Metal and horror go together hand in severed hand. With that mind, we asked Nate Garrett — who plays in two of Revolver's favorite up-and-coming bands, "stadium death metal" rising stars Gatecreeper and Eighties-style heavy-metal true believers Spirit Adrift — to expound upon his favorite fright flicks. Actually, to be perfectly honesty, he asked us if he could, and we happily agreed. Read on to see what he picked and why, and if you like great heavy music, check out Gatecreeper next-level new album, Deserted, immediately.
1. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
More often than not, real-life suffering results in powerful art. There are few better examples of this phenomenon than The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. This is high art disguised as grindhouse schlock. It's as raw and unsettling as any film ever made, and it reveals more and more layers of its inherent genius the more you watch it. The amount of hard work and pain you put into your art determines the quality of that art. Texas Chain Saw is proof of that.
2. Don't Look Now
This masterpiece is a bit overlooked by the horror community, but is praised by critics and the more high-brow film-school types. I heard about it from an old interview with Phil Anselmo and I'm glad I did. It's disorienting, beautiful, tragic, psychologically and emotionally disruptive, horrific and mysterious. I hadn't felt any sort of profound emotions about a film since my childhood ... until I saw this. I saw it around the time I was working on the first Spirit Adrift album, Chained to Oblivion, and it influenced that material significantly.
3. Phantasm
I've watched this one way too many times and still have no idea what the hell is actually going on. Vibes are so crucial in music, movies and any kind of art, and the vibes are off the charts in Phantasm.
4. Halloween
I have to include this because it's the film that made me fall in love with horror. Like several other films on this list, this was a perfect storm of brilliant raw ideas, synchronistic happy accidents and actual genius. It's like the first Black Sabbath album. It cost no money, took no time to finish and no one involved had any idea that it would change the trajectory of the entire art form in which they were working.
5. Suspiria
No. 5 is always the trickiest slot for me, but I usually find myself going with Suspiria — honorable mention to The Thing and American Werewolf in London. Suspiria was the final film to ever be processed in three-strip Technicolor, which gives it a unique look, to say the least. The whole experience is insane. The lighting, sets, music, by Goblin, and incoherent plot coagulate to create an immersive, hypnagogic fantasy world. A truly psychedelic experience.
