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Film and TV

10 Most Romantic Horror Movies for Valentine's Day

Look, I can get behind a good romantic comedy to celebrate Valentine's Day with. Addicted to Love is one of my favorite movies of all time, after all, but frankly, that genre has more sap than Bob Sapp if Bob Sapp were a maple tree... which would not be the most ridiculous thing Bob Sapp has done.

Can't we snuggle up and watch a horror movie instead? Isn't there something out there that can offer couples both an affirmation of the power of love and some quality dismemberment? Yep, there sure are, and if you're twisted like me, you'll be with your honey watching...

Warm Bodies: I feel bad for Warm Bodies because it came about just as the world was getting so thoroughly sick of zombies that any attempt to do something new with the genre felt desperate. It's a really good film that follows a zombie who regains his humanity through true love's kiss, all the while battling horrific skeletal zombies and a paranoid human survivor population. When you consider how many times we've had our hearts broken watching beloved characters succumb to the zombie menace with no hope of bringing them back then watching the opposite is damned near a religious experience.

Bram Stoker's Dracula: First of all, if you watch Gary Oldman as Dracula with a girl your odds of getting laid increase exponentially. That's just a given. More than that is the way that Francis Ford Copolla managed to add in a tragic love story angle to the old gothic tale without sacrificing one throat slit or demonic transformation.

Shaun of the Dead: Some might argue that Shaun of the Dead is more comedy than horror, and to them I say "Holy Mother of God they tore that dude to pieces!" At its heart it's a movie about relationships and learning how to live and love in the world. Shaun and Liz don't just survive the zombie apocalypse, they grow to trust each other and build a relationship based on accomplishments rather than entropy from their ordeal.

Dead Alive: Back before he was the lord of all hobbits, Peter Jackson made horror movies that saw more blood and intestines than a vampire colonoscopy clinic. The best of them was Dead Alive, and though it gets all it's notoriety from the scene where Timothy Balme takes out a horde of mutant corpses with a running lawnmower the real story of the film is how he escapes from the domineering hold of his mother to be with the girl he loves. Granted, Jackson accomplishes this with the bloodiest parody of birth since the xenomorph made John Hurt into a human donut, but it ends with Balme and Diana Peñalver arm and arm and totally into each other.

Let the Right One In: The adaptation of John Ajvide Lindqvist's vampire novel is simply put one of the best horror films ever made. It's bloody, it's disturbing, it's ambiguous, and like all truly great movies it is driven by a powerful connection between its characters. The love story between Oskar and Eli is strangely chaste and innocent, no matter how gruesome and pile of bodies get over the course of the movie. I think about it as if Stephen King had written Bridge to Terebithia, but with a happier ending.

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Jef Rouner (not cis, he/him) is a contributing writer who covers politics, pop culture, social justice, video games, and online behavior. He is often a professional annoyance to the ignorant and hurtful.
Contact: Jef Rouner