(In anticipation of the coolest day of the year, this month-long series will offer one recommended horror flick a day up through Oct. 31.)

THE HOST (2006). Just as the original 1954 Japanese cut of Godzilla warned against the evils of nuclear proliferation, this Korean import (a blockbuster in its homeland) similarly rails against a host of societal ills, including humankind's disregard for nature, the ability of America to force its will on the rest of the globe, the false front provided by governments declaring bogus "terror alerts," and media insensitivity. Yet these themes only simmer in the background, and even the creature feature often takes back seat to a sturdy and even touching comedy-drama about the importance of familial fortitude. The central character is Gang-du (Song Kang-ho), a dimwitted food-stand vendor and unlikely father to bright young Hyun-seo (Ko A-sung). When an enormous mutant emerges from the Han River, munches on a few humans and then takes Hyun-seo back to his lair, it's up to Gang-du and other family members to rescue the girl, battling military personnel every step of the way. Full of memorable imagery (amusing sight gags easily commingle with more brutal shots) and anchored by the human story at its center, The Host is only harmed by the varying quality of its special effects. Still, given that the movie works best when focusing on the people rather than the predator, that amounts to a minor quibble: This is a monster movie for those who like a little meat on the genre's bones.

(In anticipation of the coolest day of the year, this month-long series will offer one recommended horror flick a day up through Oct. 31. Here are the films that were selected Oct. 8-14. Click on the title to be taken to the review.)

• Dead Alive

Oct. 8: Piranha (1978)

Oct. 9: Willard (2003)

Oct. 10: House of Wax (1953)

Oct. 11: Dead Alive (1992)

Oct. 12: "Manos" The Hands of Fate (1966)

Oct. 13: Island of Lost Souls (1932)

Oct. 14: The Body Snatcher (1945)

Incidentally, here were the Week 1 picks:

Oct. 1: Day of the Dead (1985)

Oct. 2: Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001)

Oct. 3: The Thing from Another World (1951)

Oct. 4: Count Dracula (1970)

Oct. 5: Cat People (1942)

Oct. 6: Homicidal (1961)

Oct. 7: The Phantom of the Opera (1925)

(In anticipation of the coolest day of the year, this month-long series will offer one recommended horror flick a day up through Oct. 31.)

THE BODY SNATCHER (1945). In his book Alternate Oscars, author Danny Peary states that Boris Karloff deserved the 1945 Best Actor Academy Award for The Body Snatcher. Snobs will snicker, but Peary isn't far off the mark. Karloff delivers a masterful turn in this adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's short story, with Robert Wise (later of West Side Story and The Sound of Music fame) providing the direction and producer Val Lewton supplying the script (under his pseudonym Carlos Keith). The horror icon stars as Mr. Gray, a coachman who steals bodies on the side for a venal doctor (Henry Daniell). Karloff's nothing short of commanding in an unexpectedly complex role, and he shares a couple of scenes with his frequent '30s co-star Bela Lugosi, here relegated to a bit part as Daniell's sneaky servant. This was the first of three movies Karloff made with the esteemed Lewton; the subsequent titles — both highly recommended — were 1945’s Isle of the Dead and 1946’s Bedlam.

(In anticipation of the coolest day of the year, this month-long series will offer one recommended horror flick a day up through Oct. 31.)

ISLAND OF LOST SOULS (1932). It's safe to say that the British Board of Film Censors was a rather squeamish lot during the first half of the 20th century, considering that its members banned outright five films that dealt with misshapen people and/or scientists conducting gruesome experiments on human flesh. The infamous five consisted of 1914's Dr. Zanikoff's Experiences in Grafting (a film so obscure that it's not even listed on the all-inclusive IMDb!), 1932's Freaks, 1935's Life Returns, 1946's Bedlam and this adaptation of H.G. Wells' classic novel The Island of Dr. Moreau. It took 25 years before the Board lifted its ban, but let's not be too hard on our U.K. friends, as the picture was also banned in a dozen other countries, not to mention a handful of these united states. Charles Laughton is pure purring menace as Dr. Moreau, who employs vivisection in order to turn various animals into humans in his aptly named "House of Pain." The resulting mutations shuffle around his island lair, repeating the points of the Law ("Are we not men?") and trying to steer clear of the doctor's whip lashes. After a shipwreck survivor (Richard Arlen) ends up on the island, Moreau decides to breed him with his most successful creation, the alluring panther woman Lota (Kathleen Burke). Prolific makeup designer Wally Westmore created the excellent "manimal" designs, and that's Bela Lugosi buried under all that facial hair as the Sayer of the Law. This was remade twice under the title The Island of Dr. Moreau: The underrated 1977 version, starring Burt Lancaster and Michael York, is distinguished; the notorious 1996 bomb, with Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer, is not.

Click on the title to be taken directly to the review.

• Fox
• Taken 2

Argo

Here Comes the Boom

Taken 2

(In anticipation of the coolest day of the year, this month-long series will offer one recommended horror flick a day up through Oct. 31.)

"MANOS" THE HANDS OF FATE (1966). Forget quality flicks for a moment: It just wouldn’t be a proper Halloween without at least one horror turkey on the schedule. If you’re feeling up to it, then head straight to the bowels of bad cinema with this immortal effort. Yes, it's the one, the only, the must-be-seen-to-be-disbelieved "Manos" The Hands of Fate, that mega-abomination that's often cited as the worst movie ever made — a (dis)honor, incidentally, that used to pretty much belong to Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space. (Personally, I find "Manos" to be worse, if only because Plan 9 is a helluva lot more fun to watch.) The film, staggering in its ineptitude, finds a vacationing family (mom, dad, daughter, dog) getting lost and ending up at the home of the diabolical Master (Tom Neyman), his bevy of brides, and his extremely odd henchman Torgo (John Reynolds). I actually wouldn’t recommend watching this cold, so best to rent the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version and, uh, enjoy it in the company of Joel, Crow and Tom Servo. Ever the troupers, they face it with their usual aplomb, although Crow admittedly slips when he wails, "Joel, this is gonna turn into a snuff film!" So just how awful is this movie? So awful that even those evildoers Dr. Forrester and TV's Frank separately apologize to Joel for subjecting him to its petty tortures. Now that’s scary!

(In anticipation of the coolest day of the year, this month-long series will offer one recommended horror flick a day up through Oct. 31.)

DEAD ALIVE (1992). Several years before he endeared himself to fanboys and Oscar voters alike with his Lord of the Rings adaptations, Peter Jackson was the guiding force behind a handful of idiosyncratic features in his native New Zealand. One such effort was Dead Alive, a film so excessively gory that it makes the De Palma-Pacino version of Scarface look like a vintage episode of Reading Rainbow by comparison. Yet those who can accept the gruesomeness with tongue firmly embedded in bloody cheek will enjoy a film that's clearly influenced by Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead in its ability to gleefully mix slapstick humor with demented special effects. Set in a small New Zealand town, this finds the meek Lionel (Timothy Balme) caught in a tough spot after his domineering mother (Elizabeth Moody) gets bitten by a hideous Sumatran rat monkey and eventually turns into a festering, decomposing zombie. Lionel must care for the undead population quickly building in his basement even as he hopes to romance the sweet Paquita (Diana Penalver), but matters take a turn for the worse when his obnoxious Uncle Les (Ian Watkin) decides to throw a house party. The effects by Richard Taylor (who would go on to win five Oscars working under Jackson) are often outrageous — dig that creepy zombie baby! — and the sweetness of the relationship between Lionel and Paquita manages to be effective even in the midst of all the mayhem. Look for Forrest J Ackerman, the late, great editor of Famous Monsters of Filmland, as the zoo patron reading a magazine (Famous Monsters, natch).

(In anticipation of the coolest day of the year, this month-long series will offer one recommended horror flick a day up through Oct. 31.)

HOUSE OF WAX (1953). Far too many 3-D movies have relied on the novelty of the gimmick to cover up what would otherwise be a completely disposable motion picture, but what's unique about this box office smash (it was one of 1953’s top 10 grossers) — and the reason it has endured as one of the most popular of all older films originally shot in this format — is that on its own two-dimensional terms, it's a heckuva lot of fun. Vincent Price came into his own as a horror icon, portraying a sculptor whose latest creations seem remarkably lifelike, and there's an early appearance by Charles Bronson (still billed as Charles Buchinsky) as his mute assistant. For the record, the DVD released a few years ago by Warner Bros. doesn’t include the 3-D version (too bad; love that paddleball man!), but it does contain the first screen telling of this story: 1933's Mystery of the Wax Museum, directed by Casablanca's Michael Curtiz and starring King Kong scream queen Fay Wray. And you really don’t need me to tell you to stay away from the atrocious 2005 version featuring Paris Hilton, do you? Didn’t think so.

(In anticipation of the coolest day of the year, this month-long series will offer one recommended horror flick a day up through Oct. 31.)

WILLARD (2003). For all its ickiness, Willard is actually that most exotic of movie creatures: a remake that handily bests the original. The 1971 version may have been a box office hit, but it's also an inert motion picture, taking itself far too seriously as it relates the supposedly poignant tale of a lonely young man (Bruce Davison) whose only friends are the rats that live in his basement. This stylish remake tosses out all pretensions and tackles the material as a pitch-black comedy, which, in retrospect, was clearly the only way to go. As before, Willard Stiles (a perfectly cast Crispin Glover, in a part turned down by both Joaquin Phoenix and Macaulay Culkin) is a mild-mannered introvert whose relationship with his rodents offers him a brief respite from the unpleasantries that otherwise inundate his existence. This was (not surprisingly) a major commercial flop, but darn if it doesn't deliver the goods for folks not averse to an unsettling satire that offers as many nyuks as yuks. And for those interested, here’s the surreal music video for Glover’s “Ben,” complete with buxom women rubbing rats all over their bodies.

(In anticipation of the coolest day of the year, this month-long series will offer one recommended horror flick a day up through Oct. 31.)

PIRANHA (1978). The years following the gargantuan success of 1975's Jaws found studios releasing an endless stream of copycat flicks of the "When Nature Strikes!" variety — ripoffs included Grizzly (dubbed Claws by industry wags) and the X-rated spoof Gums — but it's generally agreed that producer Roger Corman’s Piranha remains the best of the bunch; even Jaws director Steven Spielberg counts himself among the film's fans. The first screenwriting credit for future Oscar nominee John Sayles (Lone Star) as well as an early assignment for director Joe Dante (The Howling, Gremlins), Piranha sports a sense of humor to go along with the grisly critter attacks, as a boozy woodsman (Bradford Dillman) and a private investigator (Heather Menzies) stumble across a crazed scientist (Kevin McCarthy) who's experimenting on a pool full of mutated piranha; along the way, the couple accidentally release the ferocious fish into a nearby river. This was remade in 2010; other variances in recent times include Piranha 3DD, MegaPiranha, Piranhaconda and Piranha-Man Vs. WereWolf-Man: Howl of the Piranha. Trivia note: The in-name-only sequel, 1981's poorly received Piranha Part Two: The Spawning, marked the directorial debut of no less than James Cameron.