Happy Halloween, my lovely haunted readers! Tonight is Halloween, and in the spirit of the holiday I would like to both direct you to my Top Ten Horror Films I Secretly Kind Of Like, a list I made last year, and to also provide an addendum list (because, let's face it, I can talk all I want to about not liking horror movies - the truth is I am fascinated by them).
28 Days Later
That early scene, when Cillian Murphy stumbles out of the hospital and into the empty streets of London, is one of the eeriest things to be committed to film. One of the brilliant things this movie does, that not many have tried to replicate, is change our expectations of the zombies: not only are they brutal, vicious, and hungry, but they're fast. Zombies went from shambling horrors to rabid predators, more likely to dispense with the moaning and just rip into you with guttural shrieking. Shivers.
(The use of red in the color palette of 28 Days Later is also interesting to note, for people who notice that kind of thing. It borders on abrasive and gives me a headache, which was probably the point.)
Drag Me To Hell
Campy, over-the-top, and with a simplistic message (do unto others, and all that), Drag Me To Hell still manages some of the best jump scares in recent film. Allison Lohman plays the loathsome Christine, a loan officer eager for a pay raise who declines to extend a loan to an old gypsy woman. Christine apparently missed the memo on why it's a terrible idea to cross old gypsy women, because she finds herself the owner of a particularly nasty curse. Thinking about the ending still makes me jump a little.
Halloween
There are two classics on here, included because sometimes the originals are just better. Halloween is scary because not only are there no ghosts, monsters or zombies, but because Michael Meyers doesn't have anything obviously wrong with him. He's no Damien, no disciple of the devil, no possessed little boy - he's just a psychopath, enraged by young women who remind him of his slutty sister. The blank white mask, which removes any trace of humanity, feels more like his face than any real one could.
Night Watch
I highly recommend watching this one with subtitles, because the cinematography actually incorporates them into the fabric of the film. Watching a vampire lure a human through psychic calling is much creepier when the subtitles are red, and fade away like blood dissipating in water. This movie, which is also the reason I get nervous around large flocks of crows, is about the supernatural forces that guard against each other and keep the world in balance...and what happens when a force too powerful to contain is released in Moscow. It's beautiful and exciting, horror with a touch of class. If you liked Let The Right One In you'll probably dig Night Watch.
Nightmare on Elm Street
The other classic I felt it was necessary to include. A lot of horror deals with the invasion of so-called "safe" spaces, but none are as effective as the ghoul that can literally kill you in your dreams. There's no hiding under the blankets here, and to know Freddy is to be killed by him. Have fun trying to sleep tonight...
The Others
A shoestring budget and almost zero special effects give this one a lovely classic feel. While not filmed in black and white, it may as well have been - the single location of the film is inside a great big house with all the windows boarded up to protect Nicole Kidman's children from their allergy to sunlight. Shadows, light and darkness make up the special effects and create a mood so profoundly eerie that you'll find yourself jumping at nothing. Very reminiscent of the original House on Haunted Hill.
[REC]
Another fun zombie movie that mixes them in with the found footage trope. [REC] is kissing cousins with 28 Days Later, dealing with a virus and fast zombies, but adding an element of claustrophobia with the locked down building that the whole film takes place in. In general, I think the found footage thing is a little played out, but this story of an apartment building dealing with a quarantine and horrifying monsters is exciting enough to get a pass.
Red Dragon
Edward Norton makes almost as good of a foil for Anthony Hopkins as Jodie Foster. Ralph Fiennes as the mumbling, wounded Francis Dolarhyde is a softer, though no less dangerous, villain than Buffalo Bill, which gives the whole film a different flavor when it could very easily have ended up being a rehash of Silence of the Lambs. Also, as an English major, I can't resist the literary influence that Blake has on the film.
Tucker and Dale vs. Evil
Making fun of every slasher film you've ever loved. This wonderfully composed satire isn't light on the jump scares or the gore, and it's tempting to cover your eyes even while you're still laughing. Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine play rednecks up for some fishing in the woods who have the unfortunate luck to stumble across a group of college co-eds, who become convinced that the two hapless hillbillies are actually serial killers. This is only reinforced when the kids start dying in hilariously accidental ways (a woodchipper may be involved).
The Wolfman
I refer here to the 2010 version, starring Benicio del Toro and Anthony Hopkins, which doesn't get enough credit as far as I'm concerned. As a werewolf film it does some things quite well: it tells the story of the inner struggle between man and beast, and wonders if that struggle is universal and some are just better at suppressing it than others. As any good monster film should, it has philosophical ideals framed in terms of literal monstrousness...but doesn't romanticize the monsters. These werewolves are not your friends, and they will definitely eat you if given half the chance.
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