It's Horror Movie Time, Kiddies!
 

A couple of weeks before Halloween, I dust off the horror movies I have on DVD.

Hee hee hee.

Tonight it's Tremors. It's a fun flick. Lots of jump scenes.
AND it has Reba McIntire and Miss Beadle from Little House on the Prairie... that's truly scary!

:D

Name your favs...

:evil:

DEAD ALIVE!

I cleaned my desk tonight. That was horror.

The movie in your avatar, GC, is pretty hard to beat!

Some of my favorite spookfests:

Black Sunday (il maschera del demonio) and any number of other films from Italian master Mario Bava. (Especially; Black Sabbath, Kill Baby Kill, Shock, Twitch of the Death Nerve - all beautiful to look at, though style sometimes trumps sense.)

Flesh For Frankenstein - AKA Andy Warhol's Frankenstein - Okay, it's a campy, ridiculous gorefest, but I keep coming back to it again and again. (I even got to show it in 3D at a little theater in Santa Fe many years ago.) This is the most curious sort of comedy, delivered with a straight face, via a dizzying array of dialects. ("To know death, Otto, you must f**k life in the gall bladder.") The onscreen nudity, gore and sicko absurdia is accompanied by one of the most achingly beautiful musical scores ever, courtesy of never-heard-from since composer Claudio Gizzi. A must double feature with its companion film Blood For Dracula. (Same cast, crew and composer.)

The Wicker Man - Not the 2006 version (please!), but the original. It's a musical (sort of), a mystery (though not an especially tricky one) and a grand march to a pretty much inevitable conclusion, but I relish every second of it. I can't think of any other movie that makes paganism look so interesting, alluring even, though these amiable folk end up being less than trustworthy.

The Henry Farrell Horror Hag Trilogy - Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?, Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte, What's The Matter With Helen? - The same author lies behind these three titles, which gave Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Olivia De Haviland and other aging stars a chance to chew the scenery with gusto in a series of clever, chilling melodramas. Of these, my nostalgia favorite is "Helen," with Debbie Reynolds and Shelley Winters, an overlooked gem - it threw me into terrified conniptions at age 6, now it's just a fun hoot, though the ending still gives me chills.

The Shining - Kubrick's hypnotic excursion into madness is one I can't take my eyes off of. (I know plenty of folks who can't stand it, though.)

Audition - Takeshi Miike's notorious piece of artful cruelty held me captive, and carried a suprising emotional weight. No mere torture/atrocity show, though it is strong stuff. (By the way, I have given the Hostel/Saw torture porn genre several chances, and I'm just not buying it - I'm not outraged by it or anything, just bored and unimpressed.)

Dance of the Vampires AKA Fearless Vampire Killers - Roman Polanski's imperfect but delightful vampire comedy is gorgeous to look at, fitfully hilarious, and memorably creepy around the edges.

I gotta give The Haunting (Robert Wise version) my most sterling recommendation. While I'm at it - The Innocents (based on Henry James' Turn of the Screw) with Deborah Kerr is similarly worthwhile.

Those are the titles that come to mind at the moment, but I have too many faves in this genre to ever hope for a complete list. These are the ones I'm likely to give a watch over the next couple weeks.

You mean Night of the Lepus? I wish! It is available on DVD, and I'm sorely tempted.

The Dolls is one of them
The Changeling with George C. Scott is another awesome film.

Flippyshark said
I'm totally for both of those, as well.

In addition, two Val Lewton classics, Cat People and The Body Snatcher (Boris Karloff is incredibly creepy in this film and the final few minutes are hair raising)

The original Halloween was my night-of tradition for several years.

My other creepy fave? Sweeney Todd. (I'm like a broken record!)

We always like to watch Nightmare Before Christmas as our Halloween movie.

Not to mention that you gt to see Britt Ekland's boobies!