Movie monsters have always been about more than just scaring the audience. The granddaddy of the genre, Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, was rooted in 19th-century nervousness about the rapid advances of technology and science. Godzilla—that giant fire-breathing, Tokyo-stomping behemoth—was a none-too-subtle manifestation of Japan’s quite natural post-Hiroshima nuclear-bomb paranoia.
Just this May, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—the massive federal health agency that tracks disease outbreaks and warns of emergency preparedness—made uncharacteristically comical headlines when, in the midst of a fundamentalist-Christian apocalypse craze (May 24 was supposed to be D-Day), it released tongue-in-cheek guidelines on how to survive a zombie apocalypse. While sourpusses complained about wasted taxpayer dollars, to an ex-addict and horror aficionado like me, it was further proof that in the cyclical world of movie monsters the zombie still rules supreme. That the living dead craze has coincided almost exactly with the nation’s horrific crystal-meth epidemic may seem at first to be unrelated… But think again. The zombies that inhabit moves like 28 Days Later, Zombieland or the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead are envisioned as fast-moving, violent, contagious mobs invading big cities and rural towns alike and turning them into bloody no-go zones. Sound familiar? Just take a look at a screen capture from George A. Romero’s Diary of the Dead (2007), and those “before-and-after” meth shots for further proof. Eerily similar, no?
This connection got me thinking about how horror movies have often addressed society’s ills in the form of scary metaphors, and this is no more evident than with drug scares. And so, dear readers, I present to you 10 of the greatest—and druggiest—horror movies of all time.
1. The Horror of Dracula (1958)
Rivaled only by Bela Lugosi for the crown, Christopher Lee is surely the most famous big-screen Dracula of all time. While Bela’s thick Hungarian accent (“I vant to suck your blood!”) and theatrical gestures have lent themselves to parody over the years, Lee’s interpretation of the evil count still has the power to chill the blood. Imposingly tall, classically handsome, and brooding with violence, his Dracula was not to be messed with.
This, the first of Hammer’s Dracula series, is also the best. For a start it features the dream team of Lee as the count, Peter Cushing as Van Helsing and the masterful Terence Fisher behind the lens. And the link between an addiction to blood and an addiction to narcotics is plainly evident here. After all, this film came at the tail end of the ‘50s, an era that is generally viewed as boringly straight and blandly conformist—except for the massive post-World War II heroin epidemic and the great beat movement in the arts. Not only is Dracula dependent on sourcing a fresh supply of blood, his victims too seem powerless to resist the count once he has nibbled on their necks. Indeed, Peter Cushing’s Van Helsing says as much when he compares vampirism to drug addiction in a pivotal scene. This metaphor would be played out again and again on monster screens, but The Horror of Dracula provided a fresh—and totally druggy—take on the vampire mythology.
2. 28 Days Later (2002)
While zombies have come and gone in popularity, the latest boom in zombie-mania is in no small part due to the runaway success of Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later. While Boyle’s film wasn’t the first to bring to film the folk figure of a super-speedy, super-strong animated corpse—that honor goes to Umberto Lenzi’s 1980 opus Nightmare City, a.k.a. City of the Walking Dead—Boyle’s movie took the zombie mainstream, earning $82.7 million dollars worldwide.
The film follows bicycle courier Jim (played by Cillian Murphy), who wakes up in a London hospital to find the city deserted. Turns out that while he was in a coma, a man-made virus known as “Rage” has unleashed a contagion of murder, mayhem and madness on the planet. Given the unmistakable similarities between the symptoms of Rage and those of the meth epidemic, not to mention the film’s timing, it’s hard not to impute an intentional drug message: Boyle’s zombies are as fast and furious as any hardcore tweaker. Indeed, the images on the notoriously shocking ads warning of the dangers of meth produced by the Montana Meth Project could have been lifted directly from the movie.
3. Street Trash (1987)
While the dangers of demon alcohol have long been a subject of both serious movies like Lionel Rogosin’s On the Bowery (1957) and the not-so serious, the horror genre had long been quiet on the subject—legal and popular, booze was presumably too pedestrian to possess an underground or otherworldly sparkle. Until, that is, J. Michael Muro’s unforgettable ‘80s exploitation classic Street Trash.
This gory black comedy set amongst the down-and-out boozehounds of New York featured a case of killer hooch called Viper that caused everyone who partook to die in a spectacularly gory fashion. Viper-related mortalities included exploding all over the sidewalk and melting down the toilet. Has there ever been a sterner lecture about the dangers of the bottle? I put Street Trash right up there with The Days of Wine and Roses on the list of movies that made me think twice about that third glass of Wild Turkey and Coke.
4. Liquid Sky (1982)
In the early ’80s the Lower East Side of Manhattan was awash with cheap, easily available heroin. Hard to imagine today that this hip, trendy area was once one of America’s most lawless and drug-infested neighborhoods. It’s no surprise that horror cinema would be drawn to this dark setting for some inspiration.
Slava Tsukerman directed this post-punk/New Wave-influenced sci-fi flick that mixed heroin addiction, gender bending and a fantastic synth soundtrack to maximum effect. Ultra-low budget and populated by actors seemingly dosed to the gills on heavy tranquilizers, Liquid Sky somehow managed to transcend its humble origins to become one of the most loved (and hated) cult classics of all time. Hallucinatory, campy and just downright strange, Liquid Sky is the story of tiny aliens who come to Earth to feast on the brains of heroin addicts, finding a goldmine among the smack-and-sex-laden Lower East Side fashion scene.
Imagine watching David Bowie’s The Man Who Fell to Earth and Earth vs. the Flying Saucers back-to-back while twisted on DMT as Giorgio Moroder blasts in your headphones, and you’re getting close to the epic oddness that permeates Liquid Sky’s every frame.
5. The Addiction (1995)
The ultimate vampire-as-metaphor-for-drug-addiction film. I have to admit to some bias here: Abel Ferrara is a favorite director. He started in the exploitation genre—directing and starring in the notorious Driller Killer in 1979) and helming the rape-revenge masterpiece Ms. 45—before moving on to such hardcore classics as The Bad Lieutenant and The King of New York. But it was The Addiction that really blew me away.
A moody, black-and-white tale of vampirism in New York follows an NYU student who is bitten by a vampire and slowly finds herself drawn into the nocturnal world of bloodsuckers. As you can tell by the title, the vampires are portrayed as addicts—their entire existence revolves around getting their next “fix” of blood. The movie’s best performance is delivered by Christopher Walken, in top form as an aging vampire who claims to have conquered his addiction to blood and as a result can live an almost normal existence. To underscore the vampirism/heroin addiction motif, when Walken is counseling the confused new vampire on what her (after)life will now entail, instead of handing her a copy of Bram Stoker’s book, he recommends that she read William S. Burroughs’ junkie classic Naked Lunch. The algebra of need, indeed.
6. Blood Freak (1972)
“For it to survive, addicts must die!”
From the sublime to the ridiculous. Fans of “so bad it’s good” cinema have to get their hands on a copy of Brad F. Grinter’s absurd Christian anti-drug gore epic Blood Freak. Originally conceived as a religious-themed warning against drug addition, Blood Freak is the bizarre tale of a Vietnam vet biker named Herschell, who befriends two sisters—Ann, a trashy drug user, and Angel, a Bible-quoting goody-goody. Angel gets Herschell a job at her father’s turkey farm, while Ann seduces him by plying him with marijuana and removing her bikini. After a few strange plot twists, Herschell ingests some chemically tainted turkey down at the farm and turns into what can only be described as a were-turkey. The turkey monster then goes on a rampage, and finds that he is addicted to drinking the blood of junkies. (Nobody said the plot made sense—just roll with it).
Along with all of the blood, nudity and bargain-basement special effects, there is plenty of talk of God and redemption from an unlikely cigarette-puffing narrator. Spoiler alert: In the “it was all a drug-induced dream” conclusion, Herschell seeks help at a treatment center, and gets the (good) girl. “This movie has been a story about the horrors that can occur when we use the human body as a mixing bowl for drugs,” the nicotine-addicted narrator helpfully explains.
7. Blue Sunshine (1978)
A decade on from the Age of Aquarius, flower power, marmalade skies, Owsley Acid and “Make Love Not War,” along came this disturbing little thriller, whose central conceit played upon a number of folk legends about the unintended consequences of drug use.
Before he became infamous as a purveyor of late-night Cinemax-style erotica like The Red Shoe Diaries and Wild Orchid, Zalman King put in a turn as Jerry Zipkin, a man on the run after being accused of committing a string of grisly murders. It turns out the real killers are ordinary folks—babysitters, surgeons, policemen, or political campaign managers—who all have one thing in common. Back in the Summer of Love, they were wide-eyed young hippies, dabbling in drugs, who ingested the same batch of Blue Sunshine acid. A decade later they experience the mother of all acid flashbacks—hair loss, sensitivity to loud noises and…the uncontrollable urge to kill.
A warning about the danger of experimenting with drugs? A sleazy potboiler with a killer disco soundtrack? A lament for the death of ‘60s countercultural idealism and the ‘70s return to the capitalist creed? Weirdly enough, Blue Sunshine manages to be all this and more, earning an enthusiastic cult following over the years.
8. I Drink Your Blood (1970)
In contrast to Blue Sunshine’s pro-hippie nostalgia, I Drink Your Blood is an exercise in full-blown anti-hippie paranoia. Legendary exploitation producer Jerry Gross (whose marketing genius made hits out of such “classics” as Teenage Mother, I Spit on Your Grave and Female Animal) turned this gore movie into a drive-in legend by changing the title from the original Phobia and screening it with a dull mid-‘60s voodoo flick re-titled I Eat Your Skin. This double bill ran for years in the grindhouse cinemas of 42nd Street, while earning a footnote in film history: I Drink Your Blood was the first film to earn an X-rating for violence alone.
The story is a cross between Night of the Living Dead and Charles Manson: a gang of Satan-worshiping, drug-addled hippies roll into town, raping and spiking people with acid along the way. In revenge, a kid slips the gang meat pies infected with rabies, and pretty soon the longhairs are on a murderous rampage. While slicing off hands, legs and heads, they also spread the disease to the general population. In one stunning scene, a rabies-infected mother-to-be stabs herself in the stomach while screaming about wanting to have a baby.
This fast-paced shocker waves its anti-drug flag proudly. Far from showing your typical cuddly “let’s all share a joint and hang out”–type peaceniks, this film delivers a bloody and grotesque nightmare about what happens when acid culture comes face to face with small-town values.
9. Brain Damage (1988)
Frank Henenlotter directed some of the funniest, darkest and smartest horror movies of the ’80s. Titles like Basket Case and Frankenhooke showed a perversely twisted aesthetic that won Henenlotter a devoted cult following. Yet his best film remains one of his most obscure.
It’s no exaggeration to say that Brain Damage may be the greatest-ever cinematic portrayal of drug addiction, even if it is dressed up as a sci-fi slasher flick. Our hero is Brian, an ordinary guy who comes into possession of a talking parasite named Aylmer. While looking like a piece of talking beef jerky, Aylmer secretes a substance that—when injected directly into the brain—causes euphoria and hallucinations. The downside? The stuff is highly addictive, causing withdrawal symptoms that make heroin cold turkey look like a case of the sniffles. As soon as Brian is hooked on the stuff, Aylmer’s true purpose is revealed: he needs a steady supply of fresh brain matter—and if Brian doesn’t want to be reduced to a state of sweating, shivering misery, he’d better help procure them.
Among Brain Damage’s chief treasures are some of the nastiest scenes of drug withdrawal—rivaling Trainspotting’s infamous crawling-baby scene—plenty of shots of pre-Giuliani New York, and a rather perverse musical turn from the aforementioned brain-craving parasite.
10. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)
Robert Louis Stephenson’s 19th-century novella, “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” has spawned numerous big-screen adaptations, but this fantastic version featuring Fredric March in the lead role is widely considered to be the classic. I am also pretty partial to Hammer films’ gender-bending twist on the conceit, Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde, and the 1976 blaxploitation take on the legend, Dr. Black and Mister Hyde.
The story of the mild-mannered Dr. Jekyll who creates and drinks a potion that unlocks his inner animalistic, murderous Mr. Hyde is a potent metaphor for addiction, equally applicable to crystal meth, cocaine and alcohol—all release users’ inhibitions with negative unintended consequences often ensuing. In the 1931 version, Dr. Jekyll becomes addicted to the potion—a twist that would have reminded audiences of the lurid news stories at the time warning people of the “addictive nature” of marijuana, a drug that—if you believed the hype—turned people into sex-and-violence-crazed animals.
Coming Attractions: Currently in production is a long-delayed big-budget remake of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde starring, of all actors, Keanu Reeves, which suggests that this new version will be the druggiest one ever. After all, even the casting directors were clearly high on something when they decided to cast a man with only one facial expression in this famously two-faced role.
Tony O’Neill is a columnist and regular contributer at The Fix. He has written several novels, including Digging the Vein and Down and Out on Murder Mile and Sick City. He is the co-author of the New York Times bestseller Hero of the Underground (with Jason Peter) and the Los Angeles Times bestseller Neon Angel (with Cherie Currie). He lives in New York with his wife and daughter.
