Film is Pwn

It’s the eve of Halloween, or “All Hallow’s Eve” if I wanted to be pretentious (and as a writer of a blog, I must be a little pretentious), a fact that’s pretty difficult to escape.  My officemates have filled cubicleworld with spooky decorations and there is a costume contest on Friday (I’m dressing as a human!); the multiplexes are overflowing with the latest batch of horror flicks that I’ll never see (this means you, Saw VI!); and every channel is broadcasting some manner of scary movie or television show this weekend, from the SyFy Channel to the Weather Channel.

This isn’t exactly my favorite time of year, as my parents weren’t into Halloween and consequently neither was I.  Some might think this would rank as childhood trauma, but I never recall thinking that I was missing out on any great fun by dressing up as Batman and going up to strangers’ houses hoping they’d be thoroughly impressed by my Adam West-caliber physique enough to grant me a boon of miniature Snickers.  Heck, as a shy lad I detested going door to door to sell cookies for cash, so why should I be excited at the prospect of going door to door to offer nothing but my doughy cuteness in exchange for the very same goodies that could be obtained by nagging Mom while passing the candy aisle at the grocery store?  But I digress . . .

Other than trick or treating, the other big occasion is the aforementioned scary movies, and by and large the horror genre is the most tasteless, artless, detestible assortment of films this side of the Ernest franchise, rest in peace Jim Varney.  The “torture porn” genre (Saw, Hostel, etc.) in particular I find utterly disgusting based on principle, that principle being I find it offensive to consider the depiction of dismemberment of human beings an object of entertainment.  Of course, not all horror/scary movies falls in the perverse category of “torture porn,” and there are some that I genuinely enjoy, most falling into the PG-13 scary but not graphic category of “safe” scary movies where the monster might jump out of the closet but at least he won’t devour the heroine on camera.

Without further ado, here is the Top Ten Scary Movies I Like:

10. Signs (2002) has an ending that leaves a lot to be desired, but the build-up with Mel Gibson and brother Joaquin Phoenix on the farm, wondering what is lurking in the corn, is really great to watch on a Saturday night with the lights out.

9. Cry Wolf (2005) is a teen accessible, PG-13 slasher movie that I went into expecting to be at best stupid fun, but I was pleasantly surprised when it turned out to be relatively sophisticated and clever, relative to my extremely low expectations, of course.  The basic premise is: students at a high-end prep school start a false rumor via the miracle of e-mail of a serial killer on campus after a girl turns up murdered, and they are shocked when the traits of the fictional menace “the Wolf” continue to manifest and the very people who begin the hoax are the targets.  Elaborate hoax or has the real psychopath taken the e-mail as a helpful suggestion as to how to become even more psychopathic?  I wasn’t sure what the outcome would be and was intrigued to the end, which says a lot considering how doggone cynical I am.

8. Blade II (2002) is an action movie and a comic book movie, yes, but it’s also pretty doggone scary too.  I rented it when it was new on DVD and screened it late one night hoping for Wesley Snipes kicking vampires, and while there’s still that I was thoroughly unprepared for the surprisingly scary movie that director Guillermo del Toro had concocted.

7.Abominable (2006) first-time director Ryan Schifrin combines the suspense of Hitchcock’s Rear Window with a typical low-budget, Big Foot attacks people in a remote cabin story.  This debuted as a Sci-Fi Channel Saturday Night movie and I watched it expecting the usual, laugh-because-it’s-so-bad nonsense, and actually legitimately enjoyed the movie.  I don’t want to oversell the movie as it isn’t “great” by any means, there are a lot of cliches (four hot co-eds in the cabin next door!), and there is some low-budget gore, but it hit the spot for me and it held up to a second viewing later.  (It didn’t hurt that Ryan Schifrin is the son of legendary composer Lalo Schifrin, who composed one heck of a score for the film, that I went out and purchased shortly after seeing the movie.)

6. The Sixth Sense (1999) remains M. Night Shyamalan’s crowning achievement.  I caught this one in a packed theater when it first came out, which was the best place to catch it.  Laughter and fear are two of the most contagious emotions, which is why it’s best to see comedies and scary movies in groups — even the bad ones can be enhanced by the collective experience.  The Sixth Sense was a great one, creepy as all get out throughout and the awesome twist that all other Shyamalan movies have tried and failed to emulate.

5. Psycho (1960) was Alfred Hitchcock’s scariest movie, and even when you go in knowing full well the twist ending, it holds the suspense half-a-century later.  Hitchcock wanted to see what would happen if a great filmmaker would make a low-budget slasher movie that was all the rage at drive-thrus, and he created one of his most enduring classics.  This is well worth going out and seeing.

4. Jurassic Park (1993) was another fantastic theatrical experience, and it’s still entertaining to pop it into the DVD player every year or two to enjoy the cinematic roller-coaster ride.  Even though this is Steven Spielberg at his crowd pleasing best, I remain being 14 years old riding home from the theater thoroughly convinced that one day we would clone dinosaurs and then they would eat me.  To date, this has not happened, but I’m keeping my eye out for dinosaurs nonetheless.

3. The Silence of the Lambs (1991) is a terrific movie.  Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lechter Jodie Foster as Clarice are perfect in their roles, neither of those great actors turning in a finer performance, in my opinion.  The scenes with Ted Levine as the disturbing villain Buffalo Bill is kind of tough to watch for a weak stomached coward like me, otherwise this would rank among my all-time favorite films rather than just my all-time favorite scary films.

2. The Eclipse (2009), which I caught at this year’s Charlotte Film Festival, scared the living daylights out of me, if Timothy Dalton will pardon the expression.  Simultaneously eerie, charming, and spooky as anything you’ll ever see in theaters, without resorting to gore or obligatory false scares that so many movies do.  Although there is a ten year gap between the theatrical experiences, I definitely hold The Eclipse in higher regard than the Sixth Sense.

1. Jaws (1975) makes me think about sharks anytime I go near the ocean and yet I’m compelled to watch it anytime it’s on TV.  Curse you, Steven Spielberg!