I know many of you are going to be busy this Halloween dressing-up the kids for their annual sugarpocalypse, or creating your own slutty ________ costume for a party or creepy bar crawl.
But sadly, I'm an old poop. I prefer to stay home in a smoking jacket with a friend or two and curl up with a scary classic movie and a couple cocktails. Is that so wrong? Doesn't that sound more fun than dragging a cranky child on a sugar high around the neighborhood trying to avoid the houses that give out toothbrushes and celery? Or slipping in the yack that the drunk Harley Quinn over there just unloaded on the floor of some east side brah-bar? Of course it does.
So for those of you who prefer your scares in the comfort of your own home, here are my picks for Top 5 Scary Classic Movies:
Them! (1954)
This is one of the first scary movies I remember seeing on KSHB TV's
Creature Feature with Crematia Mortem. Released the same year as
Godzilla,
Them! joined a growing movement of giant monster movies that used the Atomic Age's effect on nature as a basis for cinematic destruction. In
Godzilla and
The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953) the monsters were giant, singular monsters that looked like creatures from another era. With
Them! the terror comes not from fantastical animals from our past- but from simple creatures that live in our backyards.
Police Sgt. Ben Peterson (the venerable Brooks in
Shawshank Redemption (1994)- actor and
Tender Chunks spokesman James Whitmore) has been getting some strange emergency calls lately: A young girl wandering in the desert in a trance, clutching her cracked-up doll. A family's vacation trailer ripped to shreds, but the occupants missing. A general store demolished for what appears to be a sugar heist. Something terrible is happening in the New Mexican desert and only Peterson, FBI special agent Robert Graham (
Gunsmoke's James Arness), Dr. Harold Medford (Santa himself, Edmund Gwenn), and his daughter Pat (also a doctor- but probably earns less) can solve the riddle and save the world.
The great fun in this movie is the length of time we wait until the monsters are finally revealed. The high-whining sounds they make and the terror on the faces of their victims are the only cues our imaginations need to run wild. Once the giant ants reveal themselves they are fascinating in that the choice was to use physical creations for the monsters instead of superimposing enlarged footage of someone's ant farm. These ants (while not very fast-moving) are real, and have heft. The actors are reacting to being trapped in mandibles, not just pointing and yelling at a blank screen.
Them! in some ways looks hokey with its early special effects, but the story has a great arc, and there are real emotional consequences which is rare for these films. I will never forget the terror this film inspired when I was a child, and so I step on ants anytime I come across them.
Alien (1979)
In space, no one can hear you scream. But that does not hold true for the movie theater... or my living room. Ridley Scott's sci-fi horror masterpiece
Alien spawned sequels, videogames, and prequels, but for my money nothing beats the first one. A mining crew is awoken out of cryogenic slumber to answer an SOS from an abandoned ship on a desolate planet. They discover a strange egg patch shrouded in mist in the belly of the giant ship. It's a case of curiosity bursts out of the cat's stomach when unlucky crew-member Kane (John Hurt) becomes a host to an alien and the rest is movie history.
I love this film so much because woven into the crew vs. alien survival story is the deeper social/psychological theme of female empowerment in an era of corporatization. Ripley (the perfectly cast Sigourney Weaver) is not only pursued by a deadly alien, she is also betrayed (and attacked) by the corporation that she works for. The Female Gothic films of the '40's often featured women endangered in their homes and marriages. But
Alien moves that terror from the traditional home into the workplace. In a '70's post-Women's Lib twist, Ripley eschews traditional femininity, puts on her space pants and kicks ass like the best of the boys.
These gender themes are mirrored in the Oscar-winning design of H.R. Geiger. The cavernous alien ship is rounded and organic- like a space womb with entryways that look like things that Trump would like to grab. The alien itself is a walking phallic symbol with a second pair of teeth that shoot out of its mouth like a little eager weiner. It's impossible to avoid the sexual implications of Geiger's work. He spent a lifetime melding human and mechanical forms and with
Alien found a vehicle to explore that cringe-worthy imagery.
The complexity and the devotion to style and the look of the film elevates what could have just been another space monster flick into an unforgettable classic. Scott will return again to the
Alien mythology next August with
Alien: Covenant. Don't ask me if I think it will be better than
Alien. It won't be.
The Shining (1980)
The Shining gives me nightmares every time I see it. All someone has to say is "Come and play with us, Danny," and I am guaranteed a toss-and-turn evening... and not in the good way. But amazingly enough the author of the book that the film is based on, horror maestro Stephen King, doesn't like it. Whut???!!!
King once said that he had a problem with Stanley Kubrick's casting of Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance, the father of a small family who decides to take a job as caretaker of a snowed-in hotel during the long, cold winter. King felt that Nicholson naturally gave off a crazy vibe, so that when he stopped being a "dull boy" it felt less like he'd been possessed by the spirits of the Overlook Hotel, and more that he just had a screw loose from the beginning. Point well-made, Mr. King.
But after reading the book and rolling my eyes at the animal-shaped topiary that came alive and went after little Danny, I decided that Kubrick's idea is scarier. While the supernatural aspects of the Overlook and its grim past haunt the picture- to me, the descent into madness of an outwardly normal father (even if he is a writer) is more terrifying than a story where "the ghosts made me do it."
For Kubrick the space itself- its isolation, its emptiness, its never-ending hallways and mazes force Jack to look at himself- and the regret and anger he sees drives him insane. Of course Jack is a little off at the beginning- he agreed to take this crazy job in an empty hotel. It's the new level of crazy that his wife and child see in the wild eyes of the man that they thought they knew that terrifies. Now
that's scary. That and those fucking twins.
Return of the Living Dead (1985)
Okay, this movie is less scary and more funny. Dan O'Bannon's (who coincidentally wrote
Alien) take on George Romero's classic cult zombie flick
Night of the Living Dead (1968) does not take itself very seriously. Even the poster proclaims, "They're back from the grave and ready to party!" When Frank (
Pathmark pitchman James Karen) and Freddy (Thom Matthews) start putzing around with the old army canisters in the basement, they accidentally unleash a toxic gas that brings the dead back to life. Soon the graveyard next door is full of brain-hungry zombies who chase a group of young people from location to location hoping to get some cranial action all to a punk soundtrack.
Where Romero's film had underlying themes of race and social upheaval,
Return just wants to have a gory good time with ridiculous characters and throwaway lines like, "Like this job?" The special effects by father-son team Kevin and Robert McCarthy are actually very good- with one slimy zombie in particular providing plenty of ick. If you are pissed at this season's premiere of
The Walking Dead, try watching
Return for some undead with a sense of humor.
The Others (2001)
Nothing is as creepy as a good ol' Gothic ghost story, and this one is a doozy! Grace (Nicole Kidman looking ethereal) and her two children live in a remote English country house at the end of WWII. Grace has her hands full with a husband missing in the war and two children who have a rare disease that makes them photosensitive. The sprawling home with mazelike hallways and rooms is made even more eerie with shades and drapes constantly drawn so the kiddies won't be exposed to pesky sunlight.
After the arrival of some elderly servants to help out (including the Irish spitfire, Fionnula Flanagan), Grace begins to hear and see other people in the house and fears that something- or someone is threatening her family. In the tradition of the Gothic female film, the heroine doubts her own sanity- struggling with whether or not what she is experiencing is real.
Director Alejandro Amenabar is a master of mood in this film, and the encroaching dread is almost a physical sensation.
The Others doesn't need zombies, axe-murderers, or giant ants to make you jump out of your seat. It makes the hair on your neck stand-up with a simple oil lamp and a closed door.
So curl up with one of these fright flicks... if you dare...
