The Hunger

An obvious start to the list and a good one to begin dipping your toes into the erotic horror genre. This is a film I go back to time and time again, mostly because it has three of the sexiest people from the ’80s: Catherine Deneuve, Susan Sarandon and David Bowie. It’s peak ’80s: power suits, shoulder pads, plus a wide array of hats and sunglasses we would only dream of stumbling upon in a vintage shop. Not only does it do the ’80s perfectly, it also jumps back in time and has some stunning 18th-century Georgian-style costumes. The clothes were designed by Academy Award winner Milena Canonero, with Yves Saint Laurent also credited for costume design, particularly for Catherine Deneuve’s wardrobe, which makes so much sense.

I think this could be a really good option for those looking for a niche Halloween costume: throw on anything with a cinched waist and shoulder pads and combine it with a funeral-worthy netted face veil. Bonus points for gloves, a brooch, statement earrings and, of course, a red lip. The past few fashion seasons I’ve seen the ’80s come back in a big way, and I don’t see this going away any time soon, so perhaps this film is good inspiration for taking the look to the next level. ___STEADY_PAYWALL___

Daughters of Darkness

A truly bizarre film, and one of those that’s kind of so bad it’s good. I really loved the hair and make-up in this one, as well as the colour red being used throughout the film, particularly on a couple of the female characters. They’re both meant to be evil, and one of them is a vampire, and I just love the idea of blood red being seen on the lips and nails alongside their perfectly styled hair, acting almost as a visual signifier of this evilness. On the other side, the female lead, Valerie, has beachy blonde hair and pretty natural make-up that includes a Twiggy-esque doe eye. The contrast between the two is so good: glamour and danger on one side, innocence and youth on the other.

The movie came out in 1971, and it feels very much of its time, from the mini dresses to the flared jeans. It’s reminiscent of the hippies and also the emerging disco scene, but everything is given this slightly sinister Belgian-gothic twist. At one point the characters are standing on a cliff and the vampire countess goes to wrap her arms around the human girl. Her cape stretches out behind her and it’s perfection. Our innocent Valerie also has some great costumes, including this long belted fur coat, with the collar popped and loafer heels that feel reminiscent of the rock-star girlfriends of the time, like Anita Pallenberg. The costumes were designed by French couturier Bernard Perris, whose glamorous designs are a huge part of why this film looks as good as it does.

Bram Stoker's Dracula

Francis Ford Coppola’s take on the classic Dracula is one of my all-time favourite films that just so happens to be sexy and a little bit gory in the campest way possible. Coppola put a massive amount of importance on the costumes, famously describing them as effectively being the set, and Eiko Ishioka designed them with this in mind. She went on to win Best Costume Design at the Academy Awards for the film and it’s not hard to see why. The costumes are huge, theatrical and often completely ridiculous in the best possible way. They don’t simply tell us what period the film is set in; they tell us who the characters are.

The costumes designed for Sadie Frost’s character are some of the best in this list. She’s dressed in floor-length, low-cut and often sheer gowns, with her increasingly sexualised appearance helping to distinguish Lucy from Winona Ryder’s more restrained Mina. The journey from innocence to evil is told through gowns, essentially. Important to note that Monica Bellucci makes an appearance during a sneak-attack orgy scene as one of Dracula’s vampire brides. Also speaking of brides, Lucy’s wedding dress is quite spectacular.

A 10/10 movie. Incredibly sexy and incredibly gorgeous. Zero notes.

Blood and Black Lace

OK, 1960s Italian models working in a fashion house in Rome begin getting brutally murdered by a masked killer - think Slenderman in a fedora and trench coat. Less erotic than the others, but a fair share of girls being murdered in their underwear, so we’ll let it slide. The whole thing takes place inside this glossy, slightly surreal fashion world where everyone looks fantastic and no one seems concerned enough that a killer is picking off models one by one.

The fashion in this one is for the guys and the girls, from men’s tailoring to a runway show full of very ’60s couture-esque looks. The set is also pretty spectacular, taking you from the chic, over-the-top fashion house to the lover-boy antique dealer’s place. This one is not lacking in gorgeous things to look at. I really loved the handbags as well as the girls in the atelier all wearing matching blue uniforms that kind of resemble the currently trending vintage nurse uniforms. Lots of seriously good underwear, too - this will be a bit of a theme with this list.

Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom

A recent trip to the Prince Charles Cinema introduced me to this interesting watch. Not for the faint of heart or those with an easily queasy stomach. This is one of those movies where the erotic teeters into the unsexy territory and instead becomes more disturbing than anything. Without giving too much away, the film focuses on a group of fascists in northern Italy in 1944 who kidnap a group of young people and subject them to physical, psychological and sexual torture. It’s obviously not an easy watch and the eroticism here is very deliberately corrupted into something about power, control and degradation.

Director Pier Paolo Pasolini shoots this film so beautifully you can at times look past what’s happening. There’s a constant use of symmetry that’s paired with the ornate set and costumes, or lack thereof, which tells the story as much as the dialogue does. Costumes were designed by the famous costume designer Danilo Donati, a frequent collaborator of Pasolini. My favourite scene is the first wedding. I can’t put the image on here for a lot of reasons but I’ve given you the second wedding, which was also done beautifully. I’ve also added an image of the girls in their underwear and dressing gowns. The clothing is all traditional, obviously beautifully made and instantly makes me want to go search for vintage Italian underwear on Vinted. We see classic uniforms, eveningwear and nudity all in the same scenes, creating a stark contrast that’s equally shocking and beautiful. If you have the stomach for it, I can’t recommend it enough.

Eden and After

Wow, I could write a whole essay on this one. The colours are crazy, the cast is beautiful, the storyline - bonkers. The clothes feel like Jil Sander by Raf Simons if he was designing for them in 1970. The set is strongly influenced by Piet Mondrian, with the geometric panels and bold colours creating an environment where the costumes feel like an extension of the surroundings. Directed by Alain Robbe-Grillet, who also wrote the screenplay for Last Year at Marienbad, the film is basically a giant exercise in visual confusion and I mean that in the best way possible.

The main character has a few fantastic outfits, the standout being this paisley micro-mini dress with knee-high boots, the collar worn up and a belt tied low on the waist, not far off from something a young Kate Moss would have rocked around London in the ’90s. The belted shirt-as-a-dress, with underwear poking out every now and then and those tight knee-high boots, is my new favourite outfit equation and curse this fall weather for getting in the way of me recreating it immediately. The men’s fashion is amazing too. There’s a look near the end with jeans, a tan blazer, black shirt and bright red tie that if I had a boyfriend I would dress him in this immediately.

Another 10/10 film.

Successive Slidings of Pleasure

A murder mystery, far from a classic whodunnit, the film follows Alice, a young woman accused of murdering her roommate Nora. While incarcerated in a convent prison the film goes into the mind of Alice, where reality and make-believe are twisted, showing dreams within dreams that jump back and forth through past and present. You never really know what’s going on but it leaves you locked in, hoping to figure out the point of it all. Meanwhile everyone is naked, gorgeous and hooking up.

There’s something really simple in the costume styling in this movie. The clothes never offer distractions so you know exactly where to look while watching: the blue shoe on display or a dress worn with no shoes or accessories. It’s the same with the set, often a white room, forcing the viewer to hone in on the details of what’s being shown to them. This one isn’t majorly fashion like some of the others but I think the beauty is in that simplicity. Jeans and a white cotton blouse à la Jane Birkin - it feels effortless and oddly charming. There’s also a fun nod to Yves Klein’s body-painting series and keep an eye out for a young Isabelle Huppert, who makes an appearance as a fellow inmate

La Bête

This 1975 erotic horror fantasy was made after director Walerian Borowczyk made Immoral Tales (another fabulous film), an anthology of four stories that caused plenty of controversy upon release. La Bête was originally intended to be one of the stories but Borowczyk ultimately cut the segment and expanded it into a full-length film. Both films feel like the older, hornier cousins of Donkey Skin. The plot is wild. Lucy, a young American heiress, travels to a crumbling French aristocratic estate to marry Mathurin, the son of the family. After hearing stories about a beast that has haunted the family for generations Lucy starts having increasingly wild erotic dreams, and yeah, well, you’ll just have to watch the rest. Maybe the origin story of furries?

Costumes were designed by Piet Bolscher and the dream sequences send us back in time, where we see a girl running through the woods in period dress, fleeing the beast as the forest around her slowly undresses her. It’s quite gorgeous, although what follows is slightly more disturbing. We also get the costumes of this wealthy French aristocratic family, giving the film a very particular kind of 1970s feel. Lucy has some killer outfits too. She wears this amazing sheer wedding dress with a matching veil that honestly might convince you to get married. She also wears a fabulous fur coat that I absolutely need, although I can’t help wondering if it’s also Piet’s way of saying she’s the beast?

So what do all of these films have in common? Besides murder, good clothes and sex? Well, not much. They span decades, countries and wildly different kinds of horror, but that’s kind of the point. Rather than a perfectly cohesive list, I’ve gathered together films that hopefully make you want to look - whether that’s at the clothes, the men, the women, the interiors, the colours or the completely unhinged worlds these directors have created. In all of them, costume feels like part of the fantasy. Sometimes it tells you who someone is, sometimes it tells you what they want and sometimes it’s simply there to make you want to dress like a 70s hooker.

So maybe this is less a definitive guide to erotic horror and more an excuse to watch beautiful, strange films and get a little obsessed with what everyone is wearing. Whether you’re looking for a Halloween costume, something to put on while the weather gets colder or just an excuse to discover something wonderfully weird, I hope this list gives you a few films to fall into. And if nothing else, I hope it leaves you wanting a fur coat, vintage underwear, shoulder pads and perhaps even a slightly questionable man in a trench coat. Happy watching.. and yeah, apologies in advance for some of these recs. Eek.

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