The Deliciousness Of A Good, Scary Movie

“No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.”

             —Edmund Burke (1729-1797)

By Kim J. Harmon

Family movie nights can be a wonderful tradition, whether the DVD in question is one of the classics like Citizen Kane (1941) or Casablanca (1942) or some of the pabulum being released by Hollywood these days like Cheaper by the Dozen (2003) or Are We Done Yet? (2007).

This time of year, October, when the leaves change color and fall from the trees and thoughts turn to Halloween and all sorts of ghosts, ghouls and goblins, it could be difficult to find a decent scary movie that everyone in the family can sit down and enjoy.

If it isn’t one of those insipid Goosebumps movies that are more parody than anything else, it is one director after another trying to push the envelope and creating movies with extreme violence and excessive carnage – i.e., Hostel (2005), directed by Eli Roth.

Too many directors, though, are forgetting about the most basic element of a horror movie: the delicious fear.

But there are still some horror movies that are basically family-friendly or, at least, not extreme enough to warrant a lot of concern.

Such as Eight Legged Freaks (2002), about an infestation of mutating spiders in an isolated desert town. A little too slick, maybe, but there are some funny lines and some icky moments (there is lots of glop in this movie, but all of it coming from the spiders). There is one scene of some questionable teenage behavior, but it is brief.

Now, modern horror was defined in John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978), which introduced the world to the legendary maniac Michael Meyers. This is an exceedingly scary movie (aided by the simple, but great, score created by Carpenter) with a frightening finish. There is quite a lot of mayhem, but it’s shrouded in shadows or largely hidden from our eyes.

This series, though, gets worse as it moves along. Stick with the first one and leave it at that.

Just as terrifying are the first two movies in one of the great canons of sci-fi/horror: Alien (1979) and Aliens (1986). The first is exceptionally scary and except for the one infamous “chestbursting” scene (kind of mild now, considering the standards set today) all the gruesomeness is generally done in the dark. The second is a little more gruesome, but Aliens is a great adventure movie (though certainly not for younger kids as there is some coarse language).

As scary as Alien was back in 1979, that was how scary Jaws was when it first hit theaters four years earlier. A man-eating great white shark begins attacking swimmers off the coast of Amity and thus begins one of the great adventures of all time. It was so shocking, a lot of people — go on, ask anyone in their mid 40s — was suddenly afraid to go in the ocean above their waist. Sure, it may be a little slow moving in 2007, but this is a terrific scary movie.

Another classic, which is getting a brief theater release this month, is Poltergeist (1982). It is about a family that discovers their house (for reasons which won’t be revealed here because it is the root of a great finish) has become a conduit for ghosts from the other side – “They’re heeeere!” It is one of those big budget, glossy horror movies that actually satisfies.

For other spooky haunted house chills, there is The Shining (1980) or 1408 (2007), both Stephen King projects. The first is about The Overlook Hotel in Colorado, where spirits run rampant and possess a hapless writer, turning him into a homicidal maniac. The second is about the most haunted hotel room in America, where a hapless ghost hunter discovers it is even worse than he imagined.

In the dark land of the traditional monsters, there are scads and scads of vampire movies these days – like 30 Days Of Night (2007), being released this month – but one of the few that has stood out was Fright Night (1985), about a teenager who suspects his next door neighbor is a vampire. It is sharp, scary and done well (the same can’t be said for the sequel). Be advised that there are a couple of gruesome moments and there is a brief moment of nudity.

The Classics, In Black And White

Now, listen, the younger generation these days almost always cringes with horror at the idea of watching a horror movie in black and white, but there is nothing wrong with exposing teenagers – and even younger kids – to the classics.

Like Frankenstein (1931), starring Boris Karloff and directed by James Whale. It is a dark, brooding, creepy horror movie with one of the most famous monsters of all time and certainly one of the most famous lines in movie history – “Look! It’s moving. It’s alive. It’s alive. It’s alive, it’s moving, it’s alive, it’s alive, it’s alive, it’s alive, IT’S ALIVE!”

People in their 40s – the ones who loved horror movies as kids – can still see their glow-in-the-dark Aurora monster models, right?

The follow up, of course, is Bride of Frankenstein (1935), starring Boris Karloff and Elsa Lanchester and once again directed by James Whale. Some feel it is a better movie, albeit odd in some parts, with a monstrously funny (or sad, depending on your point of view) finish.

But if the rest of your clan would appreciate more in-your-face thrills and chills, there is always Creature From The Black Lagoon (1954), directed by Jack Arnold. Besides having another of the famous movie monsters, this also has the perfect horror movie cliché – a hideous claw reaching out from the water with pulse-pounding musical percussion. Scary!

Spookier, though, would be The House On Haunted Hill (1959), starring Vincent Price (the master of horror) and directed by William Castle. A group of people are trapped in an isolated mansion supposedly haunted by the ghosts of those who have died within the walls (if you think that’s a cliché, it’s because it is, now, but this is the movie that started it!). There is a little bit of blood (dripping on a character’s hands), but in B&W who cares?

Castle also directed a couple of other great horror movies that even younger kids would like – I Saw What You Did And I Know Who You Are (1965), which shows what can happen to a couple of young kids who make a prank phone call to the wrong house, and Thirteen Ghosts (1960), about a family that inherits a house once owned by a reclusive occultist and which now is inhabited by ghosts. Like in 1960, the DVD comes with a 3-D “ghost viewer” which allows people to see the ghosts during selected parts of the movie.

It wouldn’t hurt, either, to sit down and watch another classic, The Innocents (1961), a creepy gothic tale about a governess in a secluded house who starts wondering if her two charges have become possessed by evil ghosts. It is a little slow moving for some people, but it is definitely chilling.

The same can be said, oddly enough, about Alfred Hitchcock’s all time classic, Psycho (1960). When it first came out nearly 50 years ago, the subject matter was shocking and scandalous. While we have become much more jaded in the intervening years, it is still a chilling look at a deranged killer in a lonely motel.

If that’s still a little too much, try Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963), a wonderfully scary movie about birds up the coast of California inexplicably turning to violence.

Equally creepy are two great sci-fi/horror movies of the 1950s – The Thing From Another World (1951), produced (and some say directed) by Howard Hawks, the great war/western movie director, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1958), directed by Don Siegel. The Thing is about a remote arctic outpost battling a strange creature from another planet possibly bent on conquering the Earth. The same applies to Invasion, but the invaders are seed pods which can transform, and replace, someone who falls asleep nearby.

Invasion was the popular theme of many 1950s and ‘60s sci-fi/horror movies and one of the best was The Blob (1958), the movie that made Steve McQueen a household name. It’s about a meteor that crashes in the woods and releases a jellylike substance that grows bigger and bigger as it consumes people in a small town. It’s a color picture, which might get younger kids interested in it, and it’s pretty creepy.

There is a better monster, though, in 20 Million Miles To Earth (1957), directed by Nathan Juran. It is about the Ymir, a dinosaur-like creature from Venus, which steadily gets bigger and bigger in the atmosphere of Earth. There are some great stop-motion scenes (created by the great Ray Harryhausen), too, where the creature bursts through a bridge and fights an elephant. (Funny stuff – when Colonel Robert Calder visits his love interest, Marissa Leonardo, at the university where the captured monster is being studied, she said, “You caught me unprepared. I’ve been cooking over a hot creature all day”).

October is a great time to sit and watch a horror movie with the family. Be careful what you choose … and have fun!

“Hold on, man. We don’t go anywhere with ‘scary’, ‘spooky’, ‘haunted’ or ‘forbidden’ in the title.”

—Shaggy in Scooby Doo (2002)