The Haunting (1963)

This is one of the great classic haunted house films. It doesn't rely on flashy special effects or boo-scares to send shivers down your spine!

Dr. Markway is conducting an experiment in paranormal activity. He is spending time in the dark and foreboding Hill House with three other individuals: the bright-eyed and sarcastic Luke, the mysterious and alluring Theo, and the timid and repressed Eleanor, who believes that the house wants her in some way. Strange things begin to occur, and Eleanor falls deeper into the house's spell, eventually wanting to stay there forever.

Loud booms echo throughout the house. Doors slam and lock and unlock by themselves. Unfamiliar muffled voices are heard through the walls. The spiral staircase. The bending door. Sometimes you just can't beat simple effects and stark black and white to convey a mood! Eleanor's frightened inner monologue gives the audience a feeling of uneasiness. Is it all in her mind? What really happened here?

This film is great for this time of year...dim the lights and get comfy for this one. It's moody and beautiful and unnerving. But please, don't try and tell me that the 1999 remake with Catherine Zeta-Jones is better.

I will slap you.

Double Bill: Ménage à trois

Jules et Jim and The Dreamers

Aliens (1986)

Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) accompanies a team of Colonial Marines to LV-426 where her entire crew perished decades before at the hands of a single alien killing machine. This time there are more and this time it's war!

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I yearn for the days before James Cameron was "king of the world". Though I would never expect him to return to the down and dirty days of the original The Terminator and his work for Roger Corman, I wish there could be a happy middle-ground between cheap thrills and pretension. I guess what I'm really saying is that I wish he would just keep making Aliens and T2 over and over again. Heck I'd even settle for the True Lies sequel that Tom Arnold has been trying to put together. Just please, no more Avatar.

The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra (2001)

Dr. Paul Armstrong and his wife Betty are staying in a cabin in order to be close to the landing site of a meteor that Armstrong, a scientist, wants to get a closer look at. Meanwhile, two aliens have crash-landed on Earth and their pet mutant has escaped. And during all this, the evil Dr. Fleming has made himself a sexy sidekick out of forest animals (she's appropriately named Animala) and reawakened the mysterious Lost Skeleton of Cadavra.

This film requires some explanation. It's a loving homage/parody of all of those cheesy 50s sci-fi movies. Shot in the same style with an old soundtrack, deliberately ridiculous dialogue, silly props, and a nonsensical plot. Even the film's poster looks like the poster from Invaders from Mars (1953). The filmmakers obviously have a lot of love for the genre, as every detail is perfect. The film is hilariously quotable, and looks like it was a lot of fun to make.

I'm a huge fan of this movie, and even got to meet some of the cast at Comic Con in 2010!



I recommend this film to anyone who gets a kick out of the campy and the ridiculous!

Trick 'r Treat (2007)

Four interwoven stories all occurring in a small town on Halloween night.

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It is downright criminal that this film didn't get a proper release. Barring a few screenings to promote the DVD release in 2009, this movie hasn't been shown theatrically. While some films are fine to be watched alone or in small groups, this is not one of them. This film demands to be seen with LOTS of people. This is a film that puts the audience through its' paces. It's funny, it's clever, it's downright scary and sometimes all at once. Yes it is possible for a film to be all those things at the same time. Scares break up the laughter and laughter breaks up the scares. Trust me, it makes for a much more rewarding experience.

BONUS: Apparently on Halloween Day FEARnet will be pulling an A Christmas Story and showing the film back to back to back all day long. They even hired the director Mike Dougherty to make a cute short promo video.

Coraline (2008)

Ohhh I love this one! It's like a horror movie for kids. Why is that not an official genre? Children's Horror? Marvelous.

Coraline Jones and her parents just moved into an old house, and she's frustrated because her parents don't have time for her. She's bored, despite visiting the other tenants in the house and exploring the woods. She discovers a portal to a world just like hers, but better. She has new versions of her parents, and everything is beautiful and magical. Everyone has button eyes. And then she realizes that there is a darkness lurking at the heart of this "other" world, especially in her "Other Mother."

This film is major eye candy for me. It's directed by Henry Selick (James and the Giant Peach, The Nightmare Before Christmas), so it's a given that the animation is superb. There are dog-bats, glowing flowers, cakes that frost themselves, a scandalous theatre act, performing mice, ghosts, ahh, so gorgeous. And scary! I would've been terrified had I seen this as a little girl. Coraline is drawn to the other world because it seems so magical, but it becomes SO freaky when it starts unraveling. I adore the soundtrack too...it's haunting, and strange and beautiful. It even features a track by "They Might Be Giants"! Oh, and did I mention that Neil Gaiman wrote the book that the film is based on? Awesome.

This one comes super highly recommended for all those who are young at heart, and are easily led astray by beautiful magical things. <3

Hour of the Wolf (1968)

Alma (Liv Ullmann) watches helplessly as her artist husband (Max von Sydow) slowly descends into madness.

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The "hour of the wolf" (roughly 3am to 4am) is the hour between night and day. It is a limbo which belongs to neither the morning nor the evening. It is also the time when the line between sanity and insanity starts to blur.

While contemporary audiences might disagree with this movie being labeled as a "horror film", I'd be hard-pressed to think of things more horrific than what the characters in this film endure. This is horror in the German Expressionist sense of the word. Not only is it a film about the horror of losing your own sanity, but also the horror of watching someone you love descend into madness. Both in terms of subject-matter and imagery, this film fits perfectly among horror classics like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Nosferatu.

Double Bill: Days of the Future Past

The Terminator and 12 Monkeys

The Others (2001)

Grace (Nicole Kidman) lives in an old house with her two children who are sensitive to light and must live in darkness. She raises them alone while her husband has been away in the war. She is very protective of her children and teaches them all about God, heaven, and hell. Feeling very isolated and cut off from the world, Grace is relieved when three housekeepers who are already familiar with the house arrive to offer their services. But things start getting very creepy when Grace's daughter insists that there are other people lurking in the house.

The Others isn't your typical horror film. It's more spooky and atmospheric than scary (which I prefer!), and Nicole Kidman is great in this. She's not my favorite actress...most of the time I find her uptight and not super likeable. But the character of Grace is exactly that. She gets migraines, she's nervous, she's irritable, and she's desperately trying to be in control of a situation that's completely beyond her. The servants seem to know more than they're letting on, the children refer to an incident that nobody wants to talk about, and the whole situation leaves the audience wondering what's really going on.

If I'm being vague it's because I don't want to spoil anything for those who haven't seen it. You'll thank me for it. :) But I highly recommend this film. Yes, it's a bit slow, but it's a great October movie for those who like their scares to be of the quieter, well written and beautifully shot kind.

Streamable on Netflix! Enjoy!

Tromeo & Juliet (1996)

Shakespeare's classic retold with body piercing, kinky sex and dismemberment. I think that about sums it up.

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I could spend this entire review writing about how the cheap effects and over-the-top acting function as Brechtian alienation devices designed to make the audience aware of the film's the social and political agenda. I could go on at length about how this film is the true heir apparent to the 1960s avant garde work of Warhol, Anger, Brakhage and the Kuchar brothers. But I won't. Why? Because I know you really don't care about all that. So instead I will tell you that this film has gore and nudity. Enjoy!