My Personal Horror Film Festival, Part Four: The Final Chapter
It's finally here. My favorite holiday of the year. A time when you can dress up in ridiculous costumes, ogle women dressed in provocative costumes, hand out candy to children without attracting the attention of local authorities, and celebrate all things macabre and malevolent. Halloween is upon us.
Over these past few weeks leading up to the big day, I've been indulging myself in the guilty pleasure of horror movies, trying to watch at LEAST one a day. Some have been good, some have been...well, to be perfectly frank, some have been fucking unwatchable. And while campiness, unintentional comedy, and just basic low quality are things that I celebrate in watching a horror movie, I wouldn't want to stain the purity of this day by watching something that doesn't distinguish itself with some actual merit. And so, the following are some of my all-time favorite films of the genre, listed in no particular order.
Let the Right One In: Equal parts horror and Gothic love story, this is hands-down my favorite vampire movie. The actual themes associated with vampires are actually toned down in favor of focusing on the relationship between 12 year old Oskar and Eli (a vampire of indeterminate age, but who appears to be roughly the same age as Oskar). But this isn't that watered down "Twilight" shit - this movie doesn't romanticize vampires that much. There's some horrific violence throughout the story, because lest we've all forgotten in the wake of a series of vampire books and movies marketed at pre-pubescent girls, vampires murder people and drink their blood.
The Shining: Atmospheric and chilling, Kubrick's adaptation of Stephen King's novel is almost certainly the best on-screen translation of one of the prolific writer's books - perhaps because he was so willing to deviate from the source material. Many of the supernatural elements were omitted (if you haven't read the book that might prompt you to raise an eyebrow, but trust me, as supernatural as the movie is, it's less so than the book), along with much of the backstory of Jack's childhood and young adulthood, and a significantly smaller role in the story was dedicated to Jack and Wendy's son Danny. The end result is a story about a vaguely sinister family man who descends into madness and becomes WAY sinister after a period of isolation and artistic frustration, rather than the more detailed story of a troubled, sympathetic man and his family. Stephen King might not approve, but I do.
Alien: While the franchise may have went in a different (and frequently shitty), more action-oriented direction for the subsequent films, Ridley Scott's original sci-fi masterpiece is unquestionably one of the great horror movies of all time. This claustrophobic tale of seven people (or, as it turns out, six people and one android) trapped on a spacecraft with a predatory creature is a classic for it's look alone - H. R. Giger's designs for the facehugger, chestburster, and "adult" alien are so iconic and so goddamn terrifying that they steal the show, but there's no weak link in the movie - the sets, acting, script, and score all combine to make a great film.
The Thing (1982): Another movie that's a classic in large part due to it's visuals - the practical effects used in this movie are more effective than just about anything I've seen in a horror movie from the era of CGI. It's got a plot not unlike that of "Alien," but instead of a spacecraft it takes place in an Arctic research station and instead of Sigourney Weaver it stars Kurt Russell. It was widely panned by critics at the time of it's release, but has since taken it's rightful place on lists of all-time great horror movies, such as this one.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre: I've mentioned this movie in a previous article but include it again here because, frankly, I can't say enough about how much I love this movie. It's the gold standard of slasher films. There are so many things it gets right - a group of youths stuck in the middle of nowhere; a silent, hulking, masked killer; an inexplicably creepy backwoods family. The movie is so good that it's little wonder that no other installment in the franchise has managed to be anything other than horseshit. Every other movie has failed largely due to trying to expand on the story of the Sawyer family and provide backstory, when much of the magic of the original was in how bizarre and creepy the situation and events were with almost NO context provided at all. You just can't catch lightning in a bottle twice, unfortunately.
Scream: In my opinion, Wes Craven's best film - a fun deconstruction of the slasher genre which is surprisingly well-crafted. It combines brutal violence with with elements of comedy and self-aware characters, making frequent playful and satirical references to cliches and tropes of the horror genre. Coming years before movies such as "Cabin in the Woods" or the "Scary Movie" series (which, interestingly enough, was the original title for "Scream") it was ahead of it's time, and holds up admirably well.
The Witch: A story of a Puritan family living in seclusion in colonial-era New England. It's a bit of a slow burn (which is to say, potentially boring if you don't appreciate that kind of a horror movie), telling the story of the family's exile from an established settlement over religious dissent and the troubles they face, leading them to believe that the devil is at work against them. It's beautifully shot, with the woods surrounding the family's small farm serving as a brooding, evil backdrop and with only natural light used (candles being the only lighting in interior shots). The depiction of a small community of devoutly religious people living in fear of the consequences of deviating from religious law is compelling, and the best horror film I've seen in theaters in years.
The Evil Dead: A bunch of youths are just trying to have a fun weekend in the woods when some shit goes seriously wrong in one of Sam Raimi's first films, made on a modest budget. Soon after arriving, the group encounters a malevolent demonic force, which goes on to possess and terrorize them. There's a slight touch of black comedy (which would be magnified in the next two chapters of the trilogy), which really adds to the joy of watching it. Bruce Campbell's portrayal of Ash remains one of my personal favorite performances in the horror genre.
The Fly (1986): The second film adaptation of a short story by George Langelaan, directed by David Cronenberg, and the culmination of Cronenberg's preoccupation with body horror. An eccentric scientist Seth Brundle (played by brilliantly by Jeff Goldblum) tests a new invention - a teleportation device - not realizing that an unexpected variable has entered his experiment when a housefly ends up inside with him. Brundle's degeneration as the effects of the experiment take hold is visually one of the most unsettling things I've ever seen.
28 Days Later: Normally, I can't stand zombie shit. From "World War Z" to "The Walking Dead" to random jackasses I overhear in a bar talking about how to survive in a zombie apocalypse, it really just bores me. But "28 Days Later" is something I can stomach. Most works in the "zombie" sub-genre try so hard to function as some kind of allegory or parable (with the moral of the story inevitably being: "Maybe it's really the HUMANS that are the monsters, huh?") that they're absolutely insufferable. "28 Days Later" does something that other movies haven't - it actually accomplishes that, in a tasteful manner. Cillian Murphy plays Jim, a man who wakes up in a hospital to a London devoid of people. He soon stumbles upon zombies, and then meets up with some survivors, teaming up with them in order to survive. Story-wise, it's fairly standard, with the real selling points being the acting and the competent direction by Danny Boyle.
There you have it, my personal top ten. If something on this list doesn't do it for you, then I'm afraid you and I march to the beat of a different drummer, at least in the horror department. As I post this, we have mere hours left in which to celebrate. Thanks for reading, and have yourself a spooky Halloween.
