Trick ‘R Treat has obvious Halloween credentials going for it, but if you’re looking for the all-time classics how about The Exorcist (it’s a version you’ve never seen before, apparently), or Vincent Price in The House on Haunted Hill, James Whale’s Frankenstein, or even FW Murnau’s silent Dracula horror, Nosferatu, from 1922.

Or, you know, there’s always the attack of the giant ants in Them…

Darren Bignell, Senior Communications Manager

Everybody loves throwing shapes on the dance floor (even if they’re not very good at it). I remember trying to replicate the moves after watching dance films like Flashdance, Footloose, and – of course – Dirty Dancing. I thought I was amazing, but I’m sure I looked like I had two left feet. Anyway, they’ve remade Footloose, so we took the LOVEFiLM members’ pulse on the Best Dance Moves in Film.

Top spot went to Dirty Dancing’s Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey, because – fairly obviously – nobody puts Baby in a corner.

John Travolta and Uma Thurman’s ultra-cool twisting in Pulp Fiction secured them second place. And Gene Kelly splashed into third with his iconic scene from Singin’ In The Rain.

Napoleon Dynamite’s infamous stage dance came fourth. This routine has been recreated by many on YouTube, and seriously, who can keep their feet still while listening to Jamiroquai’s Canned Heat?

Travolta’s slick, hand-jiving, solo routine in Saturday Night Fever and Kevin Bacon’s highly-charged moves from Footloose came next – I just hope the remake does justice to the original; not too sure about the introduction of line-dancing!

Mike Myers, with his cat-like cavorting in that unforgettable scene in The Spy Who Shagged Me, was in joint seventh place with Jennifer Beals, who used a bucket of water so memorably in Flashdance.

Channing Tatum and Jenna Dewan in Step Up took eighth, with their fancy footwork and sexual tension. And the lads from The Full Monty were next, with a routine that you simply could not take your eyes off – need I say more?!

Finally, Michael Cera and Jonah Hill’s Superbad routine – all awkward, retro steps, and delivered in a manner that only the Superbad boys can – came tenth.

Hopefully, just the mention of some dance classics has got your fingers clicking (add to rental list), your toes tapping, and your feet itching to recreate the best dance movie moves all over your living room floor. Just mind the lamps…

Astrid Beretta, UK Brand Manager

Tempus fugit, said the Roman poet, and October seems to be pretty well fugiting too (although the Romans would probably have been talking about August, of course, but that’s not especially relevant). What IS important is that we’ve already reached the ides of October, so with half the month left, here are a few must-see pointers:

First and foremost, you can stream RED at no extra cost, like about a gazillion members have done already since we launched it last week. Maybe loads of people missed it at the cinema, maybe it’s just massive fun – but get a load of Bruce Willis and his OAP A-Team (Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman and John Malkovich) while you can.

A slightly younger crew of special ops agents also get grumpy and vengeful in The Losers. And R-Patz, K-Stew and T-Laut continue their L-Tri in the third instalment of the Twilight saga, E-Clipse. You can stream both of these as part of your subscription too. I know, like OMG, right?!

Far more serious vamp action comes in the pared-down, road-movie form of Stake Land – which is premium pay-per-view (so £3.50 to stream), but pretty damn good. And also combining damn and good, Devil’s Advocate is on streaming – yeah, it’s 14 years old already, but who doesn’t enjoy Al Pacino over-acting his head off and Keanu Reeves getting into seriously hot water?

Texas Killing Fields looks dark and thrilling at the cinema – that’s Sam Worthington (Avatar, The Debt) and Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Watchmen) hunting a serial killer in the Texan swamplands. Not 100% sure about The Three Musketeers, but it might be rompy fun (and director Paul WS Anderson’s Event Horizon is one of my all-time favourites). And Contagion is the 21st century version of Outbreak, which we’ve got on streaming, if you fancy a global viral epidemic nostalgia trip.

Plenty more to enjoy, of course, in every department. I’ve just added Life In A Day to my DVD rental list – director Kevin Macdonald’s collage movie of YouTube films from across the world, all sent on one day: 24 July, 2010 – and I’ve added The Beaver too. Stop sniggering.

But if I’m looking forward to one thing more than any other this month, it’s George Clooney returning to triple-hatted duties as star/writer/director of a US political thriller (based on the play Farragut North, which itself is based on a real-life Presidential primary campaign). It’s released on 28 Oct, and it’s called The Ides of March.

See…? All that nonsense in the first paragraph makes some vague degree of sense now, right…?

Darren Bignell, Senior Communications Manager