Café de Nuit

Hunter... Hunter was either great and wonderfully horrifying.. or a cheap Blade knockoff, depending on who ran it.

I'l lthrow in "Stephen King's The Night Flyer"; if only for the chilling line from the vampire's confrontation with the "protagonist"...

"All your life, you've searched for me. In the cemetereis.. in the morgues.. in the faces of the dead, and the dying.. tell me now.. am I everything you had hoped I would be?"

Near Dark

The Forsaken.. not great, but its a solid vampire road picture, and is notably possessed of what may be the cooelst "Ashing" effect I've yet seen in a film (worlds better than Blade II's awful one, and better than Blade III's)

Vampire Hunter D

Not sure if anyone mentioned D. But I really enjoyed it.

I'd say M. Night Shyamalan's The Village is full of great ideas. I can just imagine an isolated, xenophobic community in Mordent, surrounded by woods or bogs. The soundtrack is awesome as well.

I've watched recently Curse of the Werewolf, of 1961. I find the first half-hour very interesting, especially the christening of the baby. The rest of the film isn't that much compelling for me, though. However, you have an example of a lycanthrope that maintains his good alignment all the way through.

Ail

I recommend "Watcher in the Woods" for sheer creepy atmosphere. Just pretend the slightly lame answer to the mystery is actually supernatural and NOT something out of a Star Trek episode, and you have a lovely, scary film.

Some more inspirational Ravenloft viewing...

Beyond Evil
Black Friday
Dead Men Walk
The Evil of Frankenstein
The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake (plays like an RPG scenario, too!)
Horror Hotel
Jamaica Inn (not a horror flick, but a good look at what the north-western coastal areas and ports are like)
The Terror (the one with Jack Nicholson, Boris Karloff, and Dick Miller. Don't confuse it with the British "Terror"... although the latter DOES have some elements that might lend themselves to inspiritation.)
Twice-Told Tales

(I've reviewed those and a few hundred other films here on my Rotten Tomatoes page. Click on "Ratings" to see the list.)

I think I would contest The Terror, actually. I have a copy of it on DVD (came with three other classics) and it was terrible. Despite mention of the Dark Powers, the movie was completely predictable (except for the one, unimportant twist with Karlof).

ScS of the Fraternity wrote:I think I would contest The Terror, actually. I have a copy of it on DVD (came with three other classics) and it was terrible. Despite mention of the Dark Powers, the movie was completely predictable (except for the one, unimportant twist with Karlof).

They're not all good movies, but they're mineable for ideas. (And that twist you're referring to was just about the dumbest thing I've ever seen in a movie, if you ask me. )

The very end kind of got me, though. I didn't see THAT coming.

Just for clarification... The Name of the Rose...

Is that the creepy, old-time movie set in the Inquisition, mainly centered around torture of people to get them to confess sins they never committed? Like the nun who said she'd been knocked up by the priest, but no one believed her, and the Inquisition continued to torture her to get her to "repent her sin of lying" even though she'd committed no such thing? And then had the horribly disturbing (though not very well done) scene of pulling out the woman's tongue with pliers?

And it had the pathetic looking Inquisitor leader who throttled two people to death for insinuating that he's impotent?

If it is, then I need to re-watch it. I barely remember the thing, except that it had a good structure but the acting made it cheesy; it ended up unintentionally being more funny than horrific. (My friends at college would growl "Impotent?!?" give a vein-popping scowl, and chase each other around) I do remember something about it being so controversial that it's banned in Italy due to its depiction of the Church.

Nope, I'm thinking of something else entirely. Sorry. Ignore the above, unless you remember what that one is called and wish to share.

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Another I'd like to add: MirrorMask. It's a PG film, so fine to watch with kids around, but does a great job of dealing with a differing reality (as Nightmare Lands or any dealings with the Arak). It's also a great story, of saving the land from evil and whatnot, but if you look closely, it's all an *internal* story about how people deal with the grief and stress of a loved one being horrendously ill.

This one shouldn't be particularly high on your list of Ravenloft inspiration, but it gives a good structure of non-normative reality for Nightmare Lands, Shadow Rift, etc. And it's just plain a fun movie, written by Neil Gaiman (Sandman, Neverwhere, etc) and produced by Jim Henson Productions.

Titus. If you want to see what the Romanesque Vechor looks like, this film will let you know. One thing I love about it is that despite all the evil, torture, insanity, and Shakespeare-does-splatterpunk, the film... is not dark. It is bright, colorful. There is horror in the clarity.

Luther. A history of Martin Luther, this film is just generally well done and gives you an idea of medieval life.

Dark City. Not the best execution, and it's modern, but it does give a good sense of a world at the mercy of outside powers.

The Sixth Sense. Characterization is everything here.

Well I know it's not a film, but the series Supernatural has some neat plots and shows how hunters deal with various beasties.

And what about those:

-Dagon:sect of the sea (nice film inspired by Lovecraft's novel "nightmare on Insmouth")
-The skeleton key (nice story)
-Darkness
-El espinazo del diablo (G del toro)
-Pan's labyrinth (G del toro)
-The bunker
-Interview with the vampire